Hi friend, welcome back.

If you're new here — I'm May, and this is The Sprezza Diary, a bi-weekly letter about books, slow living, wine & food, and the quiet questions that come up when you're trying to figure out what comes next. Glad you're here.

I've always been a go-getter, and for many years, I worked hard to build a decent life for myself. When I was in school, I studied every day. I was that person who would spend their Sundays at the library. Once I started my career as a professional, I often stayed late at work, trying to figure out how to meet our plant targets. I didn’t really pause to think about myself and what I valued; I already looked good on paper. So it comes as no surprise that during this break, I’m confronted with actually pausing and thinking about my reality. Having time to do some introspection is a scary thing, but it’s also hard because you’re trying to put your internal thoughts into words. So far, my self-reflection has put me in a place where I am trying to accept my time as it is. I’ve come to find out that idle time can be a combination of loneliness and occasionally discovering pockets of joy.

I've also realized that I tend to think a lot in the future tense. I’ve always planned for a future and picture myself living in that time ahead. When I'm reading a book I've been wanting to read, I find myself already thinking about what I'm going to read next. I’ve always planned my days and weeks so the challenge is to make it so I want to live now and feel more present.

How have I made myself feel more present? In two ways: gardening and in working in short bursts of energy from projects when I feel like the time is right. With gardening I feel grounded because I can’t make flowers bloom or accelerate vegetable growth, so I just do what I can now. Project wise, the act of writing makes me feel in tune with the present; I can only write one word at a time. One of my projects included setting up a small lab in the garage with a whole calendar of tasks I wanted to experiment with. In the morning, I was planning to do X, and in the afternoon, Y. But the motivation didn’t come to me. Instead, I did whatever was interesting that day. I’ve come to find out that if I’m in the mood to experiment, I can literally lose myself mixing things all day. Other days, I would rather read all day or do none of the above. And so what? I don’t have deadlines, and I’m not following KPIs. So why am I trying to spend my free time like I’m still in corporate America? I guess deep down, I understood that I didn’t know how to use my free time. I didn’t know how to just be. So I tried to save myself from the mental workout of having to sit with my thoughts by having a schedule of daily activities. But I’m starting to accept. I’m starting to understand the rhythms of my mind and body, and in accepting, I make it more intentional and feel more present.

In the end, like Oliver Burkeman said: “Life is nothing but a succession of present moments, culminating in death, and that you’ll probably never get to a point where you feel you have things in perfect working order. And that therefore you had better stop postponing the “real meaning” of your existence into the future, and throw yourself into life now.” 🚬

Brutes by Dizz Tate

I just finished Brutes by Dizz Tate. I picked it up because the story takes place in Florida. The story follows a group of middle school girls navigating adolescence in what I'm fairly certain is Central Florida, based on a certain fertilizer company that makes an appearance. The story develops through the different points of views from the girls. There are quite a few characters introduced at once at the beginning of the story so it is somewhat confusing to follow. It is possible the author might have done this on purpose since events and experiences are harder to explain from a thirteen year old point of view as you still don’t have the right language or tools to explain those experiences. So you have to sit with that confusion until the very end of the story. Overall, I really liked the description of every day Florida and their surroundings as well as the strong and complicated bond the main characters shared despite what they had to go through.

Slow Productivity by Cal Newport

This one I just picked up, but already enjoying very much. It talks about how we have set markers for productivity when it comes to agriculture and manufacturing and yet we haven’t found the same for the knowledge sector. Thus, we have embraced busyness in the name of productivity. Newport’s advice is to do fewer things, work at a natural pace, and obsess over quality. My expectation of this book is to find out how that can be done.

Turns out, growing parsley can yield a great pasta and help butterflies thrive in my area. I garnished my pecorino pasta with the parsley I grew recently and apparently it also created a swallowtail butterfly nursery.

The pasta needed a wine and I found one worth writing about. The Imperio LXXIV Primitivo di Manduria — a red from Puglia in southern Italy — has genuinely been one of the best bottles I've opened recently. Primitivo is the Italian name for Zinfandel, and this one has all the richness you'd expect from that grape grown in southern Italian heat, without the heaviness that sometimes comes with it. Well balanced between dry and just a touch of sweetness, smooth without being soft, and bold enough to leave an impression without overpowering the food. It held up beautifully against the saltiness of the pecorino.

Until July 11th — and if someone in your life has too many interests and not enough people to talk about them with, send them here.

With range, always —
May