avventura!

Dearest Mama,
I'm off to a new adventure! Italy beckons, booted heel kicking up in a dance of welcome and off I go to twirl! I know Mother's Day is Sunday, but I shall be airplane bound and out of pocket that day.
I'd had some concerns earlier today about the trip, working myself to a fever pitch of jangled nerves. How so? Well, my head was laying out the scenario thusly. I'm traveling to another country, where I know no one, and I'm traveling with a group of people, of whom I know not a single one, and of this group of people, almost all are women.
You know full well where I'm going with this, don't you? As I have done all of my life, I don't usually hang out with a bunch of women, as I don't seem to have that much in common with them. I don't want children, I don't have children. I don't like shopping, and I primarily shop guerilla-style when I need something. I don't do the whole "battle of the sexes" thing and object to being subjected to such nonsense. I don't go to events as part of a group and think it odd that some folks would rather sit home alone than go stag.
Of course, that's been changing, too, these past few years. I now have some friends, female friends, who include me in their outings to movies and dinners and high teas. I've especially enjoyed the Evening Sans Beaus and the spontaneous Girls' Night Out to Ruby Tuesday this year. Maybe I'm becoming more girly??? No, I don't believe that's true. Maybe the women I've been meeting in my new social circles are simply more mature mentally than many I've known in the past.
So, here I am, preparing to go across the Atlantic with a group of more than twenty women. On Mother's day, no less.
However, I think I have my head wrapped around it nicely now. I had a very long talk - maybe three hours!- with una cresta di un onda dell'oceano and found myself calming down, especially after one of my favorite words was uttered: adventure.
Of course. This will be, most certainly, an adventure, una avventura! I had heard the word earlier today when I talked with a teller about euros and was surprised I had not already thought it to myself.
Instead, I had been talking to myself in circles collapsing upon themselves. Besides the concern of not knowing anyone - like THAT had ever stopped me from going anywhere - I was also putting too much pressure on the trip. I had started viewing the trip as an opportunity to reboot my life, much as I had done in 2004.
The first, and only other, time I traveled to Italy was as a wife on our tenth anniversary. I was my brother's Gal Friday for his hardwood flooring business, which had been granted the Mediterranean cruise for two as a sales promotion. Instead of a raise or more vacation, I asked for, and received, the cruise. Joy! You know how much I had dreamt of traveling to Italy since I was a girl, immersed in tales of Roman mythology. As you may recall, the cruise began in Barcelona, Spain, then made a stop in Nice, France (which was very nice and we went to Monte Carlo and saw Princess Grace's tomb). There followed three stops in Italy (Livorno, in the heart of Tuscan wine country; Civitavecchia [near Rome]; and Naples, with the ferry to Capri and sipping Limonello by the sea), then a final landfall in Malta before returning to Spain. Fabulous! And it was Jeff who noticed, when I was tromping around in the Forum, that my name was carved in marble, above marble columns, right there near Ceasar's tomb. My name. Wow!
So, now I am returning to Italy, much as I had returned to Okinawa in 2004 and had the good fortune to see the sights for only MY eyes, not yours. To visit the beaches and memorials and restaurants to make new memories for ME, not memories made real for me by the sharing of them with you. To take pictures and savor the food and smell the salt air for me alone. I was so blessed to be granted that opportunity to learn how to become the center of my universe.
I don't think that's quite where I am now. The full reboot and restructuring of my core is not necessary. It's been almost five years since the divorce. Time has done what time does best - the blurred edges have become nearly smooth, words have been softened and muted to nearly unintelligible mumblings. I am able to enjoy again the thoughts of the many good times we had shared for fifteen years, the good memories captured in photo albums, both mental and physical.
I've already begun regarding this European vacation as my birthday present to myself. You know how I've maintained for years that no one needed to get me a present because I was taking care of that myself? Well, still true! For this birthday, I'm taking clothes which no longer fit, clothes to be worn one last time and discarded. Clothes to be replaced with new ones to be worn the first time there, imbuing them with the olive-scented air and wine-soaked countryside. Mementos for me to wear and enjoy and, one day, discard for new clothes to wear whilst making new happy memories.
Thanks for the coin earlier...
with much love always,
ykw