� 2001-2006 by Shiloh
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I'll go by chronological order. Last night Mom and I watched Under the Tuscan Sun. I have wanted to see this ever I first saw the previews on tv. Plus I love Italy's bucolic scenery and ancient history--I'm into history and mytholgy: gee, what a shocker there, huh? *grins* What with my many entries of fairy tales and folklore.
The beauty of Italy is only one reason why I've been dying to see the movie. The other, of course, was the glimpse of a second chance at love. I thought it would be the typical, yet warm fuzzy chick flick this day and age seems to manufacture every few months. But it was nothing like I'd set myself up for, or what Mom had been expecting. Yes, it was a chick flick in that it was a romance and about the life of woman looking for new love. But it was sssoooo much more than that. It was about all sorts of relationships, and of course, second chances. I came away feeling better about myself, having been reminded that if I live life to the fullest and not worry about finding love, it'll come to me in time.
There were several times early in the movie where I questioned the soundness of my judgment in renting the movie, but as it progressed, the more I liked it. And by the end I loved it overall and was glad I saw it. I really admired Frances, the main character. She was a literary critic who found out her husband was having an affair with some young thing. Naturally, a divorce followed and the ensuing pain. She became a shell of herself and finally her friend convinced her to go on a Tuscan retreat. There, she bought a villa, Bramasole, and began to pick up the pieces of her life. She still carried her pain around, but she slowly began living again as she wove her own thread into the rich Italian tapestry that was the village near her villa. She carved herself a niche there and attracted a hodgepodge of misfits who became her family. She became the glue that held them together. Even her best friend from America came over when she needed Frances the most. She too became part of the tapestry and home Frances had longed for and made.
Living life to the fullest and letting the good things come in their own time was only one lesson this movie taught. A second was never letting go of your wonder, of your child-like innocence. "That is the most important thing," Frances' eccentric friend Catherine once told her. And she's right. Life without child-like innocence and wonder is a life lived as an automaton or as a robot. As her friend Patti said, you may be breathing, eating and walking around, but you're only a shell of a person and not really living at all.
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