I think we need to pay more attention. As a writer, I should be all about seeing connections, deeper meanings, reflections, allusions. And yet, how often do all of us keep our antennae retracted like a snail half out of its shell?
I have a new mantra:
This is tourist season in one of the most touristy parts of the world. In the winter, in Tuscany, you can go on twenty train rides and not hear any English. In the summer, half the crowded train is American. Even if they don’t talk, I know them by their Vera Bradley and Saks bags.
Most of these people are showing signs of sensory overload. “Americans think we’re such a small country,” my friend who works at the hotel said, her tone a little insulted. “They think they can do Florence and Pisa in the same day.”
I stood up for us. I said it was not easy to get here from the U.S. and that many people consider this the trip of a lifetime. Naturally they want to see all they can.
I believe that’s why we take hundreds of pictures. At some level, we sense that we need to reflect on this moment, to see more deeply into this place, this people, this history, but we don’t have time. So we make the pictures and videos, hoping we will someday will have time.
But how long has it been since you sat down with your vacation pictures and really gave yourself the opportunity to reconnect with that experience, reliving the scents and the weather and the vibe of the place. Never? I spent a small fortune having all my travel videos converted and uploaded to a private YouTube channel so I could watch them over here. Ask me how many I’ve watched.
Most days, my adventures in Tuscany consist of deciphering food labels and fighting mosquitoes. But when anyone visits, I become a tourist, and I look forward to those intervals just as much as if I were making an overnight flight. Maybe more, because I’m not the one making the overnight flight.
Right now, I’m in tourist mode for two weeks with two of my favorite people in the world, my cousin and aunt. My mom and I have looked forward to this visit for months. Janice has never been to Italy, so we’re doing a sweep, though I cut her list in half and vetoed Rome and anything south. For that, she’ll have to come back next year.
Even so, there are many things that I love and want to show her and many things I haven’t seen myself that I want to see with her. So, I guess we’ll make a ton of pictures.
But if half the adventure is in the reflection, then what does it really mean to reflect? Here’s a partial list:
- To be aware, and amused by, the small, quirky things all around us (such as that guy in medieval dress with the motorcycle tattoo) for we are an eccentric, paradoxical species.
- To watch how people react (and to learn from both good and bad examples).
- To have our eyes open to beauty and creativity, even in the poppies in the train tracks or the street art on the sides of abandoned buildings.
- To understand that everyone has burdens and to cultivate an attitude of patience and compassion, whether it’s the mailman who always leaves your mailbox half open or the French ticket agent who snarled at you because you bought your train tickets in Italy.
- To look at the deeper meaning of simple things, how a jar of new peach jam or a handmade gelato, speaks of bounty, of tradition, of artistry, of love.
- To recognize that we are all writers. We are crafting the narrative of our life. We are all painters. We are painting our own portraits as surely as Dorian Gray did. Everyday, we have an opportunity to make our story more thoughtful, more meaningful. Everyday, we can make our portraits wiser and more gentle.
The truth is that we can practice these thought patterns anywhere, even at home—especially at home. Because to a reflective person, life is the adventure.
So whether you have a vacation or a staycation, make it yours in a deeper way—own it— through reflecting on it.
Alison