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.

“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.