August 16, 2023
Today I went to Villa Pamphili and it was emptier than I’ve seen it since 2020.
All I kept thinking as I stared at all the beautiful things and listened to the sounds was: whoa. This is life. I’ve been to the park less than 5x this summer and it’s so beautiful and so nourishing and so close. I don’t want to be someone who doesn’t go to the park regularly. This is life, not endlessly worrying about what’s next or if I have time or what will happen if I don’t check things off of a to-do list. What will happen if I don’t earn that money. I don’t want to be that other person. The one who puts it off or doesn’t get the point. Going is the point. This is life ✨
This is life. Going and wondering and wandering and laying under big draping umbrella pines and reading a book and looking at feathers.
I wanted to live a life with more freedom, and I’ve managed to achieve it, mostly. I guess leaving the USA at 22 and not going back was the beginning. But I’m still part of that US mindset sometimes and the internet doesn’t help (if I was trying to be more #productive the internet would help a lot!). I find myself accidentally comparing, berating myself for comparing, understanding how social media works and what goes beyond the images and how in my experience a lot of us get lost in all the comparison and we forget: this is life. You can feel good about what you’re doing, too. You deserve it.
We can play and rest and laugh and cry and not take things so seriously and make love at silly hours of the day and life still goes on and if you’re reading this on a smart phone right now you’re most likely part of that “we”.
Freedom has always been on of my guiding principles, but maybe that’s not yours. I’m very sure that you have something you maybe haven’t done that you know you’d actually love to do (and I’m fairly certain you probably have things you don’t want to do that you think you *should* do)
I’ve been saying it for years now: this is all made up, can we be a little softer and a little gentler with ourselves?
Consider this your permission to be who you already are today. This is life 🫶
p.s. grazie @michelagambadoro per l’introduzione a questo luogo magico 🔮
