Letter From the Editor -- New Year Thoughts

I’m taking a pause… A pause between the years 2008 and 2009. A little time to reflect on things that have happened, things I’ve accomplished. As I look back I think it’s been a good year, and I’ve come far. One nice new development for me has been starting this blog. It’s given me the opportunity to record my memories and thoughts about Stresa, it makes me even more attentive to my surroundings than usual when I’m there, and it allows me to share all of that with others. I’ve written about a lot of places that I’ve been, things I’ve done, and as I’ve written and researched I’ve made a new list of things I want to do next, a list which starts to get very long. That brings me to the looking ahead part. We’ll see where it goes this new year, and how many of those things I’ll get to cross off my list. I hope the same for all of you… Make this a year in which you do some of those things on your ‘must do’ list.

In these days I’m reading Marlena de Blasi’s book A Thousand Days in Tuscany. I’ll borrow her words here to describe how I feel about this. In this scene Marlena is enjoying the simple pleasure of standing barefoot in a shallow river. She ruminates…

…As I high-step across the whole eight meters or so of the river to the other shore, a small epiphany roils up in me, and I think once again how much I like this life. It feels purloined in a way, or like a prize. First prize for not waiting. For not waiting to splash in a river, for not promising myself that I would someday splash in a river, but for doing it now, right now, before destiny or some other interloper stops by to tell me there’s been a change in plans…

Allora, se io dovessi fare un buon proposito per questo nuovo anno, questo sarebbe, so, if I would make a resolution for this new year, it would be this… To jump right into this river of life and splash around a bit! Happy New Year to all!