The Freedom of Not Knowing

Part 46

My time here has changed me. I have discovered strength beyond that which I knew I had. I have discovered that solitude is my primary state of being and that as much as I get, I crave more.

Really though, the bed and breakfast has kept me busy and with visitors much of the summer. While it demands so much of my time and energy, my guests are quite self sufficient and don’t need me to entertain them. I am there for check-in and to feed them breakfast. Often, I find my guests so interesting that I can’t help but want to know more about them and hear their stories. Lots of European visitors this year, cementing my idea of a future spent in France. Of course there are those who stand out. You know who you are. I look forward to a visit to Vienna, to Lille, to Lyon, to Brazil to see all of your lovely faces again. Amazing how sometimes in only one night, a connection can be made. One, a marine microbiologist from Denmark, and I had the most engaging chat. What an absolutely lovely person. I yearn for educated, expanded thinkers, and I get them through my B&B. I have been given beautiful Japanese tea, a dinner out, books on herbalism, the most delicious and decadent chocolate and more than that, the feeling of wider connection to the world.

I suppose I am fortunate that through my life I have remained so wholly open to experience and trusting that the world is a good place with loving people. When my guests step into my home, they feel a sense of peace and tranquility and it allows them to be themselves, without the masks we so often put on to face our daily lives. I get the real them and the connection that speaks of no separation. That they can feel this and that we can sometimes even talk about these things is amazing to me. What drew these worldly thinkers and doers to my remote neck of the woods? Probably marketing. I think Nova Scotia has been advertised recently as the next place to visit. I am so grateful that they have found their way to me.

I remember when Maggie and I took that working holiday to the south of Italy to help out on the farm, and afterwards stayed in southwest France for a time, exploring caves and castles. We took the short flight from Rome to Marseille and rented a car to drive to Thegra, a tiny village in the Lot region of France, bordering the Dordogne. We drove out of the airport and the rain started coming down in droves. Like a lot of droves. Constantly. I couldn’t really see too far ahead of the little car we were driving. Maggie, at 12, was our navigator. We had about a five hour drive ahead of us, and with my propensity for getting lost, regardless of maps, I felt it best to pull into a small boulangerie parking lot, adjacent to a discount store where I thought we might be able to get an umbrella, a better map and some directions while the rain belted down unceasingly.

It was a pretty straightforward drive after that. The rain abated and we saw blue sky studded with gorgeous clouds over the French countryside. The radio station played a Miley Cyrus song and we sang with gusto. Finally, it was getting dark as we pulled into Thegra, and found the converted stone barn where we would be staying for the next five days. We were greeted by the owner who lived next door and had dinner waiting for us. He was South African, a writer, and had lived in France for the past 20 years.

Maggie loved the food thankfully, as for the last while at the farm in Italy, she had refused to eat. Tomatoes, in season, were always the mainstay of our meals as was the rustic homemade bread, both of which she hated. She began to get sick and feverish as she wasn’t eating. My stubborn little Taurus daughter would not take any of the food I offered her. I began to worry about her ongoing health and we had to cut our time at the farm shorter than I wanted.

With less than an hour of extremely slow internet, I found the town of Sapri on the southwest coast. I had heard mention of it at the farm, and knowing we still had a week before our reservation in France, I thought a quick trip to the beach might be just what the doctor ordered. So we said farewell to the farm and were driven into Rofrano to catch a bus. We had time and walked the tiny town from end to end, courtyards and alleyways. In a small piazza, a wedding party came promenading through, throwing colourful strings of confetti which were swept up up briskly by the people people following the wedding party. This was only one of many wedding processions we saw while we were in Italy.

We headed south by bus and by train, knowing the town we were headed to, but not yet having a place to stay. Once we got there, we found an internet cafe and I booked a room in a hotel just off the beach. Sapri is a small town with a population at the time of under 6000. It was off the beaten path, with few tourists (it was also the end of September). A historic town, the hotel was an old building with high, high ceilings and tall windows. By the time we arrived there I was also sick, and we spent the first day in bed, with the windows wide open, and the sea breeze wafting through and healing us. The Farmacia across the street had mostly herbal products, I was surprised and so pleased.

Our schedule went like this. Up in the morning to a cappuccino for me and a hot chocolate for Maggie, fruit and an almond croissant. Italians make the BEST almond croissants. Then, pack up for the day, and walk in a different direction to see what we could see. Our afternoons were spent on the beach and by 5 o’clock in the afternoon, the locals were finished school and work and came out to stroll on the boardwalk, eating gelato. We very easily took up the habit of gelato at 5, dinner at 8. When my European guests arrive at 6 without having had dinner I shuffle them out the door quickly so they can find dinner before the few restaurants close. They all remark on how early people eat dinner out here.

One day, we took a very hairy bus ride along a narrow highway hugging the edge of a mountain with nothing but sea on one side and more mountain on the other. Our destination: Maratea, farther south on the coast, the drive called “the other Amalfi’”, as the azure and turquoise waters of the Tyrrhenian Sea formed coves along the mountainous coastline, and breathtaking scenery without the droves of tourists.

Maratea is also referred as the Pearl of the Tyrrhenian Sea, a natural paradise of fine sandy beaches interspersed with rocky cliffs and a historic centre rich in holy art dominated by Mount San Biagio and the statue of Christ the Redeemer looking down on the city, not unlike the one found in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It was a lovely little town. We waited for the last bus out of the city to return home, and waited and waited. Finally, a good hour and a half later, the bus came and took us back on the hairy scary winding cliff road to Sapri, just in time to see fireworks off the coast.

I fell in love with the place, a place I hadn’t even anticipated going to, hadn’t even known about, before Maggie got sick suddenly in a foreign country. I met a couple of artists there who I still keep in touch with. I will be back. I have Sapri on the weather app on my phone and regularly check the weather there. Always perfect.

I don’t believe that a life so rigidly planned is a life I want to lead. I love the times I get lost, because that seems always to be when I find those things or people I didn’t even know I was looking for. Those times bring my life the richness that it has. The colour, the vibrancy and saturation of being completely immersed in nowness. Connected. A part of everything.

Ah, thank you to life!!