Tattooed Grandmother

To me, Italy is “the old country.” My great-grandparents emigrated from Italy to the United States in the early 1920s. But no matter your heritage, there is no denying that Italy is an old, old country. It’s ancient. And though its soil may not be any older than that found across the ocean, it has both carried empires and consumed them.

Matter is the most ambiguous and resilient thing out there. It cannot be created nor destroyed. Everything that ever was still is in one form or another, and the dust, the soil we live on, is uniquely privileged to taste it all. The weather, and the people, and the legends, and the wars. If the spice of life was more than a metaphor, if it was something to be held, I think it’d have to be the dirt we walk upon. It’s made of life. And when you think of dust that way, not as oblivion, but as everything that ever was and ever will be, then Italian soil is exceptionally flavorful.