It is the first time that we have not written a blog for each day. Today is a combo and I am getting really confused about the sequence of events, so don't pay too much attention to the details!
You know things have changed when it is really difficult to even remember what day of the week it is. Amongst so many other things, this experience has shifted our internal clocks and daily priorities. It is a bizarre kind of 'primordial' response existence.......back to some very basic forms of prioritization where dates and times are not as important as what is actually planned to happen......or what you actually experience. I want to be careful not to disrupt the relaxing flow of confusion here......
WARNING........THE FOLLOWING PARAGRAPHS ARE NOT CLEARED FOR PRIME TIME BLOGPOST CONTENT......
We are not consciously trying to isolate our behavior (in fact, we have become more social than we anticipated........exhausting!). The reality, however, is that we are allowed (encouraged) to emphasize our individual existence, freedom and choice without obligation. We have been given a brief opportunity to define our own meaning in this experience, and encouraged to make rational (meaningful) commentary on what surrounds us.........in a bizarre way secluded from the existing day to day routine of what (in our emerging perception) is an often chaotic and sometimes irrational set of constraints that are a necessary part of life's obligations. Isolation?.....maybe we have found a small window......Trump and Clinton......we have not turned on the television in a month. There is a very cool, "refresh" component to our shifting gears.
This is not a commentary on what is good or bad for us, or that we are privileged to some understanding that others are not aware of......everyone gets this. We are also not advocating isolationism.......or existentialism (yet!) We are simply being given the time to clear both the front and rear windshields at the same time. The clarity of vision is rewarding....at least for the things you are trying to see.. Maybe the day of the week is not on the top of the list at the moment.
This rather late night catch-up for today's blog should be taken in context. We are fast approaching the end of this experience and will be leaving the foundation a week from today for travels to the north of Italy. As one can imagine, a relative sense of anxiety has started to filter into our thinking that we have not had to recognize until now. The Bogliasco experience, as fully anticipated, has a cycle that we are rather quickly moving through. It has been extraordinary, for sure. Our hope is that in this last week, we can organize our thoughts to find the best way to emerge from the experience with a solid collection of memories, ideas, and new friendships that will serve us as we navigate forward, both to nurture new opportunities as well as our valued and established relationships.
I am giving a small talk on Saturday (today! for which I have not finished my work!) which is entitled "Reflections." While the content is heavily weighted with a focus on the work I (we) have been doing here, the personal impact for us is much broader.......but in many ways that has been the intent from the beginning. More than ever, we are firmly committed to the power of memory as a fundamental force which guides our decisions and directions. New ideas are inescapably the product of informed recollection, accumulated knowledge and creative invention.
It is no small consideration that I reference our collective experience here. Both for this venture and for all that I do, I have an inseparable partner. Andi has been an integral part of what makes all of this special. As we approach Mother's Day this weekend, the timing could not be more meaningful for me personally and for our family. She is what keeps us on course.......and allows me to drift to the side (overboard!) quite often. It is a luxury and gift that I can never repay. Grazie mille il mio amore!
Now that I have 'waded' through that text........which I suspect is less than digestible for some, I need to offer some thoughts on what happened today, and actually for yesterday. Both were great, yet totally different, the common factor being a slow pace and some time to take a deep breath.......a kind of fun day at the beach for both Thursday and Friday! We actually spent a large part of the late afternoon today (Friday) sitting at the Blue Marlin Bar.......out on the rocks in Nervi......drinking wine and eating two bowls of potato chips.....wonderfully decadent! It was one of the best afternoon experiences of the trip.
We then had a long dinner/after dinner discussion with Gianni Biaggi. His family owns the villa and is an integral part of the foundation program. He is 82 and currently lives in Lausanne, Switzerland. We will fill in more of the details in tomorrow's blog post. Gianni is quite remarkable to say the least!
The result of all this is that I am now up in the studio past midnight drifting through my 'blog conscience'. Such identity shifts offer a wonderful gestalt......digital, physical and emotional vantage points providing distinct ways for us to become actors in our own stories! Self-reflection on a budget without too much thinking!
A Look at Thursday
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| Running out of wall space! What comes next? |
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| in addition to the 3 golden retrievers we have Leo here...... |
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| This is a bronze sculpture by one of the Biaggi daughters........both pensive and appropriate here! |
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| Thursday was a moody day........moody pictures are often the most powerful........one by F and one by A.......nice that we are thinking alike! |
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| Dinner with Gianni |
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| An active discussion after dinner.......this all gets much easier as friendships have developed |
And a Look at Friday
Friday morning started with a walk down into the gardens below the villa - the color of the water was so beautiful today - amazing colors. An hour or so before lunch we headed into Bogliasco to find a new 'lookout' terrace over the sea that we hadn't seen before - we walked a few miles to the general area but could not locate the path. We followed a man down one street, not realizing we were walking into a private, gated street. He disappeared into a house, so we headed back up the hill & discovered the gates had locked us in! After 5 minutes of panic & pushing every button we could with no success, Fiske found an opening button about 25 feet behind us deep in the bushes!
Mid afternoon, we jumped in the car and headed for Nervi. We parked at the train station and walked down to the Blue Marlin Cafe on the rocks along the passeggiata. It has to be one of the most idyllic spots on earth.....
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| Blue Marlin Cafe in Nervi |
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| Corner table with Portofino Peninsula in background |
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| Fiske on the Nervi passeggiata with one of towers behind him |
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| Bogliasco fountain |
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| Villa garden pathway |
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| Bogliasco beach and harbor |
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| Morning colors beneath our room |
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| Door to our room in villa |
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| Adriana (dancer and choreographer) about to do her presentation |
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