Blog One — Italy 2023

We leave on a shuttle tomorrow morning at 8:00 AM. If all goes well, we will be meeting cousins in Milan sometime tomorrow, a few hours after we land, and await their Chicago direct flight (jealous, much?).

Plausible deniability: Some of the folks who get this blog have made the regrettable error of encouraging the author in the past — a fact you no doubt regret already. With such careless inducement, the blog continues. I get to experience the trip in vivid neon when I write about it. You must feel free to delete it, not read it, or do whatever you like — better delete than carry resentment around, right?

We meet, the five of us DNA connections. Two cousins who have foolishly and/or generously allowed us to join together on several adventures abroad, and with whom we share about 50 words of Italian, and one new cousin, of inexact relational status but certainly DNA connected, who is also joining us for her first trip. She may regret the whole thing by the time we are done, but she is a competent, mature woman who will bring her own skills and good humor to the trip. We’ll know each other better later.

We will be in Milan a few hours ahead of the cousins, as they have a direct flight from Chicago (as I said, me jealous much?), and we’ll wait for them. The challenge of the car: John and Lew, steely-eyed and determined to pack our never-modest-enough luggage into a tiny-for-us Italian luggage space before we go to our usual overnight hotel, looking like a cartoon of the overloaded hotel guests, boxes all hibildy-kibildy.

We’ve reached the place where our grown children no longer need us or even desire time with us, probably, as they tend to their active lives. Brother Bill is unable to join us this time, as are several of the next generations, and they will be sorry to miss it, and we’ll miss them too.

We have had an extraordinary year, and this particular trip originated in January 2023 with a desire for distraction from life. The nudge was upon me. Meanwhile, we are sped forward by two sharpening perspectives: an awareness that life is finite and a determination to use our time as best we might, savoring our opportunities.

The theme for the trip, maybe the year, comes from an author whose name I don’t remember but will steal from anyway — (sorry/not sorry)

When Shall we live if not NOW?

Judy’s property management at home is handled in person by son Tim, the bills we hope will all be paid, the refrigerator emptied, the cherished friends will call other treasured friends, and if I get the remaining 14 items on my to-do list done, we’ll be on our way. Seeing what we forgot this time will be fun — there is always something, y’know.

We have three glorious weeks. How can one fill them? Dear me. Two birthdays, two ancestral church festivals, street markets — I love street markets — several dinners to anticipate, lunch with an old dear friend, research in various churches and cemeteries (deceased photos on the well-tended Italian graves bring an intense sense of them being right there looking at you).

We’ll be among the hanging fruits – olives, tomatoes, grape vines, some pomegranate, and the amazing funghi and zucca that are now in season. The varieties of funghi are wildly colorful and peculiarly shaped and go beyond “button” and “crimini,” making this peculiar, non-vegetable, non-animal really fascinating to have served in all sorts of ways.

The provenance of these little trips comes from a long-distant dream. When I was 17, I was in a rough patch. The distraction of that epoch was planning trips around the world, visualizing trips to exotic places, reading, and enjoying vicariously all of the delights of the world. It was the daily hope that shined like a long-burning match. As Lew says — I have a deep bucket list.

Until we have something to say – addio.

Judith Lavezzi, tracking the wild and free-range Lavezzi by whatever name…