"If nothing ever changed, there would be no butterflies."
~Author Unknown
I have been fed up with sleepwalking through my life. What woke me up two years ago? Another birthday? Realizing I was living my whole days and years for others? Who knows how long our days remain
healthy and active? So while I
have those things still, I take off. Off to find MYSELF! I am still searching, of course, finding bits and pieces of
me along the way.
It’s challenging and a bit disconcerting to travel alone in
a country where one does not speak the language. I’ve made a list of Italian words but I have not used
many. Yesterday the man at
the train station sold me a Rome-to-San Gimignano ticket (actually to the nearest town:
Poggibonsi), but he did not even consider that I would need to go from
Civitavecchia to Rome!! It must
have been quite obvious that I was a foreigner and rather lost, but he was absolutely
literal with the list of places I was to go. Thankfully I went to the station a half hour early. Now I’m on the train and wondering
about making the 9am Rome train he assigned me …
A chance to ponder:
I often find myself saying “I travel to paint” or “I travel and
paint”, but what I am really doing is moving to EXPERIENCE. To discover for me, to learn and find
more of myself in each place and in each moment. Finding my now identity, the feeling of me. The personal joys, the true
friendships, the deepest loves.
There are those things that still hook into me and disturb
me. Things like “what my family
expects of me” or “my debit cards are not functioning to get cash right how”
(while in Spain or Italy!) or “money is limited and I should be producing more”. But the deep, deep inner me is NOT
concerned. I survive. I will survive. Things will work out for me. They
have. They do. Why do I doubt?
When I do arrive in Rome, I have, of course, missed the 9am
train. Finally, I get help to
catch the next train .. well, the two hours later train. I send a message to my AirBnB host in San Gimignano and he
replies. His sister will meet me
at the train station in Poggibonsi and give me a ride to the house. All is well.
Meanwhile, I have decided to not explore more of Italy as
initially planned, but get to France as soon as I can. Lyon – where there are friends to talk to, a
place and language in which I can abide.
~
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