{"id":566,"date":"2016-04-14T18:37:38","date_gmt":"2016-04-14T18:37:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/davidzarko.us\/WP\/?p=566"},"modified":"2016-04-18T11:53:57","modified_gmt":"2016-04-18T11:53:57","slug":"piano-a-piano-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/davidzarko.us\/WP\/2016\/04\/14\/piano-a-piano-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Piano a Piano:"},"content":{"rendered":"

Piano a piano\u00a0is a useful phrase. Prosaically it translates as \u201cbit by bit, little by little, step by step.\u201d But literally it can be thought as \u201clevel by level\u201d or \u201cgently, gently.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

My lifelong habit is to rush, especially to rush into the untried and unfamiliar. Even worse, to rush through a process once entered so I can prove to myself that I will survive the new, accomplish that for which I have no experience, am able to finish a project more or less like an adult. I have the capacity to turn\u00a0everything<\/i>\u00a0into a project. Goals must be set, timelines established, deadlines put firmly into place. If an effort is not organized within an inch of its life, why do it at all?<\/p>\n

The irony is, of course, that the more I rush to organize, the less organized everything is. Organization, the word itself, would seem to rise from the idea of \u201chaving been made organic.\u201d Organisms don’t rush. They grow in their own time and of their own accord.\u00a0Piano a piano.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

So, I have a house to clean, paint, and furnish. I have a garden to clear, plant, and nourish. I have business to conclude, plays to write, a language to learn, walks to take, a culture to explore, and a body to keep healthy! Yikes!!<\/p>\n

Piano a piano.\u00a0<\/i>What marvelous choices. What deliciously savorable\u00a0experiences lie ahead.<\/p>\n

Today, Andrea accompanies me \u2013 with his car, which I drive \u2013 to the Mercatone, Orvieto’s version of a megastore located on a practically invisible alley in Scalo. The proprietor meets us at the door, having invited us back yesterday to speak with the furnishings expert today about a proper bedroom set for my new house. We exchange news and pleasantries. Andrea keeps conversation going when I am unable, which is most of the time. The proprietor explains how and why his front window display has shifted (they had to clean the floor, it’d been weeks) and hails a fellow just arrived (the furnishings expert.) I am introduced as the man looking for a bed and an armoire. We have an appointment.<\/p>\n

We all go upstairs to the expert’s desk. The expert, despite his lofty title, is relaxed, charming, funny. He wears bright blue-rimmed glasses. He checks catalogs, describes\u00a0my choices. \u00a0We discuss the stressed proportions of the bedroom I mean to populate with the items I seek. I ask for prices, he quotes them. \u00a0He breaks the news gently that the cost of a bed is just for the structure. The mattress and\u00a0rete<\/i>\u00a0are extra.<\/p>\n

He takes me out to the warehouse so I can see mattresses in person. We pull a couple from a vertical pile and throw them onto the floor for a comparison test. I fall onto the first. It’s a mattress. I don’t get the subtle shades of mattresses. It’s not uncomfortable, therefore just fine. I fall onto a second, fancier, and more expensive unit. I admit that I can’t really tell the difference. Everyone laughs.<\/p>\n

We return to the desk on the second floor and look at armoires in the expert’s catalog. We compare the real armoire in the display with the various drawings in the catalog. Nothing quite fits, but one almost does, so I settle on that. It’s all been pleasant, even fun, but it’s still shopping and I want this over with.<\/p>\n

While the expert is creating\u00a0his order form, I look over at the display of bed and armoire I’m about to purchase. The bed I like; elegant, simple lines, and a pleasant color. The armoire is okay, but boring. The end tables are worse. I imagine the armoire I’ve just ordered as looking more like the end tables than the armoire on display. I begin to feel queasy. It’s a lot of money, normal to be sure, but normal is enough to make me nervous.<\/p>\n

Piano a piano.<\/i>\u00a0\u201cYou know what? I’m going to take the bed now \u2013 mattress. underpinnings, and all \u2013 and stop there. Okay? I mean, it’s a month before you can deliver the armoire, and I leave in a month, may not be back for two or three past that. If I still need an armoire in August, I’ll wait a month for it then.\u201d Okay, he smiles, nods; no problem. And he means it. He’s not being nice nor is his mild and agreeable response a sales tactic. \u201cGood,\u201d he says, \u201cI’ll be here. There’s no rush.\u201d<\/p>\n

We visit an office on the ground floor where two gentlemen, one of them with bright red-rimmed glasses, collaborate in rendering\u00a0a sales slip from the expert’s order form. That done, one of them walks me out to the counter so I can pay. There, a tall young man \u2013 with a face of such strange but genuine beauty that he is difficult to look at \u2013 is learning the craft of accepting payment. The gentleman with the glasses steps him through the process. The young man’s Etruscan features shift and crinkle, smile and joke. For a moment, he reminds me of an old friend who died ten years ago.<\/p>\n

Transaction completed, the young man turns, grins and says \u201cThank you!\u201d He then shrugs and says in Italian, \u201cThat’s the only English I have, I hope it’s enough.\u201d Everyone laughs.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Piano a piano\u00a0is a useful phrase. Prosaically it translates as \u201cbit by bit, little by little, step by step.\u201d But literally it can be thought as \u201clevel by level\u201d or \u201cgently, gently.\u201d My lifelong habit is to rush, especially to rush into the untried and unfamiliar. Even worse, to rush through a process once entered … Continue reading Piano a Piano:<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":553,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/davidzarko.us\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/davidzarko.us\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/davidzarko.us\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/davidzarko.us\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/davidzarko.us\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=566"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/davidzarko.us\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":571,"href":"http:\/\/davidzarko.us\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566\/revisions\/571"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/davidzarko.us\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/davidzarko.us\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/davidzarko.us\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/davidzarko.us\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}