I started work at a local Italian restaurant in my town. We sell natural Italian wines. Natural – meaning they’re largely untreated by man-chemicals and thus left to their environment’s fancy. I can only afford to taste natural Italy when I’m on the clock – sampling Piedmont and Tuscany, exploring Lombardy, and even trying Lazio.
When I’m off the clock, I resort to drinking my town’s tap water. Certainly it has the same effect, connecting me to my city’s environment. Though, I suppose I am glad my tap water is treated by man-chemicals and is left largely up to human’s fancy.
Two weeks prior to starting at this restaurant where we sell natural tastes of Italy’s environment, I needed help moving a couch from my previous city to my current city where I drink the tap water.
I hired two friends for the job who have never been to my previous city. We piled in my car, bringing with us the tap water from our current city in our current bottles. Conversation was natural, largely untouched by man-chemicals, but music was left to my human fancy. I wish I could say I have been less picky before as the driver and the curator, but rarely have I had a day of untouched music choice. My friends were kind enough not to mention it while they sipped their tap water and told their natural stories.
It was when I dropped my friends off, paying them their dues, that friend one mentioned he listens to the radio when he’s in his current town.
Two weeks later, I started selling natural Italian wines at the local restaurant in the city where I drink tap water. It was on the way home from a shift, while I hydrated myself with tap water, that I understood friend one.
I parked my car and turned on the radio.
I suppose I would wonder too why someone who is okay tasting a city wouldn’t want to hear it too. So, I sat in my car outside my house, drinking my city’s tap water, nibbling on Naples, imagining I was sipping on Piedmont, and listening to my city for the first time ever.