Having an active fantasy life is a pretty amazing thing. Now that I’m doing so much armchair travelling, it seems that the weight of the world is getting lighter by the day. That said, I haven’t managed to escape reality entirely, as happened recently upon the death of one of our old sheep. 

Melpomene, or Mel as she soon came to be known, left us quietly a couple of weeks ago having lived a long and happy life. When Sasha returned from the barn chores all too early that day, I read on his face the expression that over time I’ve come to know so well - another of the old animals had died. 

He found Mel kushed in front of the little sheep house where she had fallen quietly into an eternal sleep. Still warm to the touch, a light dusting of snow on her back, she had what we’ve come to think of here as a very good death. Other than a slowing of her gait in recent months, there had been no sign whatsoever that she would be leaving us anytime soon.

I write about this now because it is snowing and Sasha is away getting better so I’m the one who’s just come in from doing the barn chores, handing out pats and peanuts to our motley crew of aging animals along the way. My new Italian fantasy life is definitely a psychic godsend during these dark days of winter and I really am committed to the project I’ve begun. 

Even so, no matter how you slice it, there are still shining moments here on this old farm when there’s nowhere else on earth I’d rather be.

Even without a calendar I can always recognize the turning of the year by my sudden craving for salt. By New Year’s Day every year, the chocolate overdose that accompanies the Christmas holidays just somehow seems to catapult me into a totally savoury world. Lindt, of course, has tried to have it both ways with their amazing dark chocolate bars seasoned with fleur de sel, but right now I’m having none of it. From today on, when snack time rolls around, I’m back to pretzels, hummus and pita, bruschetta, crackers and cheese. Anything that doesn’t involve chocolate.

Right now I’m sitting in front of the fire on this first day of a brand new year trying to resolve what to do about resolutions. Looking backward at the mostly failed ones I put forward last year, it seems prudent this time either to forgo the ritual entirely or somehow to decrease the possibility of failure so that something truly encouraging might actually come to pass.

This year, I’ve decided, I’m only going to make one resolution. I’m going to pass on all the stuff about exercise and healthy eating and go straight out into left field with something entirely new. I have resolved in 2011 to learn to speak Italian. 

For anyone who is cringing right now, trying to push away the nascent apprehension that I’m embarking on a cloned Eat, Pray, Love kind of experience, please have no fear. I’m not working through my marital angst by planning a year of travel to Italy, India and Bali. I’m actually just staving off the inevitable winter blahs with a fantasy life that includes the language of another climate, and mental images of another place and time.

Some weeks ago, while rooting around in some of the boxes that Sasha has packed up for give-away, sale or disposal, I came upon a CD set of Frances Mayes' Under the Tuscan Sun. Since this is not something we’d ever have bought, neither of us has any idea where it came from, but it did fit nicely into the CD player of the little Ford Focus I purchased this past fall. I listened to it all.

Despite the cloying southern drawl of the narrator and the total massacre of the Italian language (why do they let authors record their own works?) I fell totally in love with the descriptions of the landscape, the culture and food of Tuscany, the idea of an escape to someplace else.

So I have downloaded a good set of audio Italian language lessons to my iPod, found in my own library a number of wonderful books involving things Italian, bought a small English/Italian dictionary and a Fodors.

Now, over steaming bowls of ribollita or minestrone, I’ll be all set to fantasize at will. This winter, as I swan around in my fat pants intoning phrases like “Mi piace la pasta” or “Dove il bagno” I’ll be getting two things done really well. I’ll be dreaming the edge off reality and I’ll be learning something new. What could possibly be better than that?