What Are We Doing Here?
Four old people on a beach with a bottle of wine and a deck of cards. That's when I knew what really matters.
by Oriana La Marca
The light hits the water differently here. It shatters into a million tiny diamonds. I was sitting on the muretto, the low stone wall that lines the lungomare, watching the day fade over the sea. Down on the sand, four old people had set up camp in a circle of mismatched plastic chairs. A weathered wooden table between them held a deck of cards, a bottle of red wine, and a paper bag that smelled of warm focaccia and salt. The slap of the cards on the table was the only percussion to the rhythm of the waves.
When I land in Sicily, a switch just goes off. The part of my brain that’s always running—the New Jersey part, the business owner part, the part that’s thinking about the next design, the next shipment, the next five things on the list—it just…quiets. It doesn't disappear, it just takes a seat. My Sicilian soul takes the wheel. It’s a different kind of energy, a different kind of focus. One is about building, creating, the beautiful forward motion of my life in the States. The other is about being. And I need both. I wouldn't change a thing.
Listen, it’s easy to look at that scene—four old friends on a beach with a bottle of wine—and think they’re doing nothing. They’re doing everything. They’re connecting. They’re living. They are masters of an art form we’ve almost forgotten: the art of slowing down enough to actually taste the wine, to hear your friend’s laugh, to feel the last of the sun on your skin. Good food, good wine, good company. It’s the holy trinity here. It’s not about laziness; it’s about priority. It’s about understanding what really matters.
I watched them for a long time, thinking about my two worlds. The studio in Jersey, with my girls laughing and working, creating beautiful things one knot at a time—that’s my heart. But this place, this feeling, this connection back to my roots—that’s my soul. The dream has always been to bring them together. Six months here, six months there. Not as a vacation, but as a life. A life where the pace of creating is balanced by the pace of living. Where I’m constantly reinventing, not just my jewelry, but myself.
The men packed up their cards as the last sliver of sun dipped below the horizon. One of them uncorked the wine and poured four small glasses. A simple gesture at the end of a simple day. But it’s everything. That’s the beauty.