From the Words of a Gypsy: My Love Story

If I look back, and rewind the movie of my life long enough to glimpse at the last twenty years or so, I can see that my marriage was in the cards since before I met my husband, or, even better, it was mapped on the lines of my hand. Odd thing to say, you think? Well, listen to my story, and you might agree with me.

On a cold winter morning, a few weeks shy of Christmas 1986, I skipped school with a friend, and we went to hang out at Piazza Dei Miracoli, near the Leaning Tower. Bored as we were, we scanned the crowd of tourists brave enough to defy the weather in favor of snapping a few pictures, until we noticed an old woman, clad in traditional gipsy clothes, who asked if we were interested in having our palms read. We giggled and agreed.

The woman took my hand, and studied it for a few moments, then lifted her deep chocolate brown eyes to meet mine. “You are getting ready to go on a trip” she said “which will redirect the path you will follow”. Since I was preparing to go to London for the Christmas holidays, my attention was immediately piqued. “When you get back, you will be so enthusiastic from your vacation that you will seek ways to go back. A few months later, you will meet a man, you will marry him and will travel far together, and to see your family again you will embark on a long, long trip”.

After reading my friend’s palm the woman left without even collecting the few coins we had for her, but I couldn’t stop thinking about her words. To the ears of a dreamy teenager they went beyond the notes of a sweet melody, and I began to fantasize about this Mr. Wonderful who would allegedly sweep me off to a faraway land.

Months went by. I went on my trip and fell in love with London; deep down, I secretly hoped to be able to move there some day. That summer, my parents went to a different beach establishment than the one they normally went to, and I noticed it was right beside a morsel of beach owned by the American base in Tirrenia.

It wasn’t long – as I lay on the shore sunbathing – until I noticed a very handsome lifeguard staring in my direction. He nodded when he saw me looking back, and soon the smiles began. Still nursing my dream of moving to London, I jumped at the chance to practice my English, and after gathering all the courage I had, I went to the snack bar of the American establishment to get a soda.

My handsome lifeguard was there. So was the beach doggie, Boo-Boo. I leaned down to pad him, and the lifeguard smiled at me. I smiled back. He gave Boo-Boo most of the ham in his sandwich – a gesture that certainly earned him several points in my book. We began to talk, half broken English and half broker Italian. By the time I left, he had asked me on a date.

We went on our first date on June 16 1987, the night of celebration for St. Ranieri, the patron of Pisa. We watched fireworks and had pizza, and finally sealed that magical evening with a kiss. We continued to date until John left Italy in March 1988; I followed him a few months later in November 1988.

That day was a bittersweet one for me – I was following the love of my life, yet I was saying goodbye to all I had loved and held dear until then. That was twenty years ago - John and I will celebrate our twenty-first wedding anniversary this spring. As a couple we have encountered some hard moments, but have conquered each stone and moved forward together. The old gypsy’s prediction still lives on.

Links of Light (Repost)

We can't all like everyone all the time. But we can work harder at tolerance, compassion, empathy, generosity, and a genuine desire to recognize that we are all in this together.” ~Nicsautoservice

I can honestly say that I like just about everyone I run into – not necessarily because I agree with their views or ways of life, but rather because I have come to understand we are all equally important and all share a common denominator: As Wayne Dyer so perfectly phrased it, we are all spiritual beings on an earthly trip.

We simply approach life differently. We look at things through the filters of socio-cultural structures and personal upbringing, and not one brain is wired exactly like another. Ultimately, we are the product of two factors: personality and environment. When it comes to human beings, I believe that it is more accurate to assume we are a product of Nature plus Nurture, rather than Nature vs. Nurture. We are separated by distance, genes, cultural imprints, language, political and religious affiliations, yet our basic makeup is the same for all.

Let’s look at the concept of light for a moment - light can be natural or artificial. Natural light can be produced by the sun, the moon, or fire. Artificial light can be identified as belonging to even more sub-categories – lightbulbs, for example, can be of different shapes, intensity and color. Specific types of light are used for different purposes, and are adapted to fit individual taste and need, but they are ultimately all sources of light produced by raw energy.

Our light quotient is what makes us all different yet alike. Some of us shine brighter than others, some are crafted in different shapes and colors, some are meant to be dimmer and more subdued, and some put out psychedelic flashes of light for shock value, but aside from our output and physical appearance we are all superficially different manifestations of the same core of light; when we connect to one another, we all shine as one source.

Even more eye-opening is the concept that we are indeed all pieces of the same puzzle, regardless of the position we hold within the design. We might be a corner piece, a frame piece or an inside piece, but each of us is unique and irreplaceable in the greater scheme of things. Even those we don’t like or get along with; those we judge and accuse; those we deem inferior or useless. When all is said and done, and the earthly illusion of superiority and inferiority is shed, we all feel, laugh, hurt, love and cry; we are all vulnerable and prone to being scared when no one is watching; we all smile when something good happens.

Regardless of which masks we wear, or what float we parade on, we are all part of the same Carnival.

Keeping Focused -- Lessons Learned from a Game of Darts

“All you have to do is know where you're going. The answers will come to you of their own accord.” ~ Earl Nightingale

Several years ago, my husband and his family were part of a dart team, and they met every Wednesday evening to compete against other people. Having just arrived to the US from Italy where darts are pretty much un unknown sport, I was intrigued by the accuracy of their game; the few times I tried to throw darts myself, I was relieved that no living being was around – one would have thought I had disjointed arms and aimed the darts at everything but the board.

One day, while we were at his parents’ house and the whole family was practicing for the next tournament, I asked my husband if he could share the secret of his success. “Just fix your eyes on the bullseye,” he said, “and you can’t go wrong.”

Ha! Maybe that worked for him, but in my case I think my eyes and my hands were going through a bit of a cold war and were not talking to one another. I fixed my gaze on the red spot intensely enough that I could have burned a hole into it, but my darts were still all over the place. Angry at myself for my lack of skill, I thought about giving up, but something bigger than that – pride, I think they call it – refused to lift the white flag, and here I was again the next weekend - alone this time to at least save my dignity – shooting darts like a toddler playing with a new water gun. With time my ability to at least hit the board improved, and I even managed to score decently a few times, although I never gained the level of skill the rest of the family had achieved over the years. I wasn’t good enough to play at tournaments, but I could hold my own in a match played at home with the family.

Through the years I realized that approaching new challenges is no different than learning how to shoot darts. You set your eyes on the goal and move through the motions, allowing your mind to evaluate and adjust each time you obtain a less than desirable result. In the end, you might not become an expert, but you will have learned that nothing is unachievable if you continue to try.

The greatest problem with meeting challenges is that many times we don’t focus in the right direction. If rather than staring at the small, red spot in the middle of the board I stared instead at the picture frame hung nearby, sooner rather than later I would have shot a dart in the forehead of the hound in the picture. Focusing on the challenge and assimilating it through our senses is what enables us to send the right data to our higher mind. Once we have a clear picture of what we plan to achieve, our inner mind gets to work to figure out ways to bypass obstacles and deliver us at the doorstep of success.

Clarity is the first step to going somewhere and achieving anything. If a mother wants a more challenging job which will pay her more but will require her to work longer hours, she might find herself in a pickle of a situation trying to figure out how to meet the demands of childcare, so although she doesn’t do it intentionally, she will self-sabotage to give herself more time to work out the details. If she decides the job is what she truly wants, and childcare is the only obstacle in the way, then she can give her mind something well defined to work toward. When I have asked a few people what they want out of life, many of them have replied that they just want to be happy, but what does that exactly mean? Each person is wired to find happiness at different levels, so by saying they want to be happy, they leave the spectrum of possibilities too wide open for the mind to come up with a plan.

Building a beautiful house is not too difficult a job, if one has taken the time to draw a good model plan.