Sometimes, in life you must know when to look up and see life for the best. Here in Bari the sun is shining the birds are singing and for the first time in what seemed to have been a long cold rainy winter the air is warm, you can taste the sea and the salt on your lips, some would even say that is hot. I am sitting on my terrace with light sunscreen covering my overly pale skin, the smell of Waterbabies sun cream reminds me of my childhood, I am smiling to myself. Life is just beautiful; these are the reasons that I am here, simple and easy.
Today is Nico’s birthday and St. Patrick’s Day, my grandfather’s favorite holiday, he would have liked Nico and wish they could have met. I spent all morning running around to different shops and markets to pick up his gifts, get food for Sunday breakfast and lunch and order a cake that cost an arm and a leg. I think I have gotten scammed, or in other words ripped off, not just for a cake that cost 40 Euros but also the ring I had engraved for him. It is one of the difficulties of being a foreigner in the South of Italy. At first I was like “What? “You are totally robbing my wallet”, I mean what else can I say? Hey, lady I know that you are taking the piss and I know you think I am a tourist on holiday but usually tourist don’t speak in your language, no? What can I say? When I picked up the Calvin Klein ring this morning I looked at the engraving and the “e” on “te” is slightly faulty and it looks like it has been doubled or the engraver hiccupped. I know that if I were Italian it would have been perfect or they would have offered me a discount, instead the girl just looked at me and shrugged “like what do you want me to do?” you American. Sometimes it is not worth a fight and you must accept what is. At first I was considerably disappointed and thinking I just spent all this money when things are not perfect and they are pulling me around asking for double the price. But, hey the sun is shining, I am a short walk from the sea and things aren’t that bad. When is life perfect? It is one of the natural challenges of living in a different county, if it were easy possibly I would never have wanted to have lived in so many places. In the South there are no rules, people play the way they want to play. When I left the jewelry shop the man told me to but the bag in my purse because I didn’t have a receipt, I left it in another purse and forgot I may have needed it in trying to run out the door at lightening speed. No rules just stuff it in your bag and look innocent. Well, that I can do, sir. So, I left the shop with no evidence of a perchance and my crocked “e” ring out of sight, in reality it is not that crooked and the shop keepers are only taking a bit of my money.
So, I decided that life is exactly what it is; you must accept the things you have no power to change. Instead of thinking “ohh shoot I just spent a wad of cash”, I choose to think, won’t Nico be really happy. Instead of thinking the people that work in the shop are thieves I am going to think they are just people trying to make ends meet. Everyone has the choice to interpret life as they choose, I choose simply to look at the brilliant sun, the accent buildings, the old ladies with huge shopping bags and gelato shops that have every pastel color known to nature, instead of looking down and noticing the large quantities of dog presents left behind from an owner that didn’t want to pick it up. It is best to look at the right instead of the wrong, the beautiful instead of the ugly, the easiness instead of the difficulties, the start of summer instead of cold winters end, a new beginning instead of an end and the people that I love instead of those that we have disagreed.
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