On soaking up the sauce & week 23 of 52
the last and the best
The Italian expression Fare la Scarpetta (to “do the little shoe”) means sopping up the last bit of pasta sauce from a plate with a piece of bread. It’s a feeling akin to eating an ice cream cone and getting to that little pocket of chocolate in the last triangular bite.
Why is the last bite so good? Maybe the economic concept of scarcity value—which suggests humans value things more when there is less to consume or enjoy—explains it. That last bit of sauce or last bite is often as good - if not better - than the first because we know it’s our last.
This is what we’re doing here, with AYTL, only with the clear knowledge that we have no control or insight into what day, month, or year will be our last. We can only tap ourselves on the shoulder with a reminder — “Hey, pay attention here, this might be the last bit of sauce.”
This might be the last hug or the last twirl. It might be the last time we feel the surge of heat in our bellies after someone cuts us off in traffic. By reminding ourselves that we can’t know when the last bite will come, perhaps everything we taste will be all the more sweet.
This is equally true of our attention and interest.
Have you ever been passionate about something or someone, only to look back years later and laugh? Do you still love the same music you loved in 9th grade?
In a few years, will we still have a taste for pistachio ice cream, or will we want chocolate? Hell, for all we know, we might have a cold sensitivity that makes ice cream torturous. Will we still want to watch a stand-up comedy show? Attend a __ concert? Will we still have a taste for docudrama or science fiction novels?
Maybe. Maybe not.
The idea of changing tastes or levels of access is interesting because it suggests that we are always experiencing unexpected and unemotional loss—loss of appetite, interest, access, and sometimes even understanding. The world is changing, we are changing, and the way we consume changes constantly.
Sometimes we agree and welcome this change, sometimes not. Or not at first.
To savor what we enjoy as though it is our last time is a delicious reminder of the richness of life and how that richness changes. It’s a way of respecting and honoring what’s in front of us.
A poet friend decided he would soon stop writing, not because he was giving up but because the act of writing poetry no longer interested him in the way it once had. So he wrote a few final poems for a final collection. Once that collection was complete, he put down his pen. Other aspects of his life fed him more. Family. Reading. Travel. Art.
I like to think the months leading up to this poetic retirement were romantic, and that my friend savored every word and looked at life through a crisp, poetic lens that was all the more accurate. If you knew this would be the last work you’d write, how would you write it?
The more I embark on this journey, the more I believe our control over anything beyond perception (and maybe even that) is an illusion.
In other words, thinking we might have the chance to Fare la Scarpetta tomorrow is not a productive thought.
Sop the bread! Taste the salts and sugars sifting on your tongue! Feel the textures as they shift and the satisfaction of the final bits as you digest the world. Digest the world!
AYTL challenge: Find something you love, and Fare la Scarpetta.
Writing challenge: Write about two people competing for the last little bit. Make it fun.
The summer before ninth grade I listened nonstop to Metallica's Load and Rage's Evil Empire. I distinctly remember saying the first RATM album was better and still feel that way. When I hear those albums, I think about my friends and that summer. I Rage every day. I don't listen to any other metal, but mint chocolate chip ice cream is still my favorite. I'm soaking up the last two weeks of October!