I just spent a wonderful week in Tuscany with family, a week full of music in the kitchen while we cooked, great explorations out into the countryside, uncounted bottles of wine, some moments of high drama, and lots of laughs.  We managed the extreme heat by plunging into the pool, and then enjoyed the cooler air and the light show of a Tuscan storm on our last night here as we grilled steaks over an open fire under the shelter of an overhang.

Seven years ago, we spent another week here, just months after my husband died, and we had such a wonderful time we knew we wanted to return.  And, while I have great memories of that trip, I know I moved through the week in that new widowhood fog that enveloped me for a couple of years.  After almost 50 years of marriage, I didn’t really know how I fit in to the this new role.  I wasn’t accustomed to being the extra, the odd number, the receiver of gifts rather than the giver.  That vacation was, as was this recent one, a luxury trip that I never could have afforded on my own in my newly acquired status, and being dependent on others, even though they were close family, was unsettling.

The last morning in Tuscany, I had a couple of hours alone after the family scrambled off to make their flight in Florence, and I sat thinking about how much my life had changed since the first trip.   The big change, of course, is that I moved to France.  After four years of maintaining the same sort of lifestyle that I had lived with my husband, I packed up a few things, gave everything away, and settled in this little bit of southwest France.But, there are little changes, subtle changes, that others might not realise but are apparent to me.  While on this trip, I knew exactly what my place was:  I’m the older generation, a bit slower than I used to be, at times, but still a contributor.  There is a feeling of comfort, of settlement, that I have now that I certainly did not have then.  My life has been redesigned, by my own choices, and I seem to be quite happy with it.

I felt great pride working with my granddaughter, Julianne, in the kitchen, seeing what she has taught herself in the last few years, but knowing that I had a big part in developing her interest in food and cooking.  She even remembered the right playlists for the kitchen, led by Johnny Cash, just what we had listened to when we cooked with Uncles Josh and Ben.  Her brother, Max, was more interested in eating and drinking than cooking, but he has developed a significant wicked, quiet humor that shows itself often.  Their parents were celebrating the 30th anniversary of their wedding, held on our deck in Huntington Harbor, and it was wonderful to be able to be part of that celebration.

Naturally, the time together was a memories trigger, and we talked of various family members, those still with us and those that have gone.  I find this is part of my job, now, too:  to relate bits and pieces of oral history so they all know where and what they come from.

After years married to a big man with a big personality, where I felt like I stayed a bit in the background, at least on initial meetings, letting him take the lead.  Today, I move comfortably in a group of strangers, enjoying the opportunity to establish new relationships, anxious to see what these new people might bring to my life.  I’ve made some great friends this way, some I might never see again, others that have become a part of my life on a daily basis, if only on social media.    

Living alone for the past 7 years, I find value in time to myself, and now have no problem excusing myself to the seclusion of a bedroom to watch a video or to read.  I no longer have a need to be doing for others, all day, every day, as you are when you are parenting growing children.  This took a while to learn, but I have to say, I’ve learned it well!

At the end of the week in Tuscany, we were joined by my friend, Luke, a recent transplant from California to Italy, and his Italian boyfriend, Alessandro.  I finished off the week in an old Tuscan farmhouse, looking out on the rather rough and expansive   lawn surrounded by giant oak trees.  A little different from the the well manicured villa with pool and view that started my week, but with it’s own beauty.  That night, after Alessandro went to bed, Luke and I shared a bottle of prosecco and our thoughts about our new lives.  So many changes, loved ones lost, old lives left behind.  And, we both agreed, we had made a good choice with the directions we chose to take.  Life is easier now, freer, with so much to discover.

On the last night of the trip, in Rome,  I walked to the Trevi Fountain with Alessandro’s two, tiny Italian Greyhounds.  I did it because I remembered standing there, seven years ago, tossing a coin over the heads of hundreds of people to hit the fountain’s waters, because I remembered the old belief “If you toss a coin into the fountain, you will return one day>”  Even then, I wondered who it was who would be returning.  Now, I know.  I am an independent, self-sufficient, adventuresome woman.