The Kindness Cure

When la vita is more brutta than dolce, generosity goes a long way

She’s older and grayer now, but Aria still knows some days are best spent on the couch. Photo mine.

Cari amici,

I wasn’t planning to write today, being bogged down by burdens and worries. Writing to you, though, is far more fun than the extremely tedious and (for me) difficult task I’m doing in the ongoing search for a home for my second novel. Besides, it’s a cold, gray, rainy day, and my tenacious tendinitis is going nowhere, and my dog’s chronic disease has taken a challenging turn (the latter two creating concerns about the trip to England I’m supposed to take next month, which I’ve been hoping to do for, oh, only the last 50 years or so), and so I thought I’d procrastinate by telling you about two things that happened yesterday that cheered me up.

I’ve written before about the unexpected kindnesses I encountered when I first moved to Italy, and yesterday I got to add two more to my list.

Last week I spent an hour with my dog’s vet, discussing the results of some blood tests and how we were going to deal with the problems they revealed. I paid nothing for the visit; my vet never charges to discuss test results. After a few days of absorbing the info, I came up with a list of follow-up questions, and so I made another appointment. Given that this was a second visit, another half hour to tack onto the hour my vet had already spent with me, I fully expected to pay for an office visit. Instead, he waved me off with a smile. “We could have talked on the phone,” he said, “but it’s better in person, isn’t it?” I left feeling heard, reassured, and grateful for his generosity.

The second kindness was smaller, a tandem effort. I was in the checkout line at the grocery and had a full cart, so I told the woman behind me, who had only a few items, to go first. When my turn came, the checkout clerk asked me if I had a store membership card (for discounts) and I said no, at which point the woman next in line offered to let me use hers if the clerk agreed. She did, and in a chain reaction of small kindnesses, I paid a little less for my groceries that day.

In everyday exchanges, it’s clear that people tend to think life is always easy here in La Dolce Vita Land. It’s not. Italy is crowded and noisy and opinionated, sometimes demanding survival-mode tactics. Living here can be trying and delightful, inconvenient and rewarding, confounding and pleasantly surprising. It can also, due to those small (or large) heartwarming moments of goodness lurking around every corner, bring you to grateful tears.

Alla prossima,

Cheryl

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No books or poems this time; instead, I’m giving you some homework: do someone a kindness today.