What Getting Lost in Italy Taught Me About Love

One day during my trip, Deb and I drove to Cortona, the town that Frances Mayes wrote about in Under the Tuscan Sun.

It was roughly a 30-minute drive from where we were staying in Montepulciano. We took dozens of narrow, winding roads to get there—the kinds of winding roads that can get someone like me completely turned around and driving in circles. Thankfully, however, we had Mabel, our trusty GPS. (We named her Mabel because she mispronounced all of the Italian towns to such a comically bad degree that we decided she needed a stereotypical American name).

With the exception of the time Mabel suggested I turn down a street that I deemed too narrow for the car, she got us to Cortona safely and easily.

While at Cortona we ate ourselves silly—as we did every single day we were in Italy. Then we got back in our car, and that’s when we realized that Mabel had died.

She was done. Finished. Spezzato. (Don’t you just love that word?)

Her battery was dead and it refused to recharge.

This was a problem. We did not have a single map in the car.

“I think we can backtrack,” I told Deb. “Between the two of us, we can figure this out, right?”

When we passed a field of sunflowers and I said, “I think I remember that field.”

Note: there are 80 million sunflower fields in Italy—and they all look exactly the same.

We went through a small town that had cute little flags hanging from various poles.

“See? This is the town with the flags!” I said. “Don’t you remember those flags?”

Note: lots of little towns have lots of little flags hanging all over the place in Italy.

In retrospect, I believe we might have made a wrong turn at the very first traffic circle. And then we might have made a wrong turn every single time we had a chance to make a turn since.

When we got so far into the Italian countryside that we could not see a single structure—not a medieval town in the distance, not a farmhouse, not a villa, not anything—we knew we were smarrito. (Another perfect word that completely sums up the situation, don’t you think?)

We spotted a withered old man on a tractor and pulled over.

I got out of the car and I waved him down.

In English, I told him our tale of woe. I explained that Mabel, our GPS, had broken and that we did not have a map. I asked him if he would help us get back to Montepulciano.

It was when he started talking that I realized we had a problem. I didn’t speak Italian, and he didn’t speak a lick of English.

Nonetheless, he seemed to have grasped the situation and, for the next 10 minutes, he tried to tell me how to get back to Montepulciano. This is what I believe he said:

Ladio badio sadio Montepulchiano ladio badio sadio Montepulciano ladio badio sadio Montepulciano ladio badio sadio Montepulchiano ladio badio sadio Montepulciano ladio badio sadio Montepulciano ladio badio sadio Montepulciano ladio badio sadio Montepulchiano ladio badio sadio Montepulciano ladio badio sadio Montepulciano ladio badio sadio Montepulciano ladio badio sadio Montepulciano.

The only words I could understand during the entire time he was talking were “Montepulciano” and “5 kilometers.”

When he stopped talking, I said, “Grazie.” He laughed in a creepy, sick way. It was a bit unsettling.

I got back into the car.

“What did he tell you?” Deb asked.

“We go that way for 5 kilometers. Then I have no idea,” I said.

As we drove, I did my best to make Deb laugh by making up what I thought the Italian farmer had really said.

He said that we were fuckt-ah and he said that we were stupid-ah Americanos for drivin-ah in Italio without a mappio and without learning the languagio…

…No wait, I think what he really told me is that he wanted for us bella Americanos to come back to his farm-ah where he will do-io things to our bodios that we will never forget-ah for the rest of our lives-ah and will cause us to trade in-io our Americano husbands-ah for Italianos who are much better lovers-ahs…

In about 5 kilometers, we made yet another wrong turn, but we were not stressed out about it in the least.

We knew we needed to go south. The car did not have a compass, so we spent some time contemplating  the position of the sun and what that meant in terms of going north, south, east and west.

We never did quite figure that out.

We kept coming to little intersections that had little signs that pointed to various Italian towns that we had never heard of. Whenever this happened, we took turns deciding which town we should drive toward.

At one point Deb said, “Why don’t you call Mark and ask him for help?”

She wasn’t kidding. At. All.

And the truth of the matter is this: my husband probably could have helped us. He has an excellent sense of direction. Even from the US, he could have probably navigated us back to Montepulciano.

“If it starts to get dark outside, I’ll call him,” I promised. “Until then, though, let’s just pretend that we are doing this on purpose. Look, aren’t those sunflowers beautiful? We’d never have come across this field of sunflowers if we were not driving around aimlessly, right? What a find!”

About an hour later we came to Arezzo. We stopped at a filling station and we asked for a map. I believe the women behind the counter told us that she doesn’t sell maps to stupid Americans who can’t even figure out how to use an Italian gas pump, but I can’t say for sure.

We drove around Arezzo for a while, and then we came to yet another filling station.

This one happened to have hottest Italian man I’ve ever laid eyes on behind the counter. Really, this is no exaggeration.

By now I knew that finding an English speaking Italian out where we were in the middle of Italian nowhere would be like finding an Italian speaking American in Kentucky. Just. Not. Very. Likely.

So I pantomimed pumping gas and then I lifted my shoulders and turned my palms up to show that we couldn’t figure out how to use the pumps.

He smiled and said “Si!” and motioned for me to follow him outside.

He helped us get the pump started. Then I said, “Mappio?” and did the shoulders thing again. Yes, I know you can’t just add an “io” on the end of any English word and, presto, turn it into an Italian word.

Still, my hot Italian gas station attendant seemed to posses the ability to read my mind.

He walked me to a bunch of maps and proceeded to explain for 5 or 10 minutes the differences among all of them.

I have no idea what he said during that 5 or 10 minutes, but I listened with bated breath.

I finally bought one, opened it, and did the shoulders thing again while I said, “Montepulciano?”

Let me tell you: this man was sent to us from God. He not only found Montelpulciano on the map for me, but he also found Arezzo. He circled both, and then he said, “1 hour-ah.”

And that’s when I realized that Deb and I had driven north the entire time we’d been lost—instead of South, which is where we had wanted to go.

We eventually got back to the villa—about 3 hours later than we’d planned. We missed the cooking class we were supposed to take that day.

But we weren’t sad about that at all.

The entire time we were lost, we had an absolutely wonderful time—and there is not one drop of sarcasm in that sentence.

We had a great time because we never stressed about being lost. Rather, we saw it as a beautiful adventure—as a rare experience.

Had Mabel not gone spezzato, I would never had met the withered old farmer and I would never have been able to come up with the funny stories about what I imagined he had really said. Had Mabel not gone spezzato, we would never had thought to go see Arezzo, which, at one point in history, was one of the 12 most important Etruscan cities. Had Mabel not gone spezzato, I would have never basked in the presence of the hot Italian gas station attendant.

And had Mabel not gone spezzato, I would have never had this revelation about the nature of love and marriage.

Sometimes, in marriage, we feel like we are driving aimlessly in a foreign country. Sometimes everything that we’ve come to count on to help us find our way is broken. Sometimes we have to ask for help, and sometimes we don’t understand the advice that people give us.

Sometimes we feel lost.

But what if, whenever we felt lost, we refused to panic? What if, when we were lost, we saw it as a necessary part of the journey?

What if we savored it? What if we found a way to make the most of it?

To laugh about it?

To learn from it?

What if we expected it?

What if, instead of dreading being lost, we just embraced it?

What if we had faith – as I did in the car that day – that we would eventually find our way home?

How would that change the experience of marriage?

I think it would change it greatly, don’t you think?

Tagged as: italy