Some Days You Just Need Pasta

Venice in May is everything you hope it will be. We were staying on Giudecca – the quiet island that sits just beneath the city, close enough to see Piazza San Marco shimmer across the water, far enough to breathe without a tourist’s elbow in your ribs.

My wife had plans. Stand-up paddleboarding, which is exactly the kind of thing Venice was made for. My eighteen-month-old daughter and I had different ideas entirely.

Our agenda for the afternoon was simple, non-negotiable, and perfect: spaghetti. Copious amounts of it. The kind of lunch that has no agenda beyond itself – no sights to tick off, no vaporetto to catch, just a small girl discovering that pasta is one of life’s great certainties and a father who already knew it.

We ate until we couldn’t. Then we ate a little more.

It remains one of the most enjoyable days of my life. Not because of anything remarkable that happened, but because of how completely nothing else mattered. Just good pasta, warm light, and an afternoon that asked nothing of us at all.

Some days that’s everything.

Paul Mercuri
Wake Up Here Founder

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