A $3000 30th birthday gift to myself: two weeks of solitude in Italy
I walked into The Boboli Gardens in Florence on a rainy Monday morning. I had come with the intention to write. Rhodia journal, Pentel Energel Liquid Gel .7 pen (the BEST pen), and a €6 umbrella in hand. I found a bench. I began.
“My future feels hazy in many ways but the present moment, the one that got me to this bench and this journal and these relationships and this view and these tears of joy and this peace, is the most beautiful thing I could possibly imagine for myself. Thank you, kind world or cosmos or whatever, for the life I have been given and continue to give to myself. Thank you.”
By tears of joy I really mean “gentle sobbing” as a handful of couples walked past me with looks that I would call Concerned Lite™. I wish I could say my trip had only this one instance of weeping-in-public, but that would be a lie. I cried and marveled almost every day at the splendor of this country that I hadn’t visited in almost a decade, on a trip I dreamed up for myself under a much different set of circumstances.
My time “alone” in Italy brought about countless moments that I’d like to hold onto for the rest of my life:
The outdoor table in San Quirico d’Orcia, sharing a carafe (or three) of red wine with locals Julia, Kristian, and another man whose name I can’t remember but who had with him a beautiful dog named Funky. Trying to tell them in broken Italian that, while I appreciated the offer, I was actively choosing to travel alone and did not in fact need an Italian husband.
The boat tour of Venice that introduced me to both the region’s storied history and a new friend named Leila. Leila, a fellow solo traveller, is a copywriter from Beirut that currently lives in Istanbul. Together we shared wine, cicchetti, conversation about her upbringing in the Middle East, and a production of La Traviata in an old palace. We’ll likely never speak again but she gets married in May and I wish her every good thing the world has to offer.
Driving my rental car (I was given a Renault Megane, if you can believe the serendipity) through the hills of Tuscany as Me & My Dog came on shuffle.
The dinner at Otello in the Trastevere section of Rome, where I clapped like a child at a plate of lasagna. This delighted the pair of women at the table next to me so much that we struck up a 10 minute conversation about lifelong female friendships, the risks we take in life that make it worth living (one of them had just made a move to Rome from Milan for a dream job), and why cacio e pepe is so, so good.
The kind taxi driver in Rome who helped me practice my Italian.
Seeing Ermanno, my Airbnb host, star in a play in the Romaeuropa Festival called Il Grande Vuoto. He was brilliant and, while the play was (obviously) entirely in Italian, I still got most of it. It reconnected me with a plane of collective humanity that’s only found when you put good art on a stage in front of a captive audience.
Seeing a family of six struggle with their luggage and strollers, attempting to cross the many bridges of Venice back to the train station. Seeing that family again (and meeting them this time, letting them know I saw their luggage struggle and did nothing to help) as members of my walking tour group in Florence. And finally, getting full body chills as I saw that same family one last time in Rome as I was about to go into Zara.
There’s about 100 more I could list. Small connections, food, thoughts, details. It all came and went so fast.
On a whim, I picked up the book The Midnight Library by Matt Haig in the Philadelphia airport, and also ended up watching the movie Past Lives on the plane. Both of these stories deal with decisions and their outcomes. How every choice we make, seemingly big or small, has measured impact on the way the carpet of our lives rolls out ahead of us. How ultimately, it’s up to us to make and find meaning — it’s always there if we choose to seek it.
I’ve felt that deeply in the choices I’ve made throughout my 20s. As this chapter of my life comes to a close, I honor the choices I’ve made. To uproot my life, sell my house, and move from Rochester to Philadelphia. To run lots of miles and get stronger. To fall in love with a brilliant and generous man. To lean into my love of improv. To hang on tight to my friends, both old and new. To go to Italy alone. To ask questions. To sing. To try. To seek.
It’s apropos and a little poetic that my 30th birthday falls on Thanksgiving this year. The amount of gratitude I have for the past year is commensurate with the excitement I have for all the good things to come. To end on a cliche, my wish as I tossed a coin over my shoulder into the Trevi Fountain was a simple one: happiness and prosperity for myself and the people I love. Thank you for reading and for being in my life. Love you.
