The Juggler

When dreams come true the truth is not always what we dreamt. In fact it seldom is.

If we dream too much or far, the dream always catches us by surprise when we least expect it, revealing our worst defects, and the water pounds against the stone so hard, that it hurts. 

Nobody wants to get rid of that old dream, to be modest, to recognize it isn't necessary. Tell me, who wants this?

Who doesn't want to be the prince enchanted, the lucky bloke who wins the lottery, the happy mom with a perfect son, or someone special themselves, who drives a Maseratti and is always in company of beautiful people... what if you have to look into the mirror and see you ate too much at Christmas, and drank too much the whole year round, and now you've got a huge stomach and are boring, and getting old? Ouch...

Life demands from us that we drive our army against ourselves once in a while.

It is essential to balance things. Modesty is essential. Alike humor.

So we're lucky if we dream little - cause mystery always brings us abundance, which guarantees gratitude.

And that's what happened to Paul, and he really deserved it. He's a real juggler.

Morning Glory sailed all over the Tirrenium Sea. I even had the courage - or the madness - to sail it alone with an inexperient crew, no nautical chart at all, to Liguria. It was Paul's ultimate jealousy test - for the boat and for myself. He obviously failed. That is, I failed.

But I was sincere indeed - this kind of courage is my nature. And although the crew was a young and desirable Italian, all I wanted was to fall into his arms. That was all.

To HAVE

So what's the use of HAVING something? That's my question, as usual - and this time, we're talking about a boat! Question is: after the purchase - what do we DO to what we have? Huge responsibility, I thought. 
I wasn't wrong.

A sailing boat's maintenance is something costly. The idea was chartering. That meant we were supposed to do what we did to others, for ourselves. I wasn't keen on the idea, and I was sincere. But that was the fulfillment of a dream... participating was WELL WORTH IT.
But having to cope with futile people who live off reality and go on charters wearing high heels and can't take salty water sprinkled on their fashion clothes is simply a drag. 

We were in La Maddalena when Paul first saw Morning Glory, a 43 foot-Sparkman Stevens, with its typical wide cheeks - excellent for going against the wind - simply beautiful, but apparently abandoned. Someone told us it was left there after its German owners divorced. 
After some contacts, there we go on my good old Renault, towards the Alps of Germany, until we got to Garmisch-Partenkirshen. There, we met the boat owner, this really scared lady, with two children, who promptly took the offer, and was extremely generous in offering us a place to stay and the staple German diet: potato salad with sausage.
That is how we bought a yacht in a mountain area, with snow up to our knees, in just 30 minutes  - no bureaucracy.
This fact made us face what it is TO HAVE. It is certainly a verb that's been used forever to socially define all human condition. And I wonder - what is it to have a home? Or a family? What is it to have a love? What about having cancer - what is it? What is it to have a child? 

Is this all about having, meaning = owning, valuing, and consequently, judging? Shouldn't we instead use a better expression for it, such as "BEING GIFTED BY LIFE"? 

Limbo

Tell me if you agree - aren't we humans quite greedy? Why do we need more and more all the time? What's this talk about evolution and stuff???
The moment we realize the dream is fulfilled is crucial. The seed of continuity is there. I call this moment limbo. The first feeling is satisfaction. Then, other feelings come along: we feel desperate, desolate, sad, as if love had ended. But beware... love does not equal passion. If we accept all this nihilism, we might end up believing nothing was worth the try. But that is not so.
The limbo is permanently pregnant.
Even before the new dream comes into mind we have already planted the seed. That is the exact magical moment when the embryo breaks the shell. The secret of sustainability is therefore revealed: adaptability, love, the will to live, cooperation, a healthy mind and devotion.
That was what happened after Alzavola.
We used to say 'we've done so much, and yet there's so much to do. But not like this. It has to be some other way'.
That's when we met Lucca, a dentist from Bologna, who collects old motorbikes. He pulled my wisdom teeth out with such precision that only half an hour later, I was already having pizza. He did it with a tool hat looked like a corkscrew. My biting was so wrong, he took me to a bunch of specialists who stood there and examined me as a rare case, since it had affected my mouth muscles. Curious thing is, Paul and I had never noticed it before.
Lucca became a good friend of Paul's and invited us to work at the beach to sell ice cream and pannini, and also offered a place to stay in La Madallena, a tiny little island right on the north of Sardinia. Look at the picture and guess what our answer was.
Sardinia is this island with magnificent stones and diamond-clear sea water, with very simple inhabitants who speak Sardo - which sounds nothing like Italian - loads of wild boars, highly expensive resorts, and no trees left, besides cork.
Our neighbors would call us once in a while to have diner. The guy simply said “ayow” and op, we're invited. He would serve us this terrible homemade wine and the lady served delicious and unforgettable pasta, such as the large raviolli filled with  sheep's milk ricotta and lemon, served with a roast meat sauce. There was also the fettuccine with bird's heads sauce. Obviously the dining room was so dark I only discovered I had been eating bird's heads sometime after eating them.
So we gathered money to fulfill our new dream: our own boat. Better said, that was Paul's dream. We got it.
However, it wasn't my dream. At that time I was already thinking about returning to Brazil. Shame I was so young and didn't know how to appreciate that moment as much as I should. But it was worth it. And how.

That's me at the gelatti stand