Better Understanding...(For Today)

November 1, 2008


One of the technical details of our gym membership has been that in order to join, one has to have a note from a doctor stating that the joiner is free of exercise calamity potential. We learned of this requirement a few weeks ago when our entry card would not work and the receptionist informed us of the necessary documentation. She asked if we had a doctor here and while we each hesitated for a second, we both quickly said yes, of course! We let her know we would get a letter and she approved our entry until October 31. Apparently this is a very common requirement in Italy and when we approached our neighbor, Barbara, for help she was very familiar with the request.

You may or may not recall that Barbara's husband, Massimo, is a cardiac surgeon and that I have been honored to include him in my acupuncture keeping-skills-sharp clientele. He was very willing to write us a note but was just getting ready to leave for a well deserved boating adventure in Sardinia and asked if we could wait until the end of the month.

Yesterday when we hit the gym, again our access was denied and we were again asked for the mandatory letter. I responded that we would have the letter Monday and we were allowed in... .As reliably expected, Barbara rang our bell later that afternoon with the two letters in hand. She is so gracious and kind and kept asking if we had been inconvenienced by the delay. I told her of course not and casually mentioned that I'd told them we'd have the letter "on Monday". She broke into a big smile and said, "Ahhh, you are learning the Italian way. You said Monday but you didn't tell them which Monday". She then went on to tell us that her brother and his fiance have been saying that they will marry "in September"; they say this every January and have for the last 20 years. We had a fun discussion about the subtilties of communication. She left and I felt like Grass Hopper who had just plucked the stone out of Master's hand....

This event was just on the trail of a conversation Kim and I had had while walking home from the gym earlier. The weather has turned to a foggy, rainy Fall and the skinny streets look slicker. I told Kim I had noticed that there seemed to be fewer scooters speeding down the streets even with the cobblestoned-added traction. Just then a car came barreling down the street right on the tail of a slower car. The driver was on his cell phone and Kim "quietly" shouted, "get off your cell phone!" I laughed and asked her just where does she think she currently is? The two drivers negotiated their various desires with no honking, just a quick pass and the event was over.

It was at that moment that I had what was, for me, an "ah ha!" moment. I realized that as a US American, I make lots of assumptions and tend to take things very personally. When someone says "I'll have it Monday" I assume it means this coming Monday. When someone tailgates me or drives in a manner that I don't like, I take it personally. I am thinking that the Italians DO NOT take such events personally but have an unspoken understanding that next time they will be the tailgater and let's just get through this and move on... nothing personal; just keep moving. We rarely hear cars honking at one another except at intersections. Italian pedestrians never give dirty looks at cars that just sped by within an inch of them (it did miss them after all) or cut them off as they're trying to cross the street. I think they realize that next time they'll be the driver and the one cutting a future pedestrian off.

I began putting this together while riding in the car with Rita. She's so nice and kind and yet while driving, it didn't matter that it was an 80-something gentleman negotiating the streets on his bicycle, she needed to get to the store! Later, while walking with her as a pedestrian, there was never any frustration on her part that cars were speeding by us so closely.

So, this takes me back to a lesson in life that for YEARS I have been trying to grasp: not to take myself so seriously and events so personally-- that Zen and Buhhist lesson of letting go and remembering that all things change. So why not just move on and not get caught up by self pitying moments of "why did this happen to me? Whaa, Whaa Whaa. This reminds me of the "parable" of the man who held up his fists to God and shouted, " Oh God, Oh God, why me, why me?" And God replied, "Why not you?"