Matt McArthur
11-27-2006, 11:09 AM
I visited Tuscany with my wife earlier this year. It was a late honeymoon, delayed two years while we saved and sorted out a busy period of our lives.
We stayed in a villa on the outskirts of Pistoia. Most days we cycled into the town and caught the train to Florence to visit the museums and galleries and attend cooking classes. We had enough time to take days off from being tourists and concentrate on feeding ourselves well and enjoy spring in the countryside.
At two in the morning, about two weeks into our stay, I awoke with a crushing pain in my chest. I am in my early thirties and fit, but my father's recent heart attack had spooked me badly, and I was frightened that I might not make it to sunrise. We had no phone and no car. I let my girl sleep and wrote her a letter while the pain let up a little.
After a few hours I knew I would at least be able to make it to breakfast and we would sort out a visit to the doctor after that. I managed to fall asleep.
In the morning the pain was gone and breakfast had never tasted so good. The ride to town in the morning light was fantastic (it helped that it was downhill most of the way to the station). The poppies were blooming. The sky was at its dazzling best. We caught our train, walked to the Arno, visited the gardens. It was wonderful and, while lying in the shade under an oak, looking at the city over the lawns and fountains, I wondered if I had died. I am not religious, but I think there is a chance your mind goes somewhere nice, even if it's just dragging out the last seconds into eternity. Spending time with my wife, cycling in Tuscany and visiting the galleries of Florence, eating our favourite foods and knowing just enough language to get by but not enough that we couldn't ignore, and be ignored by, most of the people around us was looking like a good way to spend eternity.
After lunch I knew that I wasn't in paradise, as the pain came back and laid me out on the grass. It felt like my sternum was in a vice.
When I could stand we made our way to the hospital. I was seen by a doctor and her students. They hooked me up to an ECG and I thought bad news was on its way. The doctor and I met in the middle of her English and my Italian. She told me I had eaten too many tomatoes and had bad indigestion. The pain would recur whenever I ate tomatoes or anything cold. While her students grinned and the phrase "straniero stupido" was bandied about, she prescribed some tablets and told me not to eat tomatoes or gelato for a week. So I wasn't dead or even particularly unwell, but a week of gelato deprivation was a shock to the system nonetheless.
So the upshot is, I now know where heaven is. It's in Tuscany with my beloved.
And I know that tomatoes are good but too many tomatoes are not too good.
I hope we can spend time there again. The rest of my life is too long to wait.
We stayed in a villa on the outskirts of Pistoia. Most days we cycled into the town and caught the train to Florence to visit the museums and galleries and attend cooking classes. We had enough time to take days off from being tourists and concentrate on feeding ourselves well and enjoy spring in the countryside.
At two in the morning, about two weeks into our stay, I awoke with a crushing pain in my chest. I am in my early thirties and fit, but my father's recent heart attack had spooked me badly, and I was frightened that I might not make it to sunrise. We had no phone and no car. I let my girl sleep and wrote her a letter while the pain let up a little.
After a few hours I knew I would at least be able to make it to breakfast and we would sort out a visit to the doctor after that. I managed to fall asleep.
In the morning the pain was gone and breakfast had never tasted so good. The ride to town in the morning light was fantastic (it helped that it was downhill most of the way to the station). The poppies were blooming. The sky was at its dazzling best. We caught our train, walked to the Arno, visited the gardens. It was wonderful and, while lying in the shade under an oak, looking at the city over the lawns and fountains, I wondered if I had died. I am not religious, but I think there is a chance your mind goes somewhere nice, even if it's just dragging out the last seconds into eternity. Spending time with my wife, cycling in Tuscany and visiting the galleries of Florence, eating our favourite foods and knowing just enough language to get by but not enough that we couldn't ignore, and be ignored by, most of the people around us was looking like a good way to spend eternity.
After lunch I knew that I wasn't in paradise, as the pain came back and laid me out on the grass. It felt like my sternum was in a vice.
When I could stand we made our way to the hospital. I was seen by a doctor and her students. They hooked me up to an ECG and I thought bad news was on its way. The doctor and I met in the middle of her English and my Italian. She told me I had eaten too many tomatoes and had bad indigestion. The pain would recur whenever I ate tomatoes or anything cold. While her students grinned and the phrase "straniero stupido" was bandied about, she prescribed some tablets and told me not to eat tomatoes or gelato for a week. So I wasn't dead or even particularly unwell, but a week of gelato deprivation was a shock to the system nonetheless.
So the upshot is, I now know where heaven is. It's in Tuscany with my beloved.
And I know that tomatoes are good but too many tomatoes are not too good.
I hope we can spend time there again. The rest of my life is too long to wait.