Living like an Italian lion—in London

Itch is delighted to feature the second installment from our Italian abroad, Gianna della Valle, with ideas about how to live more like an Italian no matter where you are. She has made a study of how to bring elements of the Italian way of life into her adopted, more frenetic homeland.

I read that lions, most of the time, take it very easy. These prolonged periods of laziness are the foundation for big bursts of energy spent hunting prey (or mating)—in short getting in the swing of things only when it really matters. The rest of the time they enjoy the moment in the slow lane.

Italians aspire to live in the slow lane, punctuated by bursts of intense activity only when required, or when emotions demand.

Despite more than 20 years abroad, I am no exception. I like to start my day in London as I would in Italy. The other commuters rush to the fast train to get to work as quickly as possible. Not me. I figure I will be hunting all day in my office. Now it’s time to enjoy.

So I choose a nice path to walk to the station and catch a very slow and uncrowded train. Sometimes I stop at the local station cafe for a coffee. Other times I meet my grown-up daughter at the main station at the nicest breakfast place. We sit there and pretend to be in Sardinia at Capo d’Orso, having breakfast while listening to the sound of a harp on a terrace overlooking the Mediterranean under olive trees. We ponder the finer point of life while we sip our organic smoothies or eat our avocado on toast. We talk, we laugh, we people watch. We are the lions on the savanna. Gazelles run all the time: they have to. Lions, however, lounge majestically.

And then the clock reminds us that it is time to go to the office to hunt. I have never figured out, though, if in my office-savanna I am a lion or a gazelle. Most likely a gazelle, aspiring to be a lion.