I am sitting in my Lucca kitchen on my last morning here. Even here, I have created some small habits that anchor me just a bit in these unfamiliar waters I have been floating in for a while now. I get up and grab a couple of pillows to stand in for my Zen cushion. I sit quietly as dawn slips into the bedroom. The 25 minutes go by much more quickly here than at home. I am not sure exactly why that is, but I don’t find myself breaking my out of focus, empty stare to check on how much time I have left. Maybe the daily repetition at home fosters an internal boredom, slowing time and speeding impatience.
I come into the kitchen, turn on the light and energize the automatic espresso machine I have loaded the night before. Next in the progression is turning on my mental dialysis machine, otherwise known as Baby Hal, my MacBook Air. I have been without my music since arriving in Italy and the silence is internally deafening. Pandora has not chosen to pay its Italian bill. I remember thinking how wonderful it was going to be to have my perfect soundtrack comforting me as I searched for some sense of security in this totally unfamiliar world.
In the quiet of this morning, I just felt like talking to you to break the silence. I have no pictures to share or adventures to regale you with. The truth of this trip is about the internal travel. Just like the sameness of my meditation at home, the every day routines can be dangerously numbing, fostering emotional laziness. This journey is all about stretching my insides and I can’t think of a better way to do that than surrounding myself with a kind of beauty I have never seen before. A thin layer of flesh is all that separates us from our two worlds.
I was terrified about taking this trip and have already shared my thoughts about cancelling it. I am not sure what I was afraid I’d find, but so far it has only been me, the guy sitting here in a windbreaker and towel, eyes filled with tears and a heart wanting to share itself with you.
These damn espresso cups are too small and I don’t like delicately hold them as I take one mini-sip after another. It feels like a caffeinated Alice in Wonderland moment.
I leave Lucca today and catch the 1:31 train to Florence. A driver will be waiting for me at the station, parked at a pharmacy across the street from McDonald’s, yes, Ronaldo is here. He will be holding a card with Feinstein written on it and I am certain there will only be one, but imagine if there were two? Now, that would be a true Through the Looking Glass moment; which one to choose?
Now that I am feeling at home and comfortable here, it is time to continue stretching. I am traveling to a spectacular resort, floating in the magic land of the Tuscany countryside. It goes by the name of Castello di Casole and you should immediately type it into the search box of your computer and spend a few minutes there and I will wait for you to come back………………..
I want to apologize for not asking you to come with me. I know, I know, somebody had to go and I snuck to the head of the line. The same folks who own this place also own Hokuala on Kauai and that is the connection. If I tell you how this came about, I would have to kill you and then there’d be no one to read about what’s to come.
After my final run on top of the Lucca wall, I will come back here and say goodbye to this wonderful, little world I have inhabited for these past days. I have been treated like family by Lenuta, her delightful little boy and Marco, her partner. Their chubby, little beagle, Sandy has been very patient with me, too.
I am not quite half way through the allotted portions of herbal capsules, sitting in the several, snap-top containers I have brought with me, different ones for day and night. There is no need to count the days behind and the days ahead, because the empty compartments do the work for me. So, a little more than half the trip is in front of me and I have absolutely no idea what’s in store for us.
If you are reading this far into Larry’s Adventura d’Italia, hang in for a while longer and we will both find out what happens after I find a guy holding a card with Feinstein written on it.
Much Love.