1st week home and yet...

I feel as though I have been home for a month.  But the Italy trip still feels as though it were a year long odyssey.

I don't see many comments anymore, so perhaps I am getting BORING.  :)

I received an email from my brother full of bad news. He said he didn't want to bother me while I was in Italy. He is sweet.

I find that my time in Italy truly made some deep changes in my being.  Sure, stress has increased with the 'this needs to be done'  'can you drive me here?'  'taxes are due when!?' and those pesky doc appts.

But all in all, Italy lives on inside of me.  The walks along the Tiber, the breathtaking buildings in Perugia, the basilica in Assisi where I cried, the Roman wall in Spello, the food EVERYWHERE, the concerts in Umbertide, the Juno head at the Palazzo Altemps, St Peter's square, the lights from over the bridge, and those early morning runs in quiet Rome with the moon and morning star to brighten my way...INCREDIBLE!

I am not as wrapped with the busyness of life.  Normally I am the kind of person who would have everything put away a day after a vacation.  I still have 4 piles of stuff on my big bay window sill.
I haven't caught up with collecting the kindling we'll need for the winter.  The rooms aren't dirty, but things are messy.

I love the 'idea' of dedicating 2 whole days to getting all these things done, but it means pushing me , pushing the boys, and in the end, things get messy all over again.

I am looking for some balance here. (this is NEW) I also know after living in Anna'a house in Umbertide for 3 weeks, that there are a lot of things here that I do not need. I am not a hoarder and I regularly go through things several times a year to give to charity and local thrift shops.  It is different now because I realize I need very little, basically, not much.  Oh sure it's fun to have lots of doodads in the kitchen drawers, but I knew before I left I was feeling weighed down by what I own (and thought).

It is as though whatever I buy, buys me.  I want to keep that in mind as I move through life.  How much do I want to carry?  How much is related to fear?  Fear that 'SOMEDAY' I will need that mini melon scooper.  Or the fear of times when I have nothing to do and it pops in my head to go thrift store shopping to see what I can find.  If I don't need anything, there is nothing to find.   Read a book or better yet go out for a walk.  The accumulation of STUFF (good ol' George Carlin) is very sudden and often do our detriment.  I do try and buy local and used items, but even that can easily boom into clutter.

I've know lots of people who buy a bargain because it was a bargain. That bargain sits in their house year after year.  I know people who can't walk through their full size basements (3B 2b house) due to stuff.  They can't get rid of it.   So it sits, decays, smells, falls apart, clogs up the walk way and finally closes down the whole area.

Where in our lives do we do that same process, push things in the basement or up in the attic or in the garage. Stuff we don't want to part with, but no longer needed?  Shit, how many of us do that with our friendships, jobs, spouses?

Talking about relationships, I have 2 male friends (ages late 40's to mid 50's) and after they both spent about 10 months to get over intense (very unhealthy) relationships, they both hopped into new relationships quicker than cold water spits on a hot griddle pan.  'pop'

I was shocked.  After hours of conversations about finding who we are and needing to learn to take care of ourselves, yadda yadda yadda, they both did exactly what they did before, saw a woman across the room, raced over, dated twice, had sex, and ta da, living together.

They cling to each other as though they found their other half.  I call that 'crab love' 2 under-developed people who CLING to each other with tight crab grips thinking "Hey we are ONE now!"  I stand by and roll my eyes while I shake my head.  Same old, same old.  I'm disgusted.  I thought they were like me, they said they were anyway.  I am learning a lesson. Oh well.

The important lesson for me, don't always believe what people tell you about what they want, WATCH how they live their lives.  Actions speak but I ignored it.

So I continue to go my merry way down the path I am going.  They have decided to go another route. I miss seeing them and waving, but all I can see is their back now, as they walk arm in arm (crabs) with this person  thinking "This time,  I'll get it right and she (he) will save me".

Good luck with your choices, I need to move on.

I continue to head into the black forrest where there is no path.  But the closer I get to the deep thick cluster of trees, I can see more clearly.  From a distance it looks dark, dead, and abandoned.  Close up it smells of rich pines and oaks and great other tree smells.  I hear birds and see little creatures running along with seeds and nuts in they jowls.  I see there is plenty of room between the trees for me to walk and run.  And sunlight indeed shines down here as does the moonlight in the evenings/nights.  It is breathtaking here.  People stay away from the unknown, they want the path to be trodden by others first and they want where they are going to look beautiful from a distance and make them promises.

They are missing a lot, playing it safe, walking the same old paths with the same type of people.

Me?  I'm off on my own, in awe of the beauty here (and in me).

I too once believed that life was about pretty things and hooking up with people who made me feel good about myself (even though I didn't show them who I really was)  and staying away from dark, distant unknown things, places, people.

No more.  No more.

Some may say I have lost my mind, walking away from things, friends, patterns and no longer pursuing  success, trying to win a man,  only allowing myself to be people's caretakers.

I may have lost my mind, but it wasn't MY MIND, it was a mind filled from the time I was a child from an old religion, from parents who didn't understand their own emotions, from teachers who could be mean, from lots of kids who were cruel, from men who hurt me, from men who thought it was okay to verbally humiliate me because I was overweight, from friends who used me to make them feel better, from me thinking I had to stay to take whatever people were kind enough to give me.

My mind is my own now. No one hurts me.(not even me)  It is a content mind, full of compassion, full of connection to nature and others, a mind that sings, dances and smiles.  A mind that is not afraid to open and come out of tiny rooms, so it can breath and be free.  A mind that is not afraid to move.

My mind is open and clear as the sky, and going into dark places does not scare me.  I walk where my invisible path leads me.  I don't argue.  This I learned in Italy, to trust.  To trust me, to trust the universe (what I can see, sense, hear, feel,whatever)  I go along.  Life is an adventure when we let go of the stuff, whatever that stuff might be.

It is just after dawn, another day begins.  Here I go...again.