I've been preoccupied for a couple of days because, unexpectedly, I may have the option of staying here for a few more months. It would mean all sorts of logistical issues to work out, including perhaps giving up my apartment in Chicago, my home for seven years, a place I love and have made my own. And it would essentially mean that I couldn't be in a show until September, which feels like a very long time. But it could also mean I could take a full-head mask intensive with the founder of Familie Flöz. And it would mean more time in Italy. The expat experience is really important for artists (especially, when I think about it, the majority of artists I most admire); I think we tend to forget about it in today's America.
As if to persuade me, Arezzo had a chocolate festival today. There is no doubt in my mind: Italy produces the best hot chocolate in the world. (I feel fairly secure saying that, as the only other real pretenders to the throne are the Swiss, and what are they going to do, attack me? Even if they do, decades of neutrality will have left them unprepared to face a chocolate-fueled actor who's been training in German acrobatics.)
I tried a number of things, including a few varieties of hot chocolate, a coffee-cream croissant, a tiny bittersweet chocolate-peperoncino truffle with a little crunch to it, and an apparently famous Neapolitan tart that I thought was not as good as the croissant. And I saw many others, such as chocolate-hazelnut salami, giant mounds of truffle ganache covered in hazelnuts (by "giant" I mean at least as big around as a hubcap, and probably 10 inches tall), and chocolate liqueur sold with a little bag of shot glasses made from the same stuff as ice cream cones. Which struck me as a very good idea.
Also a good idea: the Nutella crepe. This is part of what makes Italy so good--they take one of the high points of French cuisine and say, Sure, not bad, but you know what we could do with this? Fill it with warm Nutella, fold it in quarters, and sell it on street corners. And it is brilliant.
Later, no closer to a decision, I went for a twilight run in the park (one of the things I will miss no matter when I leave; it's just off the path to the grocery store). The air came alive with bells, as it does here, and on my iPod Snow Patrol started playing "Chocolate": "This could be the very minute I'm aware I'm alive / All these places feel like home."
That's true. They do feel like home--Arezzo and Chicago alike.
Maybe I'll just wake up tomorrow and know.
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The Nutella crepe, I must say, has made its way to other European locales as well, namely London. If you ever get a chance to visit this time around, go to Camden Town Market and get one. I won't necessarily promise that it's particularly excellent, but the combo of such a crepe with what you will find in Camden Town is such a bizarre one, it's almost something out of a weird psychedelic dream.
I feel Snow Patrol gets kind of a bad rap sometimes. I happen to love the song "Chocolate." I, too, always find it popping up on shuffle when it's all too fitting. You may not wake up tomorrow and know, but at some point I think the realization will just be there. If not, I recommend the Eisenhower coin toss.
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