Ariana Romano is a brand strategist, holistic nutritionist, and co-founder of La Masia, a social club for living well. More importantly, she is an aspiring nonna. Last January, Ariana and her partner Mauri left Toronto for Spain, where they embrace a nomadic lifestyle in favor of slower, more mindful living. She is currently based in Barcelona.
Ari and I were born and raised just outside of Toronto. We love to complain about Toronto for what we deem, “good reason.” In reality, what we were hinting at in these moments of dispair for a place we felt lacked a certain kind of energy we needed at that time in our lives, was that we felt we were missing out on life. Especially one that aligned closely with our social values.
Then Ari abandoned me to live her best life jaunting around Spain. It’s shocking watching her Instagram stories. The writer of Eat Pray Love predicted Ari’s life and not the other way around. I thought she must have been involved in some kind of pyramid scheme or Tinder Swindler type of scammery to be experiencing all this charcuterie in front of all these beaches. It turns out she is just really good at building her non-pyramid scheming career.
I spoke to Ariana about how moving abroad and diving into a full-immersion of Spanish culture has shaped her approach to longevity and simply having more fun.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
People often think you need a lot of money and a job to move.
When you make the move and you’re not living in touristy places, it’s easy to live small. People think that spending time here means you’re going to live like you’re on vacation but when you actually come here to live, it’s quite affordable. There’s so much to do here that is free. You can admire the architecture on a walk, go to the beach, spend a little on a glass of wine or coffee. I just felt that it was easier to do the things I liked to do when I moved here, in a much cheaper way than when I lived in Toronto. I spend much, much less here. In Toronto, there’s a look every season. You’re buying clothes, you need the look. Here, I’m living out of a suitcase. There isn’t the need to keep up with the trends.
When I moved here, it became easier to get jobs. I became more relaxed and confident. I had this extroverted energy. I was more easily throwing myself into conversations. When you move to a new country, you really do care less about how you come off to people. I also learned to say yes to more things. I’ve taken jobs I didn’t want because I wanted to follow opportunity more than what my career goal was. Now, it’s a year since I’ve been freelance so I can be more choosey. I took every call, I met up with every person. That’s how I planted the seeds. Now I call myself a strategist within the realm of brand, social, and community. Did I know how to do any of those things? Not until I just taught myself. I’m not afraid to slide into DMs and talk to people and ask questions of how they got there.
You mean you’re not spending $17 on a glass of wine?
Never. That’s fraud. I didn’t have a lot of money moving here. The two things that make it possible are being organized — knowing how much money you need and getting to that point. People create these ominous numbers in their head but did they do the math? The flight is this, the apartment is this…when you do the math it’s much more achievable. Just live within your means. The other things is to have the balls. Take the bet on yourself.
Congrats on your new social club, La Masia. Social clubs were invented with the idea that we need more parties. And I always think we need more parties. Not ones that involve me going to a bar and doing jagger bombs but ones that cultivate new experiences centred around good food, music, and interesting people.
Totally. La Masia stems from the idea that so many of us are in a reckoning with our own ambitions. It’s not that everyone is quitting their jobs necessarily, but there is the sense that people are really trying to figure out their goals and seeking guidance in their professional lives and in the post-covid world. I think people realized that life is really short. So in my time in Spain, we really started looking at the Mediterranean life through the lens of wellness. The move to Spain and our experience here has been one of aligning our professional and personal values in a way is really freeing.
We’ve always looked back to our own mediterranean culture to help us realign. Whether that’s being more in harmony with nature, being community-oriented, looking back to these rituals of eating together, gathering together, taking a nap when you need one, sharing a good meal, and lingering over the empty dishes on the table and eating seasonally and local produce and really enjoying the food that’s local to where you are instead of buying avocados from Costa Rica every week. It’s a choice we made, to be in a place that can offer us that. Living with this kind of intention has really brought us a lot of balance in managing our professional ambitions and personal values. Because the things is, my professional ambitions haven’t gone away — I still want to create things, I still want to build things, I still want do really good work — I just wanted to be more intentional with it.
My version of success means being able to prioritize myself first, so I’m able grow and develop myself while allowing my work to do that with me.
I know you’re in school for nutrition alongside your work and developing La Masia. How do you view the two schools of thought, where formal education on the subject focuses on macros and nutritional facts and that whole gamut where everything feels like a numbers game, and the more laid-back lifestyle in the Mediterranean that seems to think much less about the words ‘longevity' and ‘wellness’ and “keto”?
The thing is, they really intersect. This is also why holistic nutrition brought me closer to my roots. When you look at ideal balanced diets, they actually mimic traditional diets of what our ancestors ate — like what my grandma ate, on a farm in Italy living in total poverty. She was eating beef liver, chicken liver, having tons of vegetables and fish and whole, unprocessed grains. This is the Mediterranean diet, so it’s very specific. It’s gotten all this press over the years for being incredible for longevity and it is — I’m aligned with that notion. But what I realized is that the more I look at nutrition, the more I studied it rather than just following things on the internet, the more I realized, it’s basically just going back to what our grandparents did.
There’s certain diets that are like, ‘you have to eat chia seeds and açai berries”. But our ancestors didn’t eat chia seeds and açai berries and it didn’t compromise their health to go without. We’re fine without açai.
Going through nutrition school really pushed me back towards a traditional diet rooted in my ancestors. When you look at that ancient wisdom and rituals, it all makes sense. You don’t have to obsess over your micros and macros.
We’re all obsessed with living for a long time. But why do you want to live a long time if you aren’t learning how to enjoy your life, be slow, and live in the moment?
If your quality of life sucks, why extend it?
Instead of always looking for the next thing, maybe examine what is right in front of you. If chia seeds are really important to you, then have them. But I think we easily forget the value of food in telling stories about who we are. And stories keep us connected. We forget how important forging connections to our food is to our health. People love to say, “Oh the Spanish eat so many cured meats and drink so much wine, that can’t be for you.” They also probably rarely eat fast food and tend to live more mindfully than one does in a fast-paced city.
The Spanish live slowly. They also walk everywhere. They’re getting sunlight everyday and have an intense sense of family and community which is the biggest social health determinant. It’s crazy to me how the #1 determinant of how long we will live is, “Do I have someone I can go to when shit hits the fan for me?” It is absolutely crucial for what the quality of those years you live will be like. You can’t control everything in your life, but having people there for you is the one that makes the biggest difference in how you manage what life throws at you.
For example, I’m really close with my grandparents and the pandemic aged them insanely. Suddenly, they couldn’t go to church, their social club, or do dinner with their friends. Their social lives were entirely gone. They weren’t leaving the house or walking. All of a sudden, natural exercise isn’t there.
Also, we have these long winters in Canada that make it physically unsafe to go for a walk outside. And then I came to Spain in January and we lived on a street with no cars, so it was really just pedestrians. You see kids playing and elderly people playing with them — the whole family roster is down on the street. The older people are out there during the day saying hi to each other. They have these rich social lives and a sense of purpose.
Ninety year-olds are out there tilling the soil in Spain.
Can I tell you about the ninety seven year old that lives and farms everyday on this land where we are right now in Pyrenees, Spain? Me and Mauri have this nasty old car. He was up sunday morning at 9:30, while me and Mauri are eating croissants in front of the house, detailing his car from top to bottom. He’s ninety seven. He drives that car everyday and I was just thinking, this man is eating beef from the fields, drinking milk from the cows, working, being outside in the sun. He has a chicken coop and a farm. He makes sure everyone in the coliving has fresh eggs.
He has his family, his community, this sense of purpose. If we want to talk about longevity, it’s that.
Those chickens are probably living out their best lives too. I want to have drink wine with him, which I assume he also makes, and listen to him tell stories of pastoral dramas. Can you speak to the drinking culture in Spain as a proponent or deterrent of longevity?
Sure, drinking isn’t amazing for you. But using that single drink as a time to go outside and talk and connect to your community and be out in the streets, weighs it out. This isn’t math or health advice but the drinking culture is different here.
Over-indulgence being the reason we have to scale back so heavily. I mean limit your processed foods, etc etc. But there are cultural stories that come with food that I think are linked to improving mental health.
North America has new countries. We don’t have a food culture to ground us in. Older cultures have food to root themselves. When you feel like you need three cups of coffee and you feel more sugar, you have to ask yourself, what do you really need?
How can you put yourself in a more balanced state by having something that doesn’t make you feel bad after? Holistic nutrition has made me look at things from a more balanced perspective as opposed to studying life science in school which was far more reductionist.
We love to classify and organize and have rules, like, “no coffee after 3pm” when really, food is more complex and bodies are more complex and we need to look at things from a bigger-picture. If having coffee at 4pm is an enjoyable social event for you, or a calming solo ritual, then follow that.
I also think we should all just think about food a lot less.
We should think of it a lot less. The most important thing is learning to listen to our bodies. There’s a lot of stress and fear around food.
Ari, any final words? Not for your funeral, but for this conversation.
I truly believe we’re all just here to hang out. Have a plate of pasta, sit down, and it will all be fine.