What I've been doing while everyone finishes their summer vacations

I’ve been muddling through a series of strange, relatively violent allergic reactions (Imagine funny hospital stories here: Hand flailing doctors! Medical Italian! Non capito! Aspetta! Wait here and try not to swell up more while we go have coffee!).

Enter: the gradual development of a five inch by three inch giant red welt on the back of my left arm/shoulder. What started as two itsywitsyteenytiny puncture marks then became an index-card-sized oval of hard/swollen skin, bringing with them shooting pains. After two days, it has progressed to a swollen, oozy, purplish multiple-blistery center.* Arm is heavy and tingly, and very hot to the touch.

Can’t… think… pain… constant.
Brain...mushy...from...anti-everythings.

Apparently the ‘treatment’ now is: just wait for my system to absorb the venom.**
Oh, and hand me a napkin so I can dab at the oozing every five minutes or so.
Mmmmm, that's pretty.

As if I wasn’t cranky enough already this week.
Apparently the spiders are as no-nonsense as the people around here.

And that pus? I’ve decided it must be my inner Tuscan, leaking out.
Serves me right for going looking for it.

* Photo accompaniment to this post conspicuously absent, out of respect for any of you with an appetite. Besides, how do you photograph the back of your arm?

**And, BTW? I am so HATING Josh Baskin right now for getting me addicted to an obscure-malady medical drama (House) on DVD. Because after watching 16 episodes in a row, I am convinced it would be such crazy poetic justice that I’m dying from something obscure and that no one will figure it out in time. What is the differential diagnosis for Spider Bite (species unknown) when it presents coupled with symptoms of incorrect verb usage, introspection, broken heart and self-pity? Clearly I need to find me a quirkily cute, crusty-exterior, soft-interior doctor, and fast.

Because...

... after last night's thunderstorms, today dawned sunny and blue skied.

Because ... there are so many truly horrible things in the world. There is Sudan. There is the still-unrecovered, impoverished side of New Orleans. There are people starving and oppressed and fearful for their lives, all over the world, as I type this. So in the grand scheme of things it's hard to feel tooooooo sorry for yourself living in Tuscany, glancing out the window to see the towers of Siena winking at you in the distance.

Because... to my knowledge, loneliness and the darkness of uncertainty has never killed anyone.

Because ... the only guarantee any of us has is today, and in the words of Pat Green, "If you live your whole life upon a shelf, you've got noone to blame but your own damn self. Okay, alright ... carry on."


Because ... it is Tuscany, damnit, and it is market day, and the man at the frutta e verdura likes me (or pities me) so much that he gave me an entire sack (easily 50) of zucchini blossoms (fiori di zucchi).

BECAUSE ... nothing cures a cranky, wallowing, self-pitying girl like fried food:
Let there be fried zucchini blossoms!
Some stuffed with fresh mozzarella!
Made by my own hands!
In my farmhouse kitchen!
Let there be many!
Perfectly beer-battered and lightly sea-salted!
Let me consume them until they come out my ears!

So, sure, maybe I'm mostly just acting.
But the blossoms DID rock my world.

Sometimes, it is all we know how to do: to behave the way we wish to feel, and pray that eventually the feelings will follow. And perhaps that's a complete crock. Maybe no matter how much you do, the feelings will be what they are. But either way, you can't starve in the meantime, right? And wasting the gift of a sack of zucchini blossoms because you're feeling self-indulgently woe-is-me, now THAT is a crime.

Tuscans don't waste food.
Nor do they lay around dreaming and wishing for things to happen.
They suck it up. They face the music. Do what needs to be done. Carry on.
And they truly LIVE life.
Simply. Deeply. Honestly. Unapologetically.

There's an APB out for my inner Tuscan. I'm sure she'll be back soon.

Less Expensive than Therapy

Greetings and Salutations, fine reader!

FAIR WARNING: If you've dropped by looking for charming/witty/lighthearted Viaggiatore, she’s not in today. Feel free to leave a message or call back again later. Maybe tomorrow she’ll be back to regale you with the recent stories of the
violent allergic reaction to the spider bite and the Italian medical system and/or her favorite kitchen utensil (a Tuscan man), and perhaps even the long-overdue story of the Opera Roadtrip, the season of Sagras, and how she’s hoping “abandoned is the new chic” because that’s pretty much what the garden looks like.

Aaaaah, I know, I hear you. You came looking for the crazy paper hat-wearing, do-just-about-anything-on-a-dare Viaggiatore? The one with the infectious laugh (if only because it's so damn loud)? The one who has no fear of making a total ass of herself in a foreign language? No, sorry, she really isn’t in today. (This would be your cue to stop reading. Really. Please, please, please don't say I didn't warn you.)

But am I sorry? Well, yes. Actually, I am. Because I would really, really, really like to feel like that girl today. And maybe tomorrow, I will. Maybe tomorrow I’ll be able to find my equilibrium again. To look in the mirror, take a deep breath, square off with myself and punch back, as The Mom (wisely) says. But today, I’ve got a wee bit of an internal reconstruction project going on and it, I must admit, is sucking the very life out of me. The sunglasses are on for a reason: the eyes are the windows to the soul, and mine has been in a bit of a torture spiral for a while now.

Since the beginning of our friendship, my blog-daddy, The Sean Show, (who once upon a time I called The Sensitive Rebel) has always amazed me, provoked me, challenged me. He is now truly inspiring me. Don’t get me wrong, he’s hands-down one of the most completely fucked up people I’ve ever met. And yet … he knows it. That’s the inspiring part.

Universal truth: the girl in the room who knows that she’s beautiful is the one no one likes. Because they can’t relate to her, will never feel comfortable with her.

The fucked up guy who knows exactly how fucked up he is, and better – is articulate and raw and completely candid, honest, open with you even when it’s messy and embarrassing? Now that's a guy we can relate to. One we’d sit down and have a beer or six with. Who, by his very presence in your life, actually makes you feel more whole, more connected to the world, … because he can put into words what ultimately we all are feeling in some way. It’s the human condition. And by knowing him, you are less alone.

“It’s been mentioned that I might be hitting some variation of the mid-life crisis. It’s certainly possible despite my best attempts to avoid being a cliche. I prefer to think I’m just expressing a disenchantment with so much of what’s sold to us, and I’m trying to discover a new way of living that’ll make me happy. This is what Jack Kerouac and Carson McCullers expressed so well, the hunger for something more relevant and honest and the reverse of crippling loneliness, and I am simply falling short in both the description and the goal.”

The Sean Show is fond of using the expression that “we’re all acting.” Playing the part that we’re supposed to play in each segment of our lives:

“It’s all an act. All of us, all of this. We’re all acting, doing our best while knowing full well it’ll never be enough. I’m trying as hard as I can to keep up the charade, not because I want to buy into denying that I’m miserable, but so that I’m not smearing my bullshit all over the people I love. Yeah, they’re putting up facades as well. But sometimes all we have is the acting and each other, so I suppose it’ll have to work. You know you’re so very fucked when you’re best described by whiny self-indulgent emo songs.”

Cue “The Place You Have Come to Fear the Most. (Dashboard Confessional).

This is one time, this is one time
that you can't fake it hard enough to please
everyone or anyone at all, or anyone at all.
And the grave that you refuse to leave
the refuge that you've built to flee
the places you have come to fear the most.
it's the place that you have come to fear the most

Indeed, we are all ultimately just playing the parts we’ve found ourselves cast in for the sliver of time we’ve got on this planet. The daughter. The mother. The sister. The can-keep-all-the-plates-spinning-with-one-hand-employee. The funny one. The creative one. The artist. The smart one. The dancer. The athlete. The husband. The responsible one. The adventurous one. The spiritual one. The edgy and fearless one. The kind and generous one.

And then, sometimes, you realize that maybe you want to be recast.
Maybe you have to be recast, even if it wouldn't be your choice to be, if you are to move to the next level, to discover the Paul Harvey-esque ‘rest of the story’ that is intended for your life.

But there are old demons standing in the way, and
you’re not sure how to get from here to there.
There is no map for this journey.
You fear that you might not play the new role as well as you’re playing the one/two/five that you already know by heart.

And so you keep putting one foot in front of the other, acting the parts.
And one day you’re not even convincing yourself anymore.

The place that you have come to fear the most.
The place where you have to open up.
To take on the demons.
To jump off the ledge,
having faith that the net will appear.

When you know that you must take action to change, but you aren’t sure you can find the courage to stop pacing the cage. To overcome the inertia to propel yourself - past the stellar monument of loneliness - over the edge into the unknown. (Damn if that whole "if not now, when" thing doesn't keep coming back to haunt me!)

Oh, Sean, you’re right. I’m so very fucked. And I’m so very scared.

“I am a little terrified of royally fucking up, but I’m more terrified of actually being happy. My lack of self-confidence is downright criminal.”

I am, at the very least, in very very good company.


That is all.

All this introspection has made me a bit peckish.
Downright hungry, even, which I will deem A Good Sign.
Damn, where's a 24-hour Waffle House when I need one!?!

Three M Monday

Meteorology: Dark and clear but windy, too brisk to have the bat-inviting windows open.

Music: Shawn Colvin's cover of Dylan's "Lonesome When You Go". It's been on repeat for about 30 minutes now, very soothing. The simple repetitive guitar under-current is evocative of my folk-song-singing-childhood. The lyrics are simultaneously light and conversational and haunting and honest.

"You're gonna have to leave me now, I know.
But I'll see you in the skies above - in the tall grass, in the ones I love.
You're gonna make me lonesome when you go"

(OKAY, okay ... I admit it, I really like it because it rhymes Honolulu and Ashtabula. Pure lyric genius).

Mood: Raw, ragged, and melancholy with a lump in my throat, perched at the edge of tears for no apparent reason. Handle with Care.

The cookie crumbles

I'm proud to say that I'm a pretty tough cookie in many ways.

I wouldn't want to be on the wrong side of me in a debate on something I really cared about, a business negotiation if you've screwed something up that you could have controlled, or a catfight in a dark alley.

But the cookie DOES have a crumble point. (And I'd bet that I'm probably in pretty good company here:) I just can't get comfortable with the idea of a bat flapping around in my house.

But here, in the countryside, where window screens don't exist, bats flapping around occasionally during the waning summer nights are pretty well the norm. I have a (French) neighbor who regularly extoles their virtues:

"How beeeyoooteeful zhey are when zhey fly! Quel pretty noises zheir wings are make-ing! Zhey are zee ballerinas of zee summer sky!"

And yes, damnit, rational sense tells me that they're kind of cute and fuzzy if you get them up close, they don't eat people, 99.7% of them are not rabid and will not bite you, Dracula was fiction, and they really aren't interested in me. The classic "they're more scared of you than you are of them". (Mmmmm-hmmmmm. SURE. Funny, he doesn't SEEM scared.)

I have really, truly tried to adopt this "when in Rome" philosophy about pipistrelli. . In fact, my life would be markedly better if I could.

But I have a mental block here. I am a GIANT TREMBLING SACK OF JELLO-ED GIRLINESS when a bat whips through. Adrenaline kicks in, I have to struggle to focus my eyes, and I'm sure my blood pressure shoots through the roof.

I put up a brave front, sure. (What else is there to do?) I sigh angrily (as if he can hear me.) I get up from my desk, throw open all the windows and hope he will find his way back out before I actually have to DO something about him. And usually he does.

But damn, those intervening five / ten / fifteen minutes, I'm a fucking wreck inside.

And the alternative to those open windows is ... living in a house that is so hot you can't breathe inside, much less think. Ridiculous.

Gee. Do you wonder what's going on here in Bella Toscana tonight? I just got home from a lovely evening and the first bat of the season just winged his way through. So here I sit in a white tank top and red yoga pants, hoping fervently that it's JUST dogs and bees that can smell fear.

Because if bats can, too, then my house is about to be infested. I'm no match for them, and I know it. Let's just hope THEY don't.

Totally Unsolicited Endorsements

Orgasm in a bottle.
Yes, that's my new fragrance.

Okay, what it *actually* is... is a shower cream wash called I Coloniali, Strengthening Thailandese Shower Cream of Hibiscus. (catchy, eh??)

It was one of the things I missed MOST while I was gone. It was a gift from Mary Ann (really, The Professor and Mary Ann, but come on, I'm not kidding myself that TP had anything at all to do with it.)

It comes in a cool, understated tin bottle with corrugated paper wrapping (less IS so much more, people. Take heed.) And judging from pricepoints I see online, it's stupidly expensive (about a gajillion times more so than Ivory or Zest or Coast... and bonus! that it doesn't have an annoying jingle like "Coast, the scent opens your eyes..." or "Zestfully clean..." that plays in my head when I use it.)

I treat it like liquid gold.

Because at the rate that I WANT to go through it, a crystal meth habit would be less expensive. Those of you lucky enough to be in the States can buy it online. I must find a distributor near me, and fast.

The scent is heady and dizzying and still.... not sappy sweet. It lingers lazily, the scent of a sultry, exotic summer's evening clinging to wet skin. Incredible. I easily just spent an extra 5 minutes in the shower just to inhale a little while longer, imagining myself in a different world.

Fresh out of the shower, I am dressing to go tonight to a birthday dinner party at the home of my cleaning lady. (Let it not be said that I don't learn from my past). There will be no English speakers there, which also means no edgy American senses of humor. But I will desperately wish I had the courage to have THIS conversation in Italian:

"Oh, you smell great!" (amidst the two-cheek kissing welcome extravaganza)
"Why, thank you. It's orgasm in a bottle."

And then there were 8.

(Wiping tears out of my eyes).

Well, it's official. Pluto is no longer a planet. As of today, according to the Powers that Be in the world astronomical.*

Everything I knew to be true and good and correct and just and right in the world seems to be turning on its head.

What's next?!?! The Pope not being Catholic? Two and two not so much equalling four? Real perfect love actually existing in the world? Republicans being in favor of more governmental interference in our lives?

I mean, come ON now. Stop the madness.

*just by typing "World Astronomical," the words of "I am the very model of a modern major general" from Pirates of Penzance came screaming into my head. I am a sick, sick puppy who can't remember what I wore yesterday, but remember the entire first verse of THAT.

** and if we're going to have to rewrite all the textbooks anyhow, couldn't we revisit the whole "let's go metric" issue again?!?!

Feeding the Beast

Wednesday is universally considered "hump day" in the 9to5, MtoF work world.

It's Thursday. And I don't feel anywhere close to over the hump. Ye ole day job was indeed like a brick wall that I hit this week. So much to do. So little time. So little enthusiasm with which to do it.

Reentry is, indeed, hell. I don't know where that expression came from, but it has never been truer.

HOWEVER: The Show (and by that I mean this here little corner of blogville) Must Go On. Because you, my peeps, are a voracious beast that must be fed!

Yes, yes. Details of the events comprising the super-fantabulous roadtrip weekend will be forthcoming in a series of bite-sized posts, but it shall suffice to say that it is my personal opinion that the entire anti-depresssant pharmaceutical industry would be COMPLETLY defunct if everyone just had access to a convertible, a summer weekend, and windy open Italian roads.

Spending hours on end in the back seat of a Saab convertible, under the Tuscan sun, wind whipping in your face: now THAT is a head-clearing exercise. Add a few good friends, a little open-air opera, and copious amounts of vino... that'll cure what ails just about anyone.

Quick teaser highlights:

78 Euro: a ticket to see TOSCA at The Puccini Festival
20 Euro: contribution to gas for snazzy Saab convertible
0 Euro: a group of otherwise well-adjusted grownups laughing hysterically (repeatedly) at the Italian translation for "asshat".
45 Euro: half the cost of a room in the gorgeous old villa in the middle of nowhere (GOVITMON)
0 Euro: the extra hour, including driving on what we're sure is a footpath, that it took us to find GOVITMON
60 Euro: stupidly expensive lunch in a ridiculously cute Italian town (RCIT)
0 Euro: nothing spent on a darling little old Italian man who insisted on a personal tour of aforementioned RCIT.
17 Euro: a three course meal of porcini mushrooms at a local fair
0 Euro: the night spent face-down on the green velveteen couch at Chez Bender.

PRICELESS: Feeling the wind in your hair, being present in the moment, and enjoying where you are, who you're with, and what you are doing right then. Even when you make a bit of an (ahem) asshat of yourself.

If not now, when?

Snapping

Not as in, "I'm snapping, I can't take it anymore".
But rather, "I'm snapping ... out of it."

Okay, I admit it. I've been seriously indulging my distractedness for the past 10 days. My introspective side. Those googly-eyed, teenage girl, "I'm the center of the world and love should appear at my doorstep" sort of feelings. And indulgent it was indeed.

Oh, it's been quite a sight: I've lolled around daydreaming at the THOUGHT of perfect love (maybe, just maybe, if I could possibly be so lucky?!?) being out there. I have lain upon the terrace in the middle of the night and stared at the amazing clarity of the stars. I might have done some "loves me/loves me not" daisy-petal-plucking and - gasp! - horoscope reading. Yes, it's been ten days of indulging myself in sixth-grade-girlish fantasies, notebook doodles, and, well ... some fantasies that were very much NOT sixth grade (or at least I hope kids aren't that advanced these days!)

SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECCCCCCCCCKKKKKKK!!!!
(that's the best I can do in writing to the sound of brakes being applied).

"Hi there, Viaggiatore? It's reality calling."

Reality: Everyone's favorite party crasher.
(As if the empty bed weren't enough, now there's the wet blanket of reality on top of it.)

BUT it got me thinking: if I'm really the live-in-the-moment, "if not now, when?" girl that I claim to be, then I've got me a life to live here, regardless of who or where THAT guy may be out there. And if I were a betting woman, which I usually am, I'd lay 100% odds that he's not showing up on my doorstep today. (And if he really is THAT guy, the real one, then he'd want me to be out there, living. Right? Right.) Will he show up someday? Maybe. Today? No.

And so, boys and girls, the unscheduled vacation in la-la-land has been a blast. But it's back to Viaggiatore's regularly scheduled life. (You know, the life where she's witty, edgy, and just an eensy weensy bit healthily cynical. Admit it, you miss her.)

And on this picture-postcard beautiful summer weekend in Tuscany, live it I will. Methinks this calls for a roadtrip.

"You only get one life to live. And if you live it right, one should be enough."

It's the long, skinny pedal on the right, baby.
Catch me if you can.

Carpe Diem (Blame it on Dead Poets Society)

Three years ago, when I was here on a hiking trip (con la bella Beatrice) and first stumbled onto the possibility of moving here, I sent myself a postcard as encouragement, as a "placeholder".

It is a photo of a doorway.
Today, it is still stuck to my refrigerator (by a magnet that says, "do one thing every day that scares you"). Upon the card, I wrote:

“I went into the woods because I wished to live deliberately. To front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not – when it came time to die, to discover that I had not lived. Si può fare”

Si può fare: “this can be done” in Italian.

My dear friend, the leader of the Waterford White Robe Club (who I want to be when I grow up), has a sign in her cabin that says simply, “I Can Do This.” It is her spirit that I summon when I need strength.

Today, after another mostly sleepless night – where I woke constantly, unable to breathe, my mind and heart elsewhere, the air clammy and close, my feet trapped in the sheets - I hold that card like a talisman over coffee.

I sit. And breathe deeply.
And, in this quiet moment, I know.

I know why I am here.
I have learned to be still.
Discovered the real me amidst the noise.
I have healed.
I understand now not just what I want,
but what I need out of this life.

And I ask simply for the grace and wisdom
to be patient.
To recognize it when it comes along.
That I will have the strength to hold tightly to the things worth fighting for,
and discard the insignificant.

I know. I can do this.

Si può fare.

Walk through the doorways that open to you.
In the right place at the right time.
Only those not truly listening mistake synchronicity for coincidence.

Ascolta. Si può fare.
(Listen. This can be done.)

Things that make me go hmmmm....

Marketing guru Seth Godin riffs this morning on his new favorite word, "awkward." If I may say so, he's a little late to the party: awkward and angst have been on my best-words-of-all-time list for a long time. But his point is much more eloquently made than mine would have been:

"The reason we need to be in search of awkward is that awkward is the barrier between us and excellence, between where we are and the remarkable. If it were easy, everyone would have done it already, and it wouldn't be worth the effort."

I'll drink a toast (with my breakfast wine, of course) to that: Finding awkward. To knowing that feeling awkward is better than feeling ... nothing. Angst and awkward remind us that we are, indeed, alive. Pushing through them - to be true to yourself, to find the nearly invisible line between good and great, to live a life extraordinary: now that is a worthy pursuit.

Wine for breakfast!

Seems to make all the sense in the world.
When breakfast is pasta with fresh tomatoes,
and it's 2:30 in the afternoon before you get around to eating it,
because "sleep" finally came, inconveniently, between 7 am and noon.

Clearly, I'm living in the wrong time zone.

Please, just make it stop

... that ker-thunk, ker-thunk, ker-thunk in my head.

... the feeling of wanting, desperately, to curl up in the fetal position.

... the magnetic SWOOSH closed move that my eyelids do about every 12 and a half minutes.

I am not normally a "whip up a pot of espresso at 7 pm at night" kinda gal. But desperate times do indeed call for desperate measures. I have a command performance at 8:30 for dinner, at my delightful and kind neighbors' home. Where they will regale me with stories of the long hot summer in the country, and I will be expected to respond in kind with humorous anecdotes about life in America.

Snap out of it, babe.
Your face won't look quite so ashen with a little lipstick.
And would a smile kill ya?
Tousle the hair.
Throw on the sexy ankle strap shoes (The Mom is right, perfect shoes DO make a girl feel better).
Amazing feats of adequate verb conjugation, here we come.

Cue the charming and witty expat.

If the espresso doesn't work, I'm switching to tequila and cocaine.

Baby don't you break my heart slow

So, you've seen "Under the Tuscan Sun."

(I make this assumption, by the way, because EVERY random stranger I run into who discovers that I live in Italy makes the completely asinine observation, "oooh, just like Under the Tuscan Sun!")

You know the scene where she meets the guy, has the whirlwind romance, then leaves only to return and find that maybe "he just wasn't that into her"?

That's the classic American Girl/Italian Boy ill-fated summer romance story. He wines and dines and kisses her, her heart runs away with her head, and she believes there's more there than there is. When she returns, he's in someone else's arms.

And every now and again, the story goes the opposite way.

He was beautiful and kind, with eyes you could get lost in and curly salt-and-pepper hair. They met at a classical music concert. He spoke (absolutely) no English. He seemed to understand her still-somewhat-broken Italian. He took pains to help her with verbs. For the entirety of a week, they were inseparable. He whipped up amazing pastas in her kitchen. They watched the full moon rise together, drinking much too much Brunello. They broke wine glasses and laughed. He read her palm and told her mysteriously to be careful of her ankles. He called her "bella," often, touching her cheek as if she were a porcelain doll. He read to her from persian philosophy books, in Italian, taking pains to explain the allegories when she didn't understand. It was by all measures the perfect first week of a relationship.

He insisted on driving her the two and a half hours to the Rome airport when she had to leave. She said she would send postcards, and she did. He sent text messages, full of kisses and wishes.

And towards the end of the summer, she returns. Only, it's not the same.

Because she has realized:

That it's sexy to be talked to in Italian, but not so much to feel like you're not actually communicating meaningfully.

That kisses should feel more like the opening act of a ballet and less like the opening shots in a battle.

The importance of a shared reality.

That her life's rules exist for a reason.

That the game really can change overnight.

That drawing something out when you know it's going nowhere is the worst combination of cruel and lazy.

That sometimes the fairytale doesn't look like you expected it might.

The difference between Mr. Right Now and Mr. Right.



And precisely two full moons later, she makes her own pasta, opens herself a bottle of wine, and drinks a toast in the solitude of the waning summer sunlight. To waiting for Mr. Right. And she quietly hopes that the socialized Italian medicine system has effective treatments for a broken heart.

He'll bounce back. It's what Italians do.
And she ... she will practice being alone but not lonely. It seems to be what she does best.

Sssshhhhhhh. I'm in my cave.

I've developed a rule of thumb: for every week I spend on the road, I need a full day to pull myself back together into some semblance of a responsible, polite, enjoyable-to-be-around adult human being. (I suspect this formula has a multiplier that increases with age.)

I zombied myself through ye-ole-day-job this past week. But this weekend finds me feeling all squashy and nesty. Cue the yoga pants, scrunchied hair, and comfy tank top. Primary ingredients:

* giant princess bed
* olive oil popcorn
* copious amounts of wine
* good DVDs and those two books I've been meaning to read
* cold pizza for breakfast

E.g., I will be spending the weekend generally doing nothing remotely responsible.

The world might be continuing to spin out there, but damned if I know.

Talk amongst yourselves.

Veeeeery interesting...

In response to my "Lets Make a Deal" post, I have received offers to trade a month in Tuscan paradise for everything ranging from a blue paper clip and undying gratitude, to an innovative "gift basket of goodies" including Larry McMurtry's phone number coupled with (my favorite) Moleskine notebooks and an orange fountain pen, in a Victorian house in the NC hills.

In related news, an email was received from someone claiming to be "THAT guy" with an offer to carry my luggage during that trip to Saskatchewan. Interesting! Is this an application?!? Golly, I'll bite. Would he let me drive? Would he put other restrictions on the trip? And if he IS "THAT guy", is he really too shy to comment publicly? (I mean, wouldn't he like to get to know all of you, too?)

Hmmmmmmmm! I do love me some audience participation.

Just for kicks, let's keep the bidding on that month in Tuscany open for a while ...

Banging my tin can against the bars

No, kids, Viaggiatore is not normally a whiny sourpuss. In fact, I'm almost twistedly chipper most of the time (better living through chemistry, to be sure).

But on rare occasions, I can be a whiny insufferable bitch. (No, we don't need testimonials to this effect, but thanks for offering, The Mom.) To finally be BACK and yet be trapped under the very large rock of things-that-must-be-done-and-done-FAST-in-ye-ole-day-job is a major bummer.

A 12 to 14 hour workday chained to not one but two computers, with only a glimpse of Tuscany out the window is something akin to Chinese water torture (or, I imagine, any other kind of torture).

I have 14 days of unused vacation from last year that in theory expired last month. The entirety of Italy is "in ferie" (on vacation) and yet here I sit.

Other than the spectacular sunsets (visible from aforementioned window) and cheap but fab house wine (Chianti of course), I might as well be in a hotel in West Des Moines.

Work in paradise is still... work. Worse, actually, because paradise really is just out the window, not just a tantalizing screensaver. Like jail with a better view.

I know. I'm just feeling sorry for myself, because I (and everyone else I know) actually have to work for a living. This too will pass. And yes, I know that with all the horrors in the world I'm a spoiled brat for even typing this. I do know how lucky I am.

But in this fleeting moment, I am kinda wishing I was a trust fund baby. Any billionaires out there looking to adopt?

Not a Fairytale

Just an average girl.

In a very very big bed.

Who cannot sleep.

Because something's not right.

Too quiet? Too hot? Too cool?
The flailing of the moth?
The stirring of the trees?
The fullness of the moon?

The feathertop mattress is lumpy in the wrong places.
Her very own perfect pillow isn't squishing quite right under her head.

Toss. Turn. Sigh.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

"Jetlag," you quietly assure. "It'll wear off."
And, desperately hopeful, she wants to believe you.

Come dawn, she will untangle herself from the sheets,
waking never feeling so hard.
Wearily brush the sleep out of her eyes.
Marvel at the transformation to Medusa.
Her prince will not be sitting at the breakfast table.
She will groggily make her own coffee.
Because this is real life.
It's not a pea, and she's not a princess.

Though too many nights like this and she WILL magically turn into a royal pain.




(*photo credit to the lovely and talented Eurobimbo!)

Let's make a deal

One of the things that I miss the most when I am on the road is the chance to spend time over breakfast or lunch each day catching up on blogs and random happenings in the world. The go-go-go of life on the road doesn't allow for much rose smelling or aimless wandering out in the vast expanse of the world wide web. When I do go a-wandering, without fail, I stumble upon something that reinforces my faith that the world is an increasingly fascinating place.

Today is no different. From a short mention on dear Patti's 37 Days blog, I spent a half hour getting sucked into the story of a Canadian guy named Kyle MacDonald, who traded a red paper clip for a house.

Actually, he traded his red paperclip for a fish pen,
for a ceramic door knob
coleman stove
red generator
"instant party" (keg o' beer and neon sign)
snowmobile
trip to Yahk, British Columbia
Box truck
recording contract
a year living in Phoenix
an afternoon with Alice Cooper
KISS snowglobe
A movie role
House on Main Street in Kipling, Saskatchewan, Canada

What I think is most remarkable is that Kyle's willingness to be wacky unleashed an exponential spirit of creativity in those who heard of his story, from people to entire TOWNS. The trades that ensued started with "practical" and then morphed into experiences, crafted by people who wanted to participate in the spirit of the "event". Creative energy begets creative energy, defying the law of conservation (go back to high school physics). No, this is absolutely not your grandma's barter economy.

Being a generally unmaterialistic person (heck, I sold or donated everything except 13 suitcases of stuff when I moved here!), I am truly fascinated with the concept of barter economies in general. This continual "trading up" appeals to the "one man's trash is another man's treasure" instinct in us all. It's about matchmaking between haves and have-nots. Here in Italy, I can assure you that the barter/trade service economy is alive and well, and I might quietly suggest that America could do with a little more of this spirit, and a little bit less just throwing money at problems. Lack of money begets creativity. That one red paperclip is sure making me look differently at the "stuff" around me.


By the way, that house on Main Street in Kipling, Saskatoon apparently comes with the construction of the world's largest red paperclip, and an annual "red paperclip day" celebration (let's just hope it's not in January!).

My hat's off to ya, Kyle. Because I derive immeasureable childlike delight from quirky random stuff, because I think the world takes itself a wee bit too seriously on occasion (and yes, I include myself in that), but mostly as a tribute to the value of bartering, I'll add "visit the world's largest red paper clip" to the list of things that I want to do in my life.

Sure makes me wonder what I could get for, say... a month in a Tuscan farmhouse?

Pickup Lines

Seven long weeks on the road. And in that time, I am confident that I have learned more - about myself and others – than I am able to catalog here in one fell swoop. It shall suffice to say that while I am happy to be standing still for a while again, that in some important ways I am a changed person.

When travel does not teach us something about ourselves, we should stop doing it.

In the life of a traveler, the airport is a critical gateway; a necessary evil. We have learned the fastest routes, the secret efficiencies, the subtle crispness of communication that separates road warriors from leisure travelers. We are a subset of the traveling population, those of us who travel professionally. The swoony honeymoon couple, the young family going to visit the inlaws, the kids on spring break, the woman going home to care for a sick parent or the young protegee on his first business trip: we, the class of professional road warriors, wear different game faces than these people. We do not have to be prompted to remove our blazer/shoes/laptops/cellphones; indeed the routine of it is almost welcome to us. Our mask is the shared, weathered and resigned, “seen-almost-everything” look. And on those rare long trips when we can’t do carryon only, we claim our bags and head wearily and efficiently, drawn mysteriously with an eerie sense of rote memorization, to the taxi line.

Except for the times when we don’t. When we can skip the taxi line.

Travel Luxury Number One: the airport pickup.

While there were others in between, notably and perhaps karmically (shhh! The universe is sending messages and I’m straining to listen), my trip was “bookended” - upon arrival in the US and then on the occasion of my return to Rome – by the rare luxury of airport pickups. At the beginning and the end of my trip, I was met by someone who had gone out of his way to put his own life on “pause” (ridiculously late at night or early in the morning) so I did not have to suffer the grave indignity of mass transportation hauling luggage. (To Mr. Hospitality and Sgr. Luna Piena, I offer my humble and most genuine thank you.)

Those "bookend" pickups stood out for me. They taught me that there are two kinds of people who meet you at the airport: the very best of lifelong friends - those with a shared history who genuinely care about your wellbeing and who know that you would repay the favor in an instant without even blinking twice. And those who are completely and utterly enamored by / infatuated with you.

JUXTAPOSITION:

The stability of an old friend who you know will be there with you through anything.

The adventure, unpredictability, and excitement of total-if-slightly-irrational infatuation.

In my sappy romantic heart, I believe that out there somewhere, there exists the guy who is the perfect combination of both. And, I say to myself, "Self: pay attention to the signs here. When the guy meeting you at the airport is THAT guy, the guy who can simultaneously be the best friend AND totally and completely infatuated with you, (“Did you really think that I’d be the guy who just pulls up out front? That I’d be cheated out of our hello?”), THAT guy is one worth fighting for."

Yes, I am blissfully happy to be standing still in Bella Toscana again. But the next time I have to get on a plane, I really hope... I would be luckier than I deserve to be to have THAT guy picking me up on the other end.

And if he turns out to be a fantasy figment of an overtraveled imagination, don't you worry, I'm a professional: I've always got taxi fare.

Come Fly With Me ..

"Let's fly, let's fly away... " (if you don't have that Sinatra song in your head by now, shame on you... or happy 13th birthday).

Random trivia; that song launched the glamour of travel to the mainstream US public. That was waaaaay back when it was still politically correct to say "stewardess" or "air hostess" and the general public didn't think that nylon workout pants, baggy logoed t-shirts and (GASP!) fanny packs constituted appropriate travel attire. Today MY seatmate, thankfully, is significantly more upscale: he obviously just came from an audition for a role as the newspaper boy in the broadway production of ANNIE, complete with saucy black beret, jazz shoes, red suspenders and a banjo (but I digress.)

And so, I'm typing this a dead-cat-morning's-breath away from red-suspendered banjoman (I'm trying to restrain my unbridled lust) as Delta flight 70 wings its way over Nice and Monte Carlo. It couldn't be a more gorgeous day to fly. An unfortunate 2-plus hour mechanical delay also means that we're heading through in the morning sunlight, soaring over dizzying blue oceans dotted chaotically with torn patches of wake, the aquatic playground of the world's rich, marginally famous, and infamously badly behaved.

From this height, the pull of the currents in broad swaths and the varying depths of the ocean reveal a rare glimpse at another world entirely. I have a tangible, anxiety-inducing fear of swimming in open water, though it beckons alluringly to me from this vantage point.

I slept fitfully, if at all, due in part to too many thoughts running through my head and with the runner-up cause fairly attributable to a crappy redesign of the earplugs provided in Delta's amenity kit (FWIW, Delta, earplugs are supposed to SQUISH TOGETHER, go in to your ear, then expand to block out sound. Please, please, please take this to heart before ordering gazillions more of these lousy injection-molded plastic bright red suppository-looking things).

Silver lining: Ipod with well stocked playlists.
Reflective pensiveness is the mood of the moment.

I'm not borrowing trouble from tomorrow, Beatrice, but I cannot help but wonder: how many more times will this be my private spectacular aerial tour? I am in the window seat by design, and I am not disappointed: The bellissima Ligurian coastline and her bevy of island girls are showing off today, as azure and clear as it has ever been; tufts of cottony white accenting the right places 'just so' ... self-absorbed starlets performing as if perhaps they know that I may not pass this particular way again in the near future.

There are moments in time that are meant to be held like fragile, breakable things. When you're handed one, stare out the window and breathe deeply. Today is the only guarantee each of us has; may we use it wisely.

The entire western coastline of Italy and southern France is collectively waving at me. Welcome home, indeed.

Leavin' on a Jet Plane

2 hours 'til I'm back on that plane, Italy-bound.

It's been a completely surreal seven weeks. The words of that John Denver song echo in my brain. (I'm leavin' on a jet plane: don't know when I'll be back again ... oh, babe, I hate to go ... So kiss me and smile for me, tell me that you'll wait for me ... hold me like you'll never let me go...)

I have been surrounded with some of the very best people in the world during my travels, the list is too long to detail, but you know who you are. I don't say it often enough (so listen up!), but I am incredibly lucky to have such amazing, supportive friends scattered across the country. Despite my general unpredictability coupled with cranky weary traveler-ness, you all not only opened your homes and your lives, but poured me a cocktail, lent an ear, and reminded me how much I miss our deep, meaningful connections when I am away. I am undeserving and humbled by it, but unspeakably greatful for your friendship, hospitality, shoulder-to-lean-on, quiet non-judgemental listening, no-matter-what-happensness, and unwavering support. Love you. Mean it.

Speaking of gratitude, I met up with my blogdaddy, The Sean Show, a few nights ago for cocktails and commiseration. His new tattoo says "Gratitude", and it just ... spoke to me. I love how if we just sit still at the right moments, life gives us exactly what we need. We just have to have the courage to take it, and be appreciative of it.

And sitting here in the Crown Room, I'll drink to that.