Hello friends! I hope you are making the most of the summer months.
I’m sitting in my writing loft today, and there’s a breeze streaming through the house that definitely carries with it the scent of autumn. Leaves are turning, fruit is maturing in my little orchard, and the vines that border my garden are bulging with dark purple fruit waiting to be harvested. (Don’t tell Monsieur Mondin..but I plucked a few.)
In the air there is the energy of change and transformation. I have sensed it for the last few weeks, as things are falling into place more easily. I decided to ride with that feeling and play with the Universe a bit.
When I started this blog 2 1/2 years ago, I always believed that eventually I would write a book about my experiences. Not because my life is any more special than anyone’s life, but because I believed that I had something to say. Until the last few weeks, I did not know how to start that next step. (You can reference my very first blog post here.)
A former coworker of mine and dear friend who always reminded me, “Don’t let perfect get the better of good.” I think I was waiting for the perfect moment, when in reality now is good. Perhaps the energy that I felt was the Universe telling me it’s time to start something different.
I’m not attached to how this will play out. I believe reliving much of the stories and experiences since I arrived in Europe and bringing in those elements of life before that and how they continue to affect me, will me move up the “growth ladder” so to speak. I think it is going to be excellent therapy.
What would make this even more special is if somebody in a similar place of transformation, benefits from the telling of my tale. If just one person feels a bit more full in their heart or lighter with their burden, that would make this effort worthy. It’s time to start something different.
I started writing the “preface” to the book a few days ago. The first day I struggled to find two or three good paragraphs. The next day I effortlessly wrote 1700 words that I could barely contain in my head. I was astounded by the speed in which the words came to me.
Going forward, I want to share with you elements of the book as I complete them. Starting in October, my plan is to spend six or seven months seeing Italia they way I wanted to see it when I first arrived. I think it will provide the perfect backdrop for my writing. I’ll season my posts with current photos and stories to ignite your senses, but I will use this blog to bring you with me on my own personal discovery of the story that is asking to be told. I hope you enjoy it. I feel inside my gut that it’s time to start something different, and I want to share every moment with you. You are my family, my community of friends and my sounding board. Our relationship means everything to me.
So without belaboring the introduction any longer, I present to you my preface. I titled it “Is this everything?” It begins the first day I arrived in Rome, 2 1/2 years ago, on February 12, 2019. I hope you enjoy it.
Statemi bene!
Luke
“Is this everything?”
There were only a few moments in my past when I knew I was about to change everything. When I felt the gravity of life shifting under my feet to pull me far away from what was and into something that will be forever different. This was one of those moments.
I don’t know when I stopped feeling alive in California, but I did. Perhaps it was two-years prior when my husband, Darin, was diagnosed with a recurrence of cancer. Perhaps it was even long before that when I, like so many successful professionals, defined success and happiness with wealth, security, and consumption, only to feel empty after achieving all I thought I would ever want. Or it could have been after my mother’s death which set the stage for a series of events which introduced grief as a presence in my life without the tools to find happiness again.
It was 2018 in Los Angeles. I was under the weight of sadness with a compelling need to dismantle everything in my life and search again. Travel was my therapy, and I traveled often that first year after Darin’s death. The further I ventured, the easier it was to find my breath.
I needed hope that I could live and love again, but I knew this was not possible without a hard reset. My heart was heavy, and my mind was troubled. In short, I was suffering from the loss of not just my husband, but the loss of what was my life up to that point. I needed to step away from everything which was familiar and safe and start all over again. I needed to find the next version of me.
In February 2019, I packed away all the previous iterations of myself. I kept the parts and pieces that could be safely stored in my life’s toolbox for future use. I knew I would need those tools to fashion my life into something different. It would be a life that others questioned as strange, difficult to understand or without direction. A life that many would found courageous.
What I had planned to build over the next several years was going to be uncomfortable and invigorating. It would be my own rebirth with no assurances or map to follow. Grief left me no guidebook on how to start again. I left everything to fate, and I was terrified by the unknown. It was with that lump in my throat and uncertainty I arrived in Rome and stepped onto an obscure street. I felt alive again.
“Signore Lombardo, you are arrived.” The heavily accented Italian voice spoke to me from the front seat of the car. It was February 12, 2019.
The Mercedes-Benz taxi that I hired from Rome’s Leonardo Di Vinci Airport to bring me to my new life could barely squeeze between the parked cars on the narrow road. The car snaked up the hill among the apartment blocks. Between the buildings, I could see the lights of the main street several hundred meters away from me, lined with, cafes, restaurants, modest clothing stores and a Lidl market.
I immediately regretted arriving in such a grand manner. At the time I booked the car, it seemed like the last luxurious splurge before I settled into a new life where luxuries no longer mattered. However, as I rode in the backseat into this working-class Roman neighborhood, I felt a little ashamed announcing my arrival in this manner. In that moment, I wasn’t ready to arrive. Thankfully, there were few people on the streets to witness this rare moment in my life. It was late, and most of my new neighbors were preparing to enjoy their evening meal.
I stepped out of the car onto the small street in the Tiburtina district of Rome. When I choose this area, I envisioned a tranquil neighborhood to balance my needs for the desire to explore Rome, but also have some level of anonymity and integration with the locals. This district was near my language school but far from the crowded central area of Rome.
What greeted me was the smell of damp asphalt from the rain that had fallen that day mixed with the aromas of food cooking from any the dozens of kitchens in the apartment buildings that surrounded me.
There was graffiti on the block walls and inadequate trash bins – yellow for paper, green for glass, brown and grey for everything else. The containers were bulging and there was just as much trash littering the street as there was inside the bins. It was indeed a sign of life. It was unmistakably the smell of life in this district; savory food, dampness, and garbage mixed with urine from those who chose to relieve themselves behind the trash bins. The outcome of the decisions I had made and the realization of my new environment, so unlike America, was like hitting a brick wall. Everything that greeted me was there to test my will to begin again.
My mind surveyed the environment around me and then it seemed to go inward and assess my readiness for this change. I had never lived in a city before and certainly not a foreign country. Was I prepared, and what did prepared even look like at this point?
I sensed something in the air, along with the smells of the kitchens, the trash and the dampness. It was unmistakably energizing and stimulated my imagination. I was excited about the possibilities even with my trepidation. I alone had made this moment happen. And now, I was only responsible for myself and what happens next.
After years of planning among a myriad of life’s diversions, I found myself in Rome. I was starting new in a 3,000 years old city, and in the neighborhood of Tiburtina, known for its ancient road, Via Tiburtina, which carried countless adventurers, just like me, to all parts of Italy. I wondered where this ancient road would carry me.
It was in this ancient place in Rome that I chose to begin the next chapter of my life. It was devoid of tourists and voices speaking English. There were no physical reminders of all that I left behind and the sadness that followed me. The neighborhood was empty of anything that would make me feel comfortable, yet full of everything that would make me feel something, again.
From the corner of my eye emerging from the courtyard of an apartment building, a man approached me. I expected to be greeted by my Airbnb host, Maria. Instead, it was Angelo. Angelo’s English was much better than my driver’s, but it was heavy with that unimaginably beautiful accent, as he said, “Luke Lombardo, I am waiting for you.” His voice and words roused me from my thoughts to direct my attention to him. I musingly thought that if every Italian man greeted me in that manner, I would not regret a single moment in Italy.
Alas, my fantasy ended quickly as he announced, “I’m Maria’s boyfriend, Angelo. She sent me because she thought you could use my help with your bags. It is good to meet you. How was your trip from America?”
Angelo was in his late-30s, he had kind greenish-blue eyes that flashed in the headlights of the Mercedes-Benz. They illuminated his unmistakable Roman nose nestled in an attractive and unshaven face.
I could not forget his nose. Perhaps it was because it was like looking into a mirror. I was seeing similar features which reminded me of my own appearance, the nose and eye color. They were indeed the same. Another sign that fate brought me to the right place. I was making a link to this city, its people, and this beautiful country. It was almost 150 years since my last known relative departed from Italy for America. Within me was the same distant blood that ran through Angelo’s veins.
As Angelo helped the driver unload my luggage, he told me the apartment was a short walk from the street. It was on the ground level, so I wouldn’t struggle too much with stairs during my stay. He told me he would help me set-up the new apartment and his girlfriend would drop by to meet me personally.
As Angelo picked up my two heavy suitcases, he asked me inquisitively, “How long are you staying?” I reminded him I was there for at least three months, but that I didn’t know after that. Life was undecided beyond May. He then seemed surprised when he asked me, “Is this everything?”
It was the kind of question that hung in the air and I simply nodded my head in assertion. With that nod, there was a twinge of doubt. I think Angelo sensed my hesitation. Perhaps he saw the sadness behind my eyes. So resolutely, I said, “This is everything.”
He paused and then said something about the benefits of traveling light without a lot of extra things to carry. I believe he sensed all the immeasurable weight that I would be carrying with me through Rome the next several months. He didn’t know my story, but this wasn’t the time to tell him.
I thought about what I had brought, and yes, it was everything. It was everything that was important to me at the time.
There were clothes that hung too loosely on my body because of the weight loss of the past year, and kitchen tools that Darin collected over the years that honored his memory when I used them.
I squeezed into my luggage a stuffed rabbit, Thumper, that I bought for Darin during our last visit to Disneyland just months before he died. Thumper watched over Darin in our bedroom those final months of his life. I expected he would watch over me. I took the shirt that Darin wore the night of our wedding. Finally, I packed a picture book of memories that I created for Darin’s 50th birthday that remained too painful to open .
What wasn’t tangible was everything else that I carried with me that day. Much of it difficult to describe other than to say it represented the tapestry of 48-years of my life: the shame and awkwardness of an overweight child struggling to understand my gay orientation, the pain of a middle-class family that struggled with stories that are not mine to tell, a life in California that I thought I would never relinquish, friendships that had nurtured me for decades but seemed stranger now without my husband next to me, and most significantly, the cruel memories of cancer.
So yes, when Angelo asked me, “Is this everything.” All I could do was nod. Because what I brought with me on February 12, 2019, was everything that mattered.