Don't watch the watch

By Andrew Smith

As a television journalist, I have a love/hate relationship with my watch.  I don’t want to be beholden to the tiny digital display which I now need glasses to see, but to be successful in my job it is essential.  As I have gotten to know the Italian people in Cagli, I understand more and more the term “Italian time” and just why they don’t care nearly as much as we do about the tick tock of the miniature clock.

     Italian time means “when we get around to it.”  The clock doesn’t justify an activity one way or the other.  As an American, I think noon means noon, but that just isn’t the way is it in Italy.  It has taken a week, but slowly I have gotten less in the habit of checking my watch, and more just in checking how I feel.  Case in point: Just the other night I was invited to a birthday surprise for one of the owners of a caffé in town.  As I always do, I asked what time to be there.  About nine was the response. 

     Having learned about Italian time previously, I gave it an extra hour, and walked up the piazza at about ten.  My buddy and his band were just sitting down to dinner a block away.  “Dopo, dopo!” (Later, later!), said Federico.  After an hour and a half, I came back, only to find they were just starting the meat course.  After a few more drinks, dessert, coffee, a trip back to the house for some instruments, and a little practice time, we finally hit the party at 1:00 am, just as things were heating up.

     As Americans we run our lives by those sweeping hands.  Had I given up, I would have missed a great moment like the one below.  I would have had only myself to blame, not my watch.