“You'll not be able to get away from it! You're too far in! It's got you! A form of insanity, maybe; but you may as well come along ”
I pondered on this passage for a while the other day and I suddenly realized that I been caught in a trap! But a beautiful trap!
I truly believe that I'm in love with the idea of being captured in this snare, a spellbinding web in which it sustains me…with wondrous Dreams, Music, Art, Words, and Happy Thoughts ….. All Passions of My Heart!
On any given day I may take a solitary walk down a winding way lost in the countryside of Tuscany. Once there I am enamored by the lovely beauty of a warm golden field of sunflowers dancing in the breeze to Luciano's Nessun Dorma! I may even get inspired to write an Italian poem from the arresting experience.
Girasoli, Fiori Blu
Nessun dorma, senza tu..
Or may be wandering along the beautiful and enthralling pastoral valley of Wiltshire and be arrested in the beauty of Stourheads enchanted eighteenth century garden with its secret grotto lined in flint and volcanic Italian rock sheltering the statue of the sleeping nymph while water cascades over her mossy slumber bed.
And then the next night I may just slip back in time and become drunk of cuoreblu listening to Ashrams intoxicating violins playing a haunting melody of ancient echoes and somehow mysteriously without intention find myself in old Victorian England in the haunting mansion of “The Innocents”. The one and only best film adaptation of the novel by Henry James ~ “The Turn of the Screw”. It has to be the one movie I had seen as a child that I never really ever gotten out of my mind and has in reality haunted me to this day for there is always that imminent thought: “someone could be watching me through the window” an habitual reaction to drawing in the curtains when night falls. Definitely it is without a doubt, the scariest psychological ghost story I have ever come to meet.
I read once that a home was a mirror of the family's happiness and virtue; a place to which one could escape the harsh, demanding and perilous world outside. And so I, along with many others have now found shelter and security in our blissful home. In a way our Dear Victoria has captured are fancy all over again; the Bliss of Home!
I have always longed for the old limestone home filled to the brim with antiquities, not necessarily costly but old and worn by others, my connectors to the past. To have a room with a view of infinite wildflower fields joined by the sea and pass the mornings and nights and all the in-betweens.
But my dreams of the old home in far off seclusion overlooking the sea never did materialize, although most importantly
I was blessed with a lovely family and home. My home, my castle in all its imperfections… it is my safe haven. The place from where I view the world.
My journey embarks from the private room of my studio! A place to me far removed from the outside world and yet at a touch of a key I am somewhere distant from the physical place which I call home. In the comfort of my chair I see the world in virtual reality; and meet friends from places I dreamed I would visit someday.
Obviously there are dreadful sites out there but you have the choice. Most times I come away with an exhilarating feeling of fulfillment and contentment. It is really in all essence the poor man's way of living life extravagantly without the means!
Like anything that is pleasurable can become addictive. There has to be a happy medium to everything one does or else it can take hold and suck the life right out of you! Gaming, dating, music, food, art, nature, literature, travel are all but a few of people's addictions or are they?
In retrospect we have always loved many of these things; its part of life and the web is an extension of our environment. It makes it easier and more accessible to information and communication than ever before. In seconds we have what we were probably looking for some time if not for years before the internet evolution. Many have found their ancestors and their secrets for better or for worse…ha! I found out recently that I have a younger American brother….So I guess I have connections in the States as well as Italy and Argentina and Australia and Germany to name a few of my gypsy family roots!!!
The information that is available to us is beyond ones understanding of the scale it extends; its infinitive!
