The opportunity to visit Hani in her medieval town in Umbria has passed and I am heartbroken.
"But you knew you wouldn't be able to go two months ago," Greg says, by way of consolation.
"Yes I knew, but I hoped all the same," I tell him, despondent.
We have been inundated with deals marching forward and falling by the wayside in need to rescue. We have been sundered under the tempest ridden skies of What the Market Wants to Hear. I do my soldierly duty but I can't restrain the resentful thought, "I'm not curing cancer." I'm a corporate whore at my best and a paper pusher in the down moments; and my refusal to take my life and make it my own have cost me the chance to sit in a sun drenched moment with my sister. Am I a chickenshit?
"I can put you on a flight to Italy but I can't go with you," Hubby tells me over dinner. He knows that I get anxious around April, that I get desperate to move, to leave the continent, to roam, to feel a moment's freedom. We have plans to spend a week in Oregon in early summer and his time is limited before he goes on temporary deployment.
"I've already told Hani I can't go so she's got other guests coming," I tell him glumly.
I'm down and I don't want to cook. I don't find any particular solace in the things my hands and my brain find so familiar. I made dinner in ten minutes tonight; a hanger steak grilled quickly and with bare seasonings; a salad tossed with ginger dressing. A utilitarian meal to go with my ascetic sensibility.
I look at Hani's pictures and read her blog about living in Italy and I am sad not to share that experience with her. I so enjoyed my time with Kaly in London earlier this year and I had hoped to repeat the experience with another sister. If Kaly is my introspective morning of quiet rumination and literate laughter, and Souris my gurgling, adventure filled afternoon, Hani is the star-filled twilight of a life less ordinary.
My good friend Kellie has unwittingly provided me with the escape to this malaise. We leave on Thursday night for a weekend in Napa, that she may indulge her Bacchanalian thirst, and that I might indulge a deep seated love for the place. I am hopeful I will recover my food senses once I am back on the Silverado Trail. Hubby is not going; but I will have the companionship of a dear friend to eat, to drink, to scatter about the day, to live life as it is meant to be lived: with friend, with food, and with wine.
Every April has been so; and Providence willing, every subsequent April will be the same.
I am excited to be able to comment again.
Oh how, I missed it so.
Posted by: beastmomma | April 25, 2006 at 03:51 PM
oooh! Sorry about that. I accidentally turned off commenting when I set it up for comment validation...Thanks for letting me know about my snafu!
Posted by: Cath | April 25, 2006 at 04:00 PM
Drat. I'm *leaving* san fran on Thursday.
(as Agent 86)
"Missed it... by that much"
Posted by: Joe Hildebrand | April 26, 2006 at 03:23 PM