Walking the carved stone and gravel paths through whispering pines and past famous trolls, I remembered what The Universe was showing me. Magic. I’d lost my connection to the magic.

So here’s me, standing in the crisp air of a Maine fall morning, poking about the sweetest farmer’s market known to man, proud to be standing upright, when a man turned to me. “Hey! It’s you!” he said, smile expanding. “Wow! I’m so glad to see you!” I had never seen this man before in my life.

This is my Uncle Frank. I spoke to him for the last time on Saturday. He apologized that he wouldn’t be around to read my book when it was finished. We laughed about the name of his high school mascot (the Authors) and said how much we love each other. A Mozart concerto played in the background. On Sunday, after a morning with family, Uncle Frank took his final pill.

If you’re kicking yourself because we’re 10 days into January and your New Year’s Resolutions are quickly becoming the microphone for your inadequacies, let me throw you a Get-Out-of-Jail-Free card. I almost died this morning during my new “self care” routine. Maybe we all need to calm the f* down.

These are the words that were shouted at @heyitsbriancook as we crossed the street last night on our way to meet friends. The driver, angry that we crossed without the light, screamed and honked at us, then stopped his car to really get into it. That’s when he labeled Brian with that age-old slur of a ‘Harvard professor’. We laughed the rest of the walk and I offered to buy B a sweatshirt at the Harvard Co-op. But when I woke up this morning thinking about it, I wasn’t laughing.

Previously, whenever we moved to a new state, switching our driver’s license was way down on the list; somewhere between locating a dry cleaner and buying new address labels. However this is an election year. And yes, I know I now live in the bluest state in the nation, but as we all painfully learned in 2016, to assume is to make an ass out of the Office of the President and me, so you can be damned sure I’m voting in this one.

Let’s put some things on the table right now.

Yes, I spent almost three weeks in Europe.

Yes, this was very unlike me to blaze ahead in the midst of family chaos (aka The Move) and just make selfish choices.

And yes, this trip might very well have saved me.

The last night of our Lucca trip landed on a Saturday. You can not only hear but feel from the videos how charged with happiness the streets were that night.

Cinque Terre is not to be believed. Nothing this precious could possibly exist. I did not see cliff sides terraced with Italian gardens like green risers for angels to perch upon and sing. I could not possibly have heard opera’s melodic wailing bouncing across limestone faces, floating up into a piercing blue sky.

“Oh! Do you guys watch that show,” NY child psychiatrist said.

“Watch it? She has it memorized,” I laughed pointing at Jen.

“You’re so cool,” squealed the doctor.

And this was the moment the evening turned from Strangers in a Cooking Class to Generational Social Experiment of Americans in a Foreign Country.

Whether we know it or not, we absorb every place we travel (actually every place where we take up space) through the vibration of light and sound. Eighteen years ago I sat in Rome with a very jet lagged baby, past exhausted and ready to lose it, when the sun pushed out behind some rain clouds. If I had a spoon that could scoop light, I would have eaten past full.

This trip for me is about coming back to me. For the last month, I have been living in a city that I knew before I was a wife or a mother. We both have changed; new areas of growth, scars deposited by life and time. Gluten, dairy, wine, nights that last into the wee hours… all the things that I have avoided to maintain a balance, a composure. Control. It’s time for me to let Italy take the wheel for a while. Time to let go.

Our life in Southern California was lived in a spectacular bubble. Every day we woke up the sun was shining. Waves peeled along miles of pristine beaches, lined with stately homes positioned to view pods of dolphins and gasp worthy sunsets.

I’m typing this on the first desktop computer I’ve owned since the 90’s, on a desk stocked with Uni Ball pens and my glitter collection, in my very own office with my very own door. I’ve been dreaming of this moment for months.

For the second time in two weeks, I have accidentally super glued my fingers. The first was in trying to glue the handle back onto my rice cooker after the cord wrapped around my leg, dragging it off of the counter, causing it to smash on the floor.