Look With Better Eyes……

I have lots of voice memos that I plan to do something with, and then I do nothing with them. But this is one I am actually using. I am recording it on my morning walk with Maui. It follows my first night sleeping in my new house here in Nardò.

Right now, it’s just my dog and me on our morning walk.

He is my companion. There are lots of things I could say about him, mostly that he’s a big lump. It’s silly, really. He knocks things over because he doesn’t seem to have any awareness of his own size. He sheds far too much hair. I spend minutes every day—actual minutes of my life—just vacuuming up after him.

It pisses me off. And yet, withal, here we are. Never mind the shedding. We are Walking.

And what does he do? He just lives. Give me a car, give me a tree, give me somewhere to pee, and I’m happy. That’s his philosophy. He loves the walk. He gets out of the house, and he just finds every smell compelling. He keeps walking and walking. And now we’re here, basically, in a field between a vineyard and an olive grove. And he’s eating grass. I read somewhere that dogs eat grass, and they can’t really do anything with it. They don’t digest it well. But apparently—I don’t know—it seems to help them. Maybe we could research that later. Is there a thing about dogs and grass? Who knows.

Anyway, the point is: here is the dog. The dog’s life is just getting up in the morning and getting some water. Suffering the heat or the cold—and it feels cold now that we have acclimatised to those hot summer temperatures. Going for a walk. He is never trying to control a damn thing. No strategising. He just takes it moment by moment. Day by day. His happiness is all included in those moments. He’s not lying around worrying about what tomorrow brings or what he did a minute ago.

It’s funny, a friend of mine sent me a quote yesterday. From Lincoln, something about “creating the future you want.”

And I think 20 years ago I would have said that’s it, he is right… but now I know it’s not really that clever. It’s just highlighting the illusion of control.

We all hang on to this illusion that we’re in the driver’s seat. We think we can control the future by making plans. Sure, plans are fine. Setting goals is fun. But the future just shows up.

Poor Lincoln. He wasn’t creating any future the night he went to the theatre, and Booth was waiting to shoot him. That just happened. Somebody else had another plan. Reality collided with his “create the future” state. It makes me think of all those people who get killed on the way to work, driving their car, and for no reason other than it was an accident, their life is lost forever.

Now I realise that it is crucial to enjoy what is right here in the moment—not catastrophising, not going to the future, and not turning things into negatives when they’re really not there. Just sit and think for a moment. Qui e ora. Here and now.

Today, I’ve got a cold. I’m really uncomfortable with the symptoms. One minute I’m cold, the next minute I’m too hot. It definitely affected my mood yesterday. But right now?

Right now, I’m walking down Via Copertino. It’s the old provincial road just outside of Nardò. I’m looking at the cemetery—these beautiful, absolutely stunning buildings. Monuments to people who died a long time back, being remembered by people who are living today. And it makes me wonder how many people are missing their own lives by either living in the past or worrying about the future.

We can’t do anything about the future; it’s gonna happen. And we can’t do anything about the past; it has happened. So the only thing we can enjoy is today, just this moment. Not even ten minutes from now. Just these moments.

Watching the dog walk down the path. Finding another pole to piss on. Listening to the birds in the trees. Watching the sun come up.

“Maui? Maui, go. Off the road.”

See, dogs are free. He doesn’t think that he could be knocked down. He just thinks there’s a big piece of land. “Maui, Maui. Sit.”

And… There you go. There’s life. “Maui, off the road! Come on, off the road.”

He only goes on the road because something across the street smells better than where he is. He’s not thinking about traffic or danger – maybe he knows he can cope with what comes!

“Maui, off the road. Come here. Viene Qui!”

This was my thought for the day. I don’t know if it means anything. I write these pieces for myself, really. This is my Saturday ramblings. Just checking in on my search for peace – alla ricerca della pace.

I look at this tree-lined street. You have to see this little road. Beautiful, it’s got oak trees on one side, pine on the other. Nardò is not the best-kept place on earth. But when you look at just the beauty that you can see—old crumbling walls, trees that somebody took the time to plant so many years ago… It’s beautiful.

The avenue is long and straight, and at the end, there is a pink facade. I remember the first time seeing that building. I thought, Oh my God, this little shithole. And now, I realise, this supermarket is my go-to everyday store. It’s less than a five-minute walk from my house. There’s a young lady who works there, she speaks a little English, and she actually gets joy when she sees me because she gets to practice. And I get to practice my Italian. Anche se chiedo solo una borsa, e dico buona giornata.

After over a year living in Italy… I arrived in September, fifteen months ago. My Italian is improving, every day, piano, piano.

There is an Italian saying: Chi va piano, va sano e va lontano. “He who goes slowly, goes safely and goes far.”

I have come to love that this is such a slow process, just like this walk. You’ve got to give yourself time for the slow walk, to enjoy the moments as they pass slowly by and take a look at the beauty all around you.

This takes me to a line from the movie The Abyss. The paranoid soldier, Coffey, wanted to see the aliens as Russian nukes. He was staring right at a miracle and seeing a threat. And Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio—playing Lindsey—she looks at him and says:

“You have to look with better eyes.”

I think that’s a message for today. You gotta look with better eyes.

You gotta see the beauty of my silly, big dog walking on his lead in front of me. Forget the fact that he drives me crazy with the shedding and the things he can’t control. Forget the hair all over the house. And get the joy.

Look at what he does to every tree that we meet. And that funny walking ass. He’s got this gangly gait. It reminds me of an enormous lion. But no matter what, he’s my friend. He’s there for me every day. And all he expects is some food, some water, and a pat on the head.And he is happy.

So am I. I am in search of peace, and it is here inside me, in the moment. It is always there, in the moment, just now. Peace.

The Peace of Wild Things

by Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake rests

in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars