When was the last time I took a two-week vacation? I honestly can’t say with any certainty – high school, college…? A couple years back we spent ten days in Paris. It felt extravagant and my memories of our time there are as airy and sweet as a macaroon. We recently spent two whole weeks traveling in Italy; to Bologna, the Cinque Terre, Florence and some of the surrounding country villages of Tuscany. There were so many great moments to the trip I’d like to eventually reprise, but right now I’m just pondering the indulgence of time off and the revelatory moments in travel which lend clarity and purpose to life.
Whether it’s a 2-hour lunch or a 2-week vacation, I recognized in Italy a need to build more space into my life. I need a break from the anxieties I’ve developed, the ambition I struggle with. Maybe it’s a middle-class myopia but I think many of us in this country are far too occupied with following a virtuous path of career and family, pinch and save, that we shortchange our own value. To indulge and celebrate oneself (I sense a Walt Whitman stanza in here somewhere…) is vital, and I think the Italian culture showed a stronger appreciation of that.
We had just spent two-plus hours eating, drinking and communing at SoloCiccia and we were sitting on a bench off a quiet road, staring off lazily at the rows of vineyards and verdant hills of Panzano. The clouds in the sky were luminous, architectural. It was so clear, so obvious, that this place was paradise. When we were back in crazy, bustling Florence, or crowded back on the plane coming home, even back in SF, I kept daydreaming of Panzano…If we lived there we would have a simple, happy life. And that may be true, but I’m slowly beginning to accept that I don’t need to live in Chianti to experience beauty and calm and fulfillment in a place. The Bay Area – this land, these people, the community values – has all those elements. I just need to reorient my life to better incorporate them; to center myself, physically and spiritually, into this place.
I’ve felt it before and I’m grateful for it now, the best part of traveling is coming home.