2015: A Year in Review

"All that is gold does not glitter.

Not all those who wander are lost;

The old that is strong does not wither,

Deep roots are not reached by the frost."

-J.R.R. Tolkien

This past year I lived in 4 different cities on 2 continents: Florence, Prato, Orlando, Washington DC.  The question "where are you from?" has become more complicated than ever.  But I am taking a moment to reflect on this because it's a unique situation--it's worth reflecting on because I probably won't ever again be able to say that I called so many places home in such a short period of time.  It's certainly a privilege, mostly because of all the beautiful and wonderful humans that I've had the opportunity to meet and to love.  And I want to be clear that I would not change anything about the past year, even if I could spare myself the uncertainty and the frustration and some of the tears. Because the funny thing about the uncertainty and frustration and tears is that they teach you a lot more than easy routines, natural talent and instant success

That said, all the moving and changing and shaking up is exhausting.  My suitcases were my only point of continuity, the only things that came with me on every step of the journey.  I always thought of commitments as things that hold you in one place and therefore, as things that are inherently bad. But in the course of this past year, I found myself longing to stay in one place long enough to put down some kind roots, roots not so easily reached by the frost.  This is something that "older and wiser" people in my life had warned me would happen and I laughed at them up until the moment when I realized that it was true.  Everyone is on their own journey, but for me, this is a part of getting older, of growing up.  And I hope that 2016 will be a year of only one city, at least for me, at least for the purposes of living, at least for now.

"The bottom line is that we need each other.  And not just this civilized, proper, convenient kind of need.  Not one of us gets through this life without expressing desperate, messy and uncivilized need."

-Brene Brown, Rising Strong

But I have never done anything in a vacuum.  I have to recognize that I had a lot of help this year from a lot of people: friends, strangers and strangers who turned out to be friends.  I learned a lot about self-reliance and independence, but the more valuable thing I learned was how to know when you need help and how to ask for it.  Help in the form of friendship, help in the form a listening ear, help in the form of a ride (for myself and often large amounts of my stuff), help in form of a couch to crash on or a perfectly timed hug.  

While I couldn't possibly list the names of everyone who helped me over the past year-- if you welcomed me into your home or gave me a reference for a job or listened to me whine about my problems or drove me around or helped me move, if you told me "it's going to be okay," if you let me cry on your shoulder, if you shared your wine, if you asked "are you okay?" sincerely because you were concerned-- thank you.  Thank you from the very bottom of my heart.  I recognize that this past year, even more than usual, that I would not have made it through without the love and support of friends and family around the world.  I'm so grateful, so very grateful and I hope to pay it all forward someday, since I know that I could never pay it back.

 "O Master grant that I may never seek

So much to be consoled as to console

To be understood as to understand

To be loved as to love with all my soul."

-Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi

Another crucial lesson learned was about understanding context, about the things that make us different and why they matter or sometimes don't matter.  As a traveler, I am constantly in awe of everything, but I struggled to reconcile all the experiences I had, all the things I saw. I struggled to understand my own ability to live fully within two different cultures and to wrap my head around my own actions and biases.  It wasn't until I started to look for and find a greater context, the bigger picture and how this can change from place to place, situation to situation, person to person that I was able to begin making sense of it all.

It made me realize that I don't necessarily have to think of one way of doing things as being inherently better, that I don't have to confine myself to single way of thinking.  It's recognizing with humility that I don't know everything and there is always something to learn.  It's recognizing that no city or culture has a monopoly on answering the question of what it means to live well.  It's recognizing that the world is big and wide and long and beautifully and convolutedly diverse. Looking at the world this way reinforces the value of boundless curiosity, of asking questions (even questions that on the surface seem shamelessly stupid) and, most importantly, of seeking first to understand rather than to be understood.  

That understanding has brought me greater patience and sensitivity in working with people and a solid foundation for understanding different points of view and why two different, intelligent people, given the same information could draw a different conclusion.  Looking for a context that is significantly bigger than us and our problems is what gives us the ability to entertain an idea without accepting it, what makes it possible to empathize with another person, what makes us travelers and good citizens of the world.

And in all of these endeavors, as always, I am still decidedly a work in progress.  I am glad to know that there is still plenty of room for growth and plenty of work to be done in the new year.

So Happy New Year, dear friends, to you and yours.

In 2016, let's resolve to have some wonderful adventures. 

Mani Freddi, Cuore Caldo

Two weeks ago, we had the first truly cold day since I've lived in Washington DC.  I put on my heaviest jacket, bundled up and took a deep breath before taking those first tentative steps outside.  My hands were cold, but my heart was warmed when a stranger on the street smiled at me and said encouragingly, "stay warm out there."  His glowing smile was contagious and I was determined to carry it with me, even when a gust of wind that surely came straight from the Arctic itself assaulted me as I turned the corner.  As two involuntary tears streamed down my cheeks, I held tightly onto my hood and that warm smile.

I don't know much about winter, but I'm familiar with bitter winds. We can measure the windchill in the air, but it takes more than thermometers to understand the windchill in our hearts.  It's a cold world out there, after all.  Shootings and bombings and hostages.  It's amazing how things happening far away can hit so close to home.  We watch wars play out on television and senseless acts of violence happen daily in our own cities, on our own streets, right in front of us.  The great Italian author Cesare Pavese once wrote "ogni guerra e' una guerra civile"- "every war is a civil war."

And that doesn't even begin to account for the individual tragedies that we could each write.  The stories of heartbreak and grief and betrayal, the loved ones we have lost, the addictions that have haunted us, the times when trust was broken--we carry these things like ice in bare, frozen hands, trying to make sense of a world that can be unflinchingly callous.

And what can we do about our vulnerable hearts, so often left out in the cold?  We can always take the easy way out and close ourselves off like we close our borders.  We can lock ourselves away from the cold, barricaded in a dark room alone.  We can meticulously turn the keys in each lock and stack furniture in the entrance way, as if grief and joy entered through different doors.  But despite our best attempts at insulation, the cold will always find a way in.

The world is big and it is scary.  We have to recognize that our hearts will surely take a beating, released on their own in a place where loss and suffering and grief are waiting around every corner to have their go.  But bloodied and bruised as we may be, shattered and torn and broken as we are, we have to get up off of the ground.  Even when all the odds are against us, we have to go back into the ring, gritting our teeth, determined to love again.

I certainly don't have all the answers but I've found that human warmth is about more than body temperature.  Someone wise once said that one of the great miracles of friendship is its unique ability to multiply the joys while dividing the sorrows.  I think of fresh-baked cookies and hugs that stay with you like a hearty meal.  I'm not talking about the delicate, cautious, polite hugs but rather the stick-to-your-ribs kind of hugs, the not-letting-go kind of hugs.  And I think of the humbly defiant chrysanthemums, which have recently become my favorite flower.  They refuse to give up their seemingly dainty petals, though all the other flowers might.  They will hold out in spite of the cold.

We too may find that we are more resilient than we initially thought, that we can, in fact, weather the cold.

So put on a scarf if you have to, but don't hide from the cold.  Fearlessly fill your lungs with the cold air and remember that this too is a part of life on an ever-changing planet.  The winter may be brutal, but we must recognize that even winter can't last forever.  Winter, after all, is followed by Spring.

Until then,

Stay warm out there.

The Lunching Hour

My favorite hour of the day is, of course, my lunch hour.  But although I'm beginning to adjust to this big city life and beginning to feel like I blend in more than I stand out, there are some things that I just can't quite get used to.  One of them is going out to lunch.

In Florence, ordering a sandwich is not so much about the sandwich at all, but about chatting with the man (or woman) behind the counter and the choice of fresh ingredients.  No one wears name tags, yet somehow we all know each other's names.  Take a moment to comment or compliment or celebrate or (if you are feeling very Italian) to complain, say whatever is on your mind.  The bread will sustain you, of course, but so will the conversation.  For this reason, it takes 5 minutes to make 1 sandwich.  This is the miracle of time in Florence.

And somehow, a lunch hour is the same amount of time in Washington DC, yet it feels so minimalistic, so bare bones, so cold.  I say my order as quickly as possible, using only the essential words and shuffle in a line with a dozen other people around the counter, performing an awkward daily dance that always ends with the impersonal swipe of a credit card.  My food crosses three or four different people's hands and I don't even have time to look any of them in the eye.  There will be no fretting over finding two euros for change, there will be the minimum required exchange of pleasantries.  When someone asks you how you are doing, you will tell them that you are doing well, thank you for asking, regardless of how you are actually doing. For this reason, they can serve 5 customers in 1 minute.  This is the miracle of time in Washington DC.

Daylight Savings Time

 "We must not allow the clock and the calendar to blind us to the fact that each moment of life is a miracle and a mystery."

-H.G. Wells

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about time and how it passes and how we perceive it.  Today is a magical day when we create an hour out of thin air, simply by collectively deciding that it should be so.  And I'm tickled by the thought as I wind my watch back.

Still being a Washington outsider, I am completely fascinated by the complex and paradoxical relationship that people in this city have with time.  People are obsessed with saving time, yet seem to have so little of it.  On the streets, I see a hundred restaurant and coffee shop signs promoting an order-ahead-save-time scheme.  With the best of intentions, dozens of people have told me to download an app so that I can plan my commute down to the minute.  People tap their toes and click their heels, and run down the stairs even when the train has already left.  Plans with friends need to be made a week in advance.  In a place like this, people work hard and efficiency, or perceived efficiency, reigns supreme.

But it strikes me that all the scheming and planning and super organization is like looking for lost change in the couch in order to pay the mortgage.  It's drops in the ocean.  All these minutes and seconds that we have counted and calculated so painstakingly, where do they go at the end of the day?  Do we use them to call our mothers?  Or listen to our friends talk about their broken hearts?  Or beautify the world around us?

Our thinking about time is broken even down to the very essence of our language.  I wish we could change our idioms as easily as we change our clocks.  We talk about having time and running out of time and losing time without any sense of agency, as if everything is somehow beyond our control.  But the longer I live, the more I'm convinced that we actively make time for the things that matter to us and anything else is an empty excuse.  How we spend our time should be a conscious decision that we make, not something that totally mystifies us.

And yet...

In the most important moments of our lives, we have no choice but to be completely mystified by time.  We are powerless except to surrender to its incomprehensibility.

I occasionally find myself falling back in time to dinners and lunches around generous tables with seemingly endless bottles of Chianti and so many borrowed chairs squeezed in that they barely fit.  Yet there is always enough room for one more.  And there are peals laughter and big stories and small stories and gestures and drama and bread with young oil. This is a place where hours pass like seconds.

And I think about the times when seconds pass like hours.  I think of the baited breaths reaching out desperately for the acceptance of another human being in moments of vulnerability, moments when words come in groups of three.

I
love
you.

 Or

Please
forgive
me.

These fleeting instants when we step beyond time or exist outside of it, these are the seconds and hours that make us who we are.  In the moments that really matter, there is no difference between a minute and a millenium.

Units of Measure

Let's admit it.  We are a society of compulsive measure-ers.  We measure and we count and we fastidiously record the numbers, praying to find the hidden answers to our pains and miseries, the secrets of the universe, in mystical algorithms.

From pencil marks on papered walls, we measure our children in feet and inches, while we sweat over the slowly rising numbers on the scale, counting our own self-worth in pounds and ounces.    We confuse numbered hearts on Instagram with actual love and nervously note the number of wedding photos crossing our Facebook pages, while mourning each ticking second on our biological clocks.  Not surprisingly, students learn early-on to measure themselves by standardized test scores.  Which might work better if only the students themselves could be as standardized!  We count the zeroes in our bank accounts and tally our salaries and the amount of furniture we can cram into our houses.  All the credits and debits and interest rates that ultimately amount to that corrupt king of all measurements: the Gross Domestic Product!  A calculation that is omnipotent and holy, worshiped by all the talking heads on the television with its thousands of channels.

Maybe we should try measuring in poetry instead of in prose, in some of those things that are less easily quantifiable, yet all the more valuable.  Could we measure the miles traveled beyond the comfort of home as meticulously as the square feet within?  What if we came to appreciate the time and money given freely to others as much as the miserly sum hoarded in the bank?  It is a delightful paradox of our humanity that the more we give without counting the cost, the more we stand to gain!

I propose a success not measured by the length of our resumes and awards given to us by people whose names we can scarcely remember, but rather by the number of chairs around our kitchen tables  and how often they are filled and how many hours of card games and big belly laughs are enjoyed there.  What joy, what power, what love might we find in ourselves if we stopped counting everything else long enough to count our blessings?

Maybe the problem isn't so much the measuring as the units of measure.

Thoughts for the Far Off Future, in a Constantly Changing World

Someday I'll tell my children about what it was like before we could rewind the TV.  They'll ask how we survived when we had to choose between using either the phone or the internet, both of which were only available within the confines of our homes.  I imagine their looks of mixed confusion and admiration when I explain that people could once navigate using maps that didn't talk back or automatically zoom in on your destination.  They won't ever know what it's like to not be able to fit the entire world in their pockets--to hold the entire universe in the palms of their hands. 

I can't wait to tell them about travelling too, about all the lives you can't live through a screen.  Hiking up hills and mountains, fractured rainbows falling through stained glass windows in the breathtaking beautiful churches, the richness and complexity of Chianti Classico, sitting around a table where everyone laughs in the same language; these are the experiences I wouldn't trade for anything in the world.  Of course the next generation of travelers will scoff that it took 8 hours and $800+ to reach Europe from the East Coast.  Within their lifetimes, they'll be able to make that trans-Atlantic trip in the time it takes us to make a connection.  They'll jaunt off to Australia for the weekend.  I do envy them that.

I hope we'll travel together to Syria and the Middle East and visit restored museums and eat in restaurants and make new friends there.  I hope we'll be awe-struck by treasures as old as (older than?) civilization.  I pray that there will come a time when war and terror will be discussed only in the past tense.

I worry for the Earth and whether we will find a sustainable way to power our lives on our finite, beautiful little planet.  I hope that they will have hindsight advantage, left wondering at why we didn't find the solutions sooner, it was so obvious, after all.  Although I've always wanted a beach house, I hope that my hometown does not become ocean-front property anytime soon.

Like me, I hope they'll count Henry David Thoreau among their dearest friends.  When they are standing in front of a painting or piece of sculpture, I hope they listen for history's whispers, seeping into the air through the centuries. I hope they feel the thrill of looking Michelangelo or Bach or Cicero straight in the eyes, across millennia, engaging in that eternal human conversation that defies all the rules of space and time.

They'll read Harry Potter as one of the classics.  And when giving unsolicited advice, as parents always do, I'll tell them, echoing the words of a wise man, that the moment will arrive to decide between doing what is right and doing what is easy.  I'll tell them that they're sure to stumble along the way, but that I hope their balance always comes out on the side of the right.  

I'll tell them that excuses are cheap, but hard work is precious.  That honesty, sincerity, compassion and generosity are primary values absolutely vital to the living of a good life right now, in the present, not an afterthought that we can consider later.  By waiting for later to have more time or money or happiness to share some with others, we find paradoxically that we can never have enough.  Better to be content with what we have.  Better to decide now that what we have is enough. Better to believe that we don't have to to wait for the far off future.  Better to start today.

In this, above all, I hope that my actions will always speak infinitely louder than my words.

A Great and Resounding Perhaps

Leaving Italy sort of snuck up on me.  As usual, I don't feel remotely prepared for what's coming next but I'll be diving in anyways-- headfirst.  I didn't even tell very many people that I was leaving, perhaps not really believing it myself, which leaves me the awkward task of saying goodbye to everyone in the span of a few short days.

So why am I leaving anyway?  I guess for the same reason that I came: one day I asked my self what I wanted out of life and decided that I don't quite know what I'm looking for but I'm not going to find it here.

As always, I find that the trip is taking me rather than the other way around.  Taking me forward, I hope but at the very least, elsewhere.  And I hope that you'll still follow along with my adventures even when they don't involve passports or eight hour layovers or sleeping in airports (decidedly the least glamorous thing about long distance travel.). I intend to keep adventuring and writing and finding meaning in the small things as well as the big things (and the small things that are the big things.)

And people ask their questions like whether or not I'm "ready." To which I respond I was never "ready" but if I'm waiting to reach some magical moment of sudden preparedness, I'll be waiting an awfully long time.  If that question means to ask if there are moments when I ask myself whether or not I'm making a terrible mistake, I have to answer honestly and say that of course I have those moments, I've always had them and am not expecting that to change in the near future.

But when the doubts rear their excruciating and ambiguous head, I start throwing questions out to the universe.

Will it all work out in the end?

And the universe answers back, as it always does, with a great and resounding perhaps.

And on a good day, I read it as more of a probably.  And without further consideration, I start to pack my bags.  After all, it's the trips that take us, I'm just along for the ride.