A Slow Start to January
the last slice of panettone and an invitation to slow down
Buon Anno and Happy 2025!
I was just paging through my calendario Italiano and how is it that we are at the end of the first full week of the new year already?? I hope you have had a smooth entry into the start of the year – may it be filled with goodness for all.
My start to the year hasn’t been ideal: my composer son who lives in Los Angeles has had to evacuate his place due to the wild fire emergency. He is safe now and that is all that matters. Needless to say, it has been a stressful week, and being far away from him is hard.
But, along with prayer and gratitude, I have my trusty old journal to keep me steady during these challenging days. Journaling is a huge part of my creative process and part of my self-care practices. It’s an everyday personal refuge.
If 2025 has caught you by surprise and you are looking for some calm and balance before fully embracing the new year I have some free Winter Journaling prompts available for you. Alongside the downloadable prompts I am also offering a free live journaling session this Monday January 13 at noon ET. I’ll walk us through some reflective writing for self-expression and centering. As a bonus for anyone who joins from this email I’ll stay on after the session to answer any of your Rome related questions.
In other news, I ate the last of the Christmas panettone this morning. I had thought of leaving some for La Befana to enjoy this past Monday, a holiday in Italy to mark Epiphany, but it’s been a wild week and the day came and went. I think she left it for me to discover last night as I tidied up my mother’s dining room.
I’ve spent the holidays with my parents in New England this year. It’s the first Christmas together in a decade. In our former lives as diplomats, my husband and I hadn’t been able to travel back for the holidays, our vacation days never matched up, and then there was the Pandemic which kept us bound to Rome.
This year I arrived to their home in time for Christmas with a suitcase packed with several beautiful boxes of panettone from across Italy (Tiri continues to be my favorite, but I am partial to anything from Basilicata because that’s where my family is originally from). I also brought coffee from my local torrefattore – more on that next time – all the chocolate and torrone, and of course pasta and farina 00 for making ravioli according to our family recipe.
We had a great time and gathered around a granite slab to roll, stuff and seal ravioli. Each egg cracked into a mound of golden flour reminded me of all the women in my father’s family who, across generations, fields and oceans, fiercely and generously kept the recipe alive for us to continue to savor today.
More soon, a presto,
Michelle
p.s.:
- for anyone who needs recentering and a moment of calm before truly moving into 2025 here’s the link to download the journal prompts and/or join my live journaling session this coming Monday. Feel free to share these links with anyone you think could benefit from slowing down for a bit. Grazie!
Rest your eyes and listen to the Letters from Rome podcast:
Outside the Walls: Living Between a Regular Roman Neighborhood and the Centro Storico
In this episode of Letters from Rome, I reflect on what it’s like to live just outside the Aurelian Walls of Rome, balancing the charm of a regular Roman neighborhood with the magnetic pull of the Centro Storico. I share personal stories from the pandemic lockdown, the unique joys of neighborhood life, and the eternal beauty of Rome’s historic heart. Wh…
Hope your son is okay-- such a horrible way to begin the year. I used to be in the music business (in NY) and so many good friends- musicians, DJs, producers, singers-- are suffering through this catastrophe. It's hard to grasp the scope of what's happening there.
Glad your son is safe. And thank you for saying this out loud - A Slow Start to January is what I usually have and is what I want and cherish because, except during the pandemic year, we always travel overseas for the holidays. And our trip back home a few days ago took an unexpected turn when our long flight home was canceled (mechanical issues with the plane), rebooked 24 hours later. So what was supposed to be almost 24-hour journey home became a 48-hour thing, which included us and many other passengers being out in sub zero, snowy Toronto weather without our winter coats and boots for a few minutes, queueing up for hours to get vouchers, to check in again for our new flight, etc. Crazy.
Now that I’m home in Singapore, I am grateful for my slow start to January. 😊 Wishing you the slow start you want and need.