I am writing this newsletter from Tuscany where my dear friends who are like family to me have invited me to come stay. This will be my third year in a row in the Tuscan country side, and i have to say it is becoming so familiar that I now have fantasies about finding a dilapidated farm house and living a life like a character from Frances MayesUnder the Tuscan Sun or Bertolucci's Stealing Beauty. Maybe Italy reminds me of growing up in Iran where time is always a secondary notion and there is always an indirect way of accomplishing tasks. A place where you have to earn the beauty by dealing with delays and frustrating mishaps. I think if we looked up Italy's Chinese Horoscope it would the Monkey. Monkey's like to frolic and have fun, and though you may think they just creating chaotic disorder, they are in fact moving ahead in a zig zag motion from limb to limb. Italy is having grave financial issues, but money and stability was never at the heart of Tuscany's charm. This is a place where the rules are created in the moment. A place where in the South the townships are run by octogenarian widows who wear black and are said to be the mafia. The wind here in the country side near Siena has magic in it. It feels warm, sultry and mysterious. They say it comes from Africa and with it all the secrets of the Sahara. I will miss the wind here when i leave. It feels familiar, ancient, like a lost love from another century . . .
Yesterday I needed a drive to Florence and the housekeeper's husband was kind enough to take me there on the hot, dusty road in his ancient relic of a car. On the drive we discussed spirituality and how he spent 30 years in India seeking the questions that plague us all. He said what he came to after all the meditation work was that "life should be juicy!" "What?" I asked, thinking I misheard his melodic, thick, Italian accented English. "Shiva, mi amora, life should be juicy. Ask yourself, is this a juicy choice? Or a dry one?" Okay I get it. So from today on I am going to look for the juiciest morsel on the platter of life!
