The Heart's Stone

I have this stone that I found on the beach in Nice at the very end of last year. It's shaped like a funny pickle, or depending how you look at it - a Henry Moore miniature. It's commonplace and grand at the same time. It seems to be my heart's stone. Each day that I glance at it, it's seemingly different. Yes, sure it retains its same basic shape, but the lines on its smooth skin change depending on the hour or on the warmth of my palm. It's my heart's stone. It's the pure essence of dichotomy, because it's at once something unchanging, unyielding, and yet open to everything. It's open to the world, to the marks of man, and open to its own personal wisdom of how it once belonged to something much bigger than itself. It's my heart's stone. And it is this stone that I cup in my hand that brings me the strength to keep searching in favor of my dream, in favor of my heart. Things are often unknowable to modern man, unknowable to me; but I find the truth of hundreds of years, of wars, of the past, and the fate of the natural world in this rock. It's my heart's stone. It is smooth, save for one deep small crevice where it was detached from its mother stone. The crack reminds me that all things came from somewhere, and we all are headed somewhere, even when things are dark, and there is absolutely no presence of the moon. My heart's stone sits on my bedside table, and it is there to bid me good night, and good morning each night and day. It's my heart's stone. I have this stone that I found on the beach in Nice at the very end of last year. It's shaped like a funny pickle, or depending how you look at it - a Henry Moore miniature. It's amazing that it was put in my gaze, and now is temporarily in my possession. It seems to react to its new environment, by showing me the way of the world through its ever changing white lines. Its capricious. It's my heart's stone. It is forever stagnant. It is forever active. The lines of its trials and tribulations, of its triumphs, of its magnitude are there for all to see. And for now, it's the closest thing I have to enlighten me about the mysteries of the universe. It's my heart's stone. It gives me the will to proceed with my plans. It gives my heart the light it needs to realize the dreams I hold dear. It's my heart's stone.

Zucchero

There's nothing more comforting to me than someone asking "how are you?" Especially when it comes in Italian: "Come stai?" Lately, I've needed to be asked this. In Italian. By a man. It wasn't a close friend who asked me recently. "Come stai?" It was Zucchero, the eponymous Italian pop singer. And he wasn't directing his heartfelt question at me, but no matter, I'll take it. It's no small wonder that his name means "sugar" in Italian, as his music goes down easy. Very easy. And nothing has touched me more in these last days, as the warm way his sugary manly voice sings "come stai," in his pop ballad "Senza Una Donna" or "Without a Woman." I've had that song on repeat, or more precisely, I've hit the back-up button, so I could hear him say "come-stai?" Crazy? Yes, a little. But I'm a woman in transition, and I need all the cuddly warmth I can get my hands on. My heart and soul are already in Italy, just have to get the practicalities to follow. The need to be there is not borne out of a scraping need to be with any one person, but just an itching need to be in the country; to be living and working in that enveloping bloom of a place that has arrested my heart and my head. It seems my life depends on it. Dramatic? Yes! But I've never been a wall-flower, or a pansy, I want what I want. And I want this, and I see very clearly that there is no choice, but to have it. And to have it soon. Until then, Zucchero, will ask me how I am, to which I'll reply, "cosi-cosi," or so-so, or even "bene bene," or good good. But what I really want to say is "buonissima," roughly translated as luxurious, or terrifically wonderful. And I can only say that when I'm there, in Italy.