Summer in Tuscany comes with long, warm days that surround the Villa Ambretta in a soft slumber.
From the early hours of the morning, the blinds open onto a strong sun that no cloud in the blue sky will be able to hide. In the shade, the terrace smells of coffee and dry, hot grass. Another hot summer day; soon, the morning birdsongs will be replaced by the repetitive chirping of the cicadas.
How should one keep busy? Someone left to lay down on an unmade bed. Someone else pushes their chair back under the sun shade. Someone else, seated in the cool living room, pensively lokos at the moving shadows created by the closed blinds.
They talk. Very little. Of the afternoon, and of the heat. Of everything they could do, but will not. Jump in the swimming pool. Go to the nearby beach. Continue reading a book. Start a game of playing cards. So many projects that will be pushed back, because it is so pleasant to do nothing. To talk about everything and nothing. Or to let the mind wander between light, unimportant thoughts.
In the 1950s, the French novelist Marguerite Duras beautifully described this atmosphere in her book, "The little horses of Tarquinia". In the heat of the summer, a group of friends, on holidays on the coast of Italy, talk about what they could do with their time, without ever managing to decide. Even their personal disagreements are beaten by the heat. Only one topic remains: will they have the energy to go see the "little horses of Tarquinia"?
Maybe that is how summer holidays are supposed to be. It is a luxury to not have to decide. To be able to live out the heat, and be carried by the slow, unavoidable passing of time. And when the evenings and their eagerly expected cool winds finally come around, we can sigh happily, pleased to have done nothing with the day. And everything is well.
The cicadas have gone quiet. The crickets have taken over. Tomorrow is another day.