Nov 24, 2025
My husband and I returned on Saturday night from nearly three weeks in Naples and eastern Sicily. Since then, we’ve been adjusting to the weather shock (from sunny skies and temperatures of 60-70 degrees F. to right around freezing, with snow and freezing rain); the cultural shock (from streets and trains full of animated Italians, all talking at once, and markets overflowing with fresh beautiful fruits, vegetables, fish, meats, spices, cheeses, nuts and olives, to subway cars of dour bundled-up Montrealers, each glued to their phone, and northern supermarket produce, looking tired and limp); and body shock — I came down with a minor but annoying cold on the very last day of the trip and am having a hard time telling how much of the fogginess and fatigue are illness, or jetlag.
It’s good to be home, though, and it was good to be away. Here are just a few of the things I’ve been thinking about:
- The world is going on in many places without spending every minute focused on American politics.
- Life is beautiful, rich, varied, and vibrant, and human beings are meant to live those lives as fully as possible. Many other people do this better than we do, and take care of each other in the process. They are, in other words, less selfish, less focused on the individual, and more on the family and the collective.
- People in many places make do with much less and yet seem satisfied.
Naples Street Scene
- It was a great relief to be in cities and towns without many franchises, where small, specialized local shops and businesses are still viable and form an important part of the social fabric.
Casa Editrice Musicale ditta Salvatore Simeoli, Naples. A store packed floor-to-ceiling with sheet music, where I browsed and bought a flute score, and marveled that such a place still exists – all the North American sheet music stores I used to go to have closed.
- History is long. Far longer than we in North America usually see. This creates a double awareness, both of the short span and relative insignificance of our own lives, and the need to live those lives with intention, responsibility, and purpose.
Portrait of a woman. 1st century BC, from Pompeii. National Archaeological Museum, Naples.
- The beauty of nature, of simplicity, of a connection to what we eat and where we live, are important components of happiness in daily life.
- Wealth, technology, and celebrity are greatly overrated in the general scheme of things.
- I am happiest in societies where friendliness, warmth, and hospitality are valued, especially among strangers.
- As a visitor, I acknowledge it’s impossible to see below the surface into the problems facing a society, and certain people or groups within it.
- Travel changes us. I wish everyone could do it, and not by taking their own protective bubble with them, but by going openly, without a shell and without expectations, and with a willingness to be changed, surprised, moved, shaken… to encounter — and to be encountered.
It took several days for me to settle into a travel mode, and leave behind the sorrows and concerns of my daily life. I checked my messages, looked at the Guardian once a day, kept up with Duolingo (switching from Spanish to Italian), but I stayed away from social media and any threaded conversation scrolls, posting only a couple of pictures myself and two blog posts. We ate out some, at pizzerias and simple trattorias, and we also cooked. At first I was unable to draw or write much, but eventually this loosened up and I managed to keep a basic written journal and worked in my sketchbook; every day, I looked for ideas for future paintings or writing.
Ceiling of the cloister, Chiesa di Santa Chiara, Naples.
We had a lot of remarkable experiences, and I’ll try to share some of them here as the next weeks unfold. I’ve come back feeling like the creative discouragement and inertia of the last few months has lifted, and I feel inspired to write and do artwork over the winter. This is a relief, and I hope it lasts. But in order to do that, I realize I have to be online less, to be less focused on political news, argument, and the negativity I can do nothing about, to say “no” a little more often, and to determinedly focus my energies and time on the areas where I can actually make a difference, both in my own life and in others’. Distraction is everywhere, and it’s there for a reason — and not a benign one. Resistance, on the other hand, also takes many forms. One is to set a meaningful direction for oneself, and stick to it. That’s never easy. It’s the path with greater challenge, and greater potential serenity too.