Come vuoi
I notice this phrase pop up frequently with Italian speakers. When making plans or asking a question, come vuoi, as you like is often the response.
I feel it return choice and trust back to me. Often, I am accommodating to others needs, intentionally and subconsciously. So to hear, “as you like” I feel an invitation to breathe and return to myself.
The freedom I’m most often curious about and committed to is internal, welling up from inside. To be free to live in alignment with our deepest truth, our internal compass. This freedom is situated in context of other’s truths and needs.
For me, on this trip, my internal compass asks me to travel slowly, to have a mission, to improvise, plan just enough, and trust that I will experience what I can take in. It’s also peeling back the layers of a place, peeking behind the curated tourist experiences, and making friends.
I let myself rest, I do my laundry by hand and hang to dry. I love seeing people’s laundry hanging out in the sun, tickled by the wind. Some of our most private garments out in the world!
I walk too much, feet blistered. I float in the Adriatic sea, daydreaming. I reach out to friends at home, comforted by the uninhibited exchange of words and ideas.
I make flashcards for Italian words. After two weeks, my ears are shifting. I accept that I am like a two year old and just try. I use my body like I’m playing charades. People are kind towards my attempts.
As I head more and more south, I am mostly amidst Italians on holiday. For many, August is a time for rest and play, in southern Italy especially. Rocky coasts, sprinkled with bright colored bathing suits and umbrellas.
I am deep in the “heel” of the boot. Today heading towards the very bottom, there’s something really satisfying about traveling the perimeter of a beautiful peninsula. I am on a small bus, looking out to the ocean, small towns and olive trees. Here in the south, many olive groves are dead or rapidly dying from disease. It’s shocking to see how pervasive it is across miles and miles of land. I take in the sadness and mourn the dead.
I feel the groundedness of my being rippling from my week at Casina Settarte. Spending a week with other humans, similarly obsessed and hungry for movement and play. A place ripe for making friends and dropping in.
It’s from these spaces- connecting with new friends and the previous week with cousins- that I cultivate the confidence in myself to keep going and stay open.
a little more time south before shuttling myself north.
ciao amici!
em