THIS IS US
On Slowness
Slowness — so rare, these days — can be an offering of love
Many years ago I lived in Italy. A few blocks from my apartment, there was a tunnel closed to everything but foot traffic. The tunnel was short — ten yards from one end to another, and connected a quiet street with a cobblestoned piazza. Little local stores lined the inside of the tunnel. A grocer with expensive water, a neighborhood restaurant, a place that sold stationary. There was also a sandwich shop. It was tiny, only big enough to hold about four people, who could crowd toward the glass-covered counter and see what there was to eat.
A handsome middle-aged man with big brown eyes and a big apron-wrapped belly owned the store and made all the sandwiches. He took one order at a time, which he wrote on a little pad of white paper with a pencil he kept behind his ear. Everything you said, he repeated back to you immediately after. Then he turned his back to the customers and faced his workspace, pulled a baguette from the barrel of bread, sliced and hollowed it, and began filling it with meat, cheese, and whatever else you asked for. He put the sandwich onto a press made of two hot plates that came together, warming the bread and melting the cheese, then turned to take another order. When the new sandwich was ready to go into the press, the first was…
