“Forget Emily in Paris, let’s get Kimia in Italy!”

notes from my first-ever writing residency

Jun 08, 2023

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Hi lovelies,

I’m writing to you from the scenic hills of the Tuscan countryside, where I’m currently working inside the stone walls of an artist’s studio built into a crumbling 10th-century abode in the quaint provincial town of Greve in Chianti. There have been a lot of firsts so far throughout my travels, and here is another: My first time in Italy! Or, as my dear friend Elaine put it, “Forget Emily in Paris—let’s get a show about Kimia in Italy!”

Well, there’s no television series (yet…), but there is my first-ever writing residency. I’m here to work on my novel, which I have promised myself I’d start prioritizing again after a little over a month away while I ran around Japan and then SE Asia like an absolute loon. I have been waking early. Partially it’s jet lag, I’m sure, though there’s only a three-hour difference between thunderstruck and humid Bangkok and the wild undulating grasp of Tuscany.

The change of pace is jarring, but in a prettily arresting way; and it makes me realize that I have whiplash. Still. Again. I don’t write much for a few days, unable to focus or sit down, distracted and drawn in by the beauty of this place.

Several days in, though, it all comes in a rush, with the stream of chipper birdsong I can hear just outside my window around 5am. I share a spacious two-bedroom apartment with another woman artist, a poet and teacher also from northern California, who resides in Sonoma. She tells me Sonoma is sister cities with Greve, points out the wild rosemary and invasive scotch broom, which we also have in California, growing in bright yellow patches along the sides of the road as we walk, explore, and trespass onto private property—not a lot, just a little bit—to catch a glimpse of a stunning swimming pool melding into the unruly mass of countryside. Not a whole lot has been done to manicure or smooth out the land surrounding it, which I find appropriate, satisfyingly European.

There are about seven artists total in residence when I arrive, the majority of us women. I feel safe and seen among them, immediately comfortable, able to laugh as loudly as comes naturally. Able to joke that we’re representing the West Coast pretty damn well out here—a few of us from Seattle and Portland, sweeping down the coastline to Sonoma and ending with me, the pieces of my heart still in San Francisco and San Jose.

I am happy. Simply so—but then, is happiness, true and unadulterated, ever complicated? I carry a flute of it in my chest, and it’s not hard to share its clean piping whistle; so far I have spent my days in wonderful company, exploring, eating gorgeous Italian meals, and drinking cheap and delicious wine, a full pour of confident house red or a crisp white at each restaurant for eight euros, which never fails to make me shiver with delight. I joke that Chianti classico is a sturdy wine, dependable. You can put your faith in the wine here, we reassure ourselves.

Anja, who is a chic and svelte Aquarius painter from Switzerland, shares that she feels brighter in Europe, more alive. She didn’t necessarily notice in Canada, where she lives with her husband, but after returning, first to her home in Switzerland and then to the residency here in Italy, it’s impossible not to.

I know precisely what she means: People live into themselves, the fabric of their day-to-day, differently. More sensually, yes. There’s less intensity of stress, of “get’erdone”ness, less focus on work and more on the breadth of living itself. I am firmly ensconced in my life, here, not on the sidelines, wanting to sink my teeth into the meat of it.

I’ve decided to make this a standalone missive, since I’m leaning into the pace of the Tuscan lifestyle with a special, gentle aggressiveness all my own. Dare I say I’m channeling the illustrious dolce far niente, or the Italian art of pleasant idleness, the “sweetness of doing nothing”?1 There is no rush. Everything is happening at exactly the pace and the timing that it should be.

Hoping you can channel some of your own dolce far niente too, seeping from inbox into your day, the coming weekend, and beyond. I’ll be back with another edition of nice things v soon.

Big hugs from Tuscany!

xx Kimia