“If I’m not far away from myself, I’m not far away from home”
Me
I’m back on my bed in my Hugh Hefner robe. I had a great dinner in my regular haunt, Bar Visconti. I walk in now and the entire staff lines up at the entrance to greet me. I politely acknowledge them, but don’t encourage any kind of conversation, as it would be inappropriate for a man of my stature. I am shown to my regular table in the Jesse James corner, allowing me to keep a watchful eye on everyone who enters and no one gets behind my Navy Seal trained, hyper peripheral vision. I am ever so slightly stressed, because someone keyed my Ferrari this afternoon and it will take at least 24 hours for it to be repaired.
OK, I am sitting on the bed in my robe, so the above is not a complete fabrication. I did have my second dinner at the bar, another morsel of truth. I got back from my road trip, which I will tell you about in a second, and I am starting to drag from last night’s, wine fueled confessional. I am increasingly familiar presence at the hotel, the grey haired guy with the earring, who never seems to be reluctant to share his full on exuberance about the smallest things.
I have lost complete track of time. I haven’t cared about day of the week or the date in September, it is September, right? This has been a vacation in the best sense of the word. I have been floating here in Tuscany and the chains holding all my anchors have melted away. i still have a few more days to pretend I have no past, just this time, these moments.
I was so frightened about taking this trip and my chest would tighten on cue, whenever I thought about it. Right now, I am completely relaxed, at ease with myself. I don’t know, maybe I didn’t think I could spend so much time with myself, because I didn’t care for my own company.
Today is a great example. It was my second day with the Renault and I was going to do some serious driving. Last night’s excess slowed me down this morning. I didn’t get on the road until after 1PM and my target destination was Volterra, a town of around 10,000, northwest of where I’m staying.
You know what? I am falling asleep and I will pick this up in the morning. I had way too much fun and yes, I did kind of get lost again, although I loved the winding roads out in the country and I can definitely understand how some of the greatest sports cars came from Italy. I even followed the computer directions much better than yesterday, but I am laboring to stay awake and that fries any hope of creativity. See you in the morning…………………………
Buongiorno!!!!
While no time has passed for you, I am now on the other side of evening. It is a bit overcast and wispy, cotton clouds are hovering over the country side, while the morning seems a little confused about what kind of day it will share. I am back in the Hefner robe, but my mood is much lighter than it was last night, when I felt like I was flattening out and words were making themselves scarce.
I grabbed a favorite flannel shirt and yesterday’s jeans, scarred with pizza stains from my Volterra lunch and trundled off downstairs from my luxurious perch in room #5 to get some coffee. The restaurant had just opened its doors and I walked in, while the wait staff was still readying the place for the morning’s guests. When I came back outside, caffeine in hand, I looked around at this beautiful place and you guessed it, tears of gratitude welled up yet again.
Now, where were we? I was off to the town of Volterra, map in hand, destination punched in to my hand held navigational tool. I felt very comfortable behind the wheel and seemed to have adjusted to the unflappable voice, periodically emanating from my phone. The bulk of the ride was on SP68, supposedly about 20 miles, but it felt like at least double the distance and that is not a complaint, just an observation. I was loving the twists and turns, snaking through the beautiful landscape of this country, which I alluded to last night.
The trick when you approach any of these towns is to find parking, because only residents can park in the forbidden zones. My confidence level was sky high, not having made one miscue on the way. Don’t ask me how, but I did manage to screw up and somehow managed to be on road that was taking me back down the hill and away from my destination. None of this seemed to concern my navigator, who kept calmly informing me of my next upcoming turn.
Eventually, I found my way back to my destination and some excellent, illegal parking. It dawned on me that the likelihood of being towed was about as serious as similar threats on Kauai. I strolled around the town, accompanied by the usual hordes of tourists, maps in hand and cameras at the ready. I didn’t feel the need to visit the “important” sites and just aimlessly walked around, remembering various markers that would lead me back to my Renault. When I was sitting at a restaurant toward the end of my walk, it dawned on me that if I paid any goddamn attention to the map I had in hand, I could have walked anywhere and found my way. For someone with a reasonably high IQ, I am continually amazed at how stupid I can be, but what are you going to do? However, the truth is, as time goes by, it will be the feelings that remain and not one church versus another.
The afternoon was quickly getting away from me, so I bagged a drive to San Gimignano and headed to the town of Poggibonsi. One of the guys at the hotel told me about it and that there were some archaeological sites quietly tucked away. The drive got pretty tricky, continually arriving at traffic circles and being instructed to make the third right on to a street with a long Italian name or one of those SP’s followed by some numbers. It almost doesn’t matter what you do because emotionless instructions keep coming at you. Somehow, I managed to find the destination, primarily because she said, “You have arrived at your destination.” I saw a park with a little carousel, a big gelato stand, walkways and benches. In typical, guy fashion of never asking directions, I walked away from the road and deeper into the park. I definitely found some ancient looking structures and was so involved with moving ahead that I lost track of where I came from. Yup, did it again! I found myself walking down a very steep, narrow street into an old neighborhood. Finally, I broke down and asked a friendly looking fellow where the park with the carousel and gelato stand was. He smiled and told me to follow him. It wasn’t very far and I found my car, just where I had left it.
I fired up the navigation tool and headed back to Castello di Casole. I made all the appropriate turns at the endless number of traffic circles and actually found myself on a road that looked familiar, SP something or other. I turned into the road to the hotel, parked the car in the lot, grabbed my maps, articles of clothing, computer and backpack and returned to #5.
We are now just about where we started this story last night and it is time to exchange my Hefner robe for my running gear and a new day and my final car ride, this time to the city of Siena.
My time here is drawing to a close and I sadly sent a note to Allegra, Saint Concierge, to tell her about my flight time from Florence. There is still some more time here and I don’t want to hurry the story. Talk to you later today.
Love
Larry