I always love going to Italy, for all the obvious reasons—family, weather, food, wine, art, ancient architecture, etc. But one thing I always love and truly appreciate is that, despite my earnest attempts at learning the language, I’m not fluent. I’m barely conversational. Because of that there is no way that anyone, ever, consults me about plans. I don’t choose the day trip, the restaurant, the hotel, the train schedule, the menu, or at whose house we’ll have dinner that night. I join in conversation when I can and am often helpful with navigation because there are no language barriers with sense of direction, but otherwise, I’m no one’s go-to advisor. Nobody asks me anything. I don’t make one single plan. And I don’t suffer.
I’ve been listening to a podcast called Smartless. It’s an amusing show hosted by Hollywood stars who interview other Hollywood stars, none of whom sounds smartless. I don’t know why they called it that, but it’s a catchy play on words which made me think of how I feel when I’m in Italy--planless. And it’s kind of how I feel now: There is nothing about the last few years of my life that I would have consciously planned. Loss, cancer, unemployment. Or a pandemic, which I’m pretty sure I caused by finally hiring home health aides in February 2020 to help me with Dad.
No, none of that was in my plans. Honestly? If I had to say what I had planned for my life, by now I would be sweating getting my third or fourth book out, doing more author events and writing programs, spending more time at the cottage in Maine and traveling to Italy for a month or so every year. (Angelo’s variation on that plan was to spend three months in Italy every year.) None of those plans were achieved. But for everything that did happen instead, I had to be present for it, planned or not. Because that’s what we had before us.
And, of course, I went all in as if the things that happened were the things I planned. If I should have learned anything during the last 60 plus years of my life, it’s that the more I make plans, the less any of them actually work out. There are countless homilies to attest to this; one of the most accurate is the line in the song Beautiful Boy by John Lennon, “Life is what happens when you are busy making plans.”
But others include:
“We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.” – Joseph Campbell
“The wave of the future is coming and there is no fighting it.” - Anne Morrow Lindbergh
“It is easy to make plans in this world, even a cat can do it; and when one is out in those remote oceans it is noticeable that a cat’s plans and a man’s are worth about the same.” – Mark Twain
Let go, let God. – God, I guess.
And then there’s the whole Zen thing of having no head…which means being present in your life--“in the now” as Angelo always says--but doesn’t always do himself, to be honest. (I just looked up On Having No Head on the Internet and there’s a website that has an excerpt. Guess what it’s called? Headless!) But Angelo strongly believes in the Zen and Buddhist way of thinking, except when we’re in Italy, thank goodness.
In essence…just let it go, let it be, good luck, it’s not your table. I’ve always remembered the scene from the first Matrix movie when Neo goes to speak to the Oracle and sees a small child bending spoons. He’s fascinated and asks the child about it. The child offers him a spoon to try it himself and gives him the advice that I try to keep in mind when yet another plan is shattered into smithereens: It’s not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself.
To be fair… planning is always okay and sometimes necessary. It’s when I allow myself to cling to my plan by failing to see what is present without attachment that I cause myself suffering.