Pane Bella Take Away
The trouble is, you think you have time.–Buddha
When I moved into my neighborhood almost fifteen years ago, I discovered the most intoxicatingly delicious and perfectly convenient, walkable bakery, Pane Bella. Pane Bella had a ciabatta loaf (flat-ish bread) like my tongue-buds had never known. You can bet your ciabatta that Pane Bella tasted too good to be true. This olive oil and rosemary topped, gently browned superb supine loaf of bread was like a five-lane 405 straight to my heart, by way of my mouth.
A little context: I’ve made my own—from scratch—homemade bread my entire adult life and I know good bread. I might be a snob that way. As a child, I ate my mom’s homemade bread and it was my inspiration. But I didn’t know how to pull off Pane Bella’s dough. The texture of this airy ciabatta was weep-worthy. If I could make myself tiny and jump on it, I would bounce to the heavens. Giggling, crying joy tears.
I frequented the bakery for years, for the most part snubbing everything else, only buying the ciabatta, which was the foundation of my signature turkey sandwiches. Some might call it a basis for true religion.
One day I routinely zipped over to Pane Bella.
Cue the crickets.
The place was vacated. I brought my horrified face to the pane glass.
Empty.
Ghost town.
You know how in the Bible it talks about weeping and wailing, gnashing of teeth? I was beset by pure anguish, stunned, gut-punched, rendered speechless, lifeless, soulless, gluten for punishment. I wanted to get Biblical, rend my garments, rip out chunks of my hair. I morphed into a blob of airless, heavy, raw unleavened dough, having slowly rolled into the gutter. Like a floppy, pitted, inedible bowling ball. Filthy, covered in gutter juice.
No warning, no nothing. Just gone. Finito.
I can’t drive by that intersection now without thinking of Pane Bella and that ciabatta loaf. Replacement shops have come and gone. It’s as though they can’t survive having been built on a burial ground or something. The space is a constant reminder that something can be removed in an instant, without warning. When I pass by now, I remember the sting of nonsensical, sudden loss.
In Italy, the first time I asked for my food “to go,” they looked at me like I was pazzo (nuts) and they would say something like “Non capisco,” which I understood. I soon found their version of “to go” is spoken as “take away.”
In the recent years, I’ve lost some dear friends, a couple to sudden death and a couple to cancer. I had some warning with the cancer, sure, but I still lost them in a moment and it was devastating. I was gut-punched. They were gone.
I forget that the beloveds in my life, now, can be taken from me in a moment, sometimes without warning. Let me not take them for granted; let me “savor” them, now, for tomorrow they may have to go. And that’s my take-away today.
