Hare lip service
While it’s a commonplace to say that the Mediterranean gait is slow, if you’ve spent all your time as a citizen of cities, living the pace may take some getting used to.
In cities, particularly northern ones, we too often equate slow and simple-minded, or even incompetent. We talk fast, think fast, eat fast. We need it now. We rush out of one door and into the next, our fingers fly across keypads and keyboards, technology continually egging us on, pushing us to go quickedy, quickedy, quicker… There’s never enough time in the day.
I’m learning to slow things down. In the South, too fast is careless; too fast is ill-mannered, uncouth. Too fast can’t appreciate the wine, savour slow rituals of sensual pleasure, or care less about a subtle shift in the landscape, new taste on the wind…
And even though, I confess, I still do at times, down here there’s no point in scowling while waiting in line at the boulangerie or the store and Ginette is holding up the proceedings, offering every last detail about her husband’s prostate troubles, grandson’s christening and, oh dear, oh my, did you hear about what happened to poor Marie-Claude…
You may be motoring down the street when the driver ahead of you spots his buddy in the oncoming vehicle. They’ll wave to each other then stop side by side. Stop in the middle of the road to shoot the breeze, heads sticking out of their car windows, bent arms resting relaxed on the rim. They’ll chat until they’re done, until they’ve nothing left to say, and you quickly learn that “hey, do you mind?” is an inappropriate reaction.
So you shift into neutral, pull the handbrake up, lean back and light a smoke. Idling. And as you’re idling, you will probably come to the conclusion that you’re not, in fact, losing any time at all. You’re just bringing life back down to a human pace.
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