Two Humans Rise to their Full Potential

As we stroll down the Arno River on a morning walk, Carla and I took a deep breath and talked about what living seasonally means to us. We were holding hands…again.

While we have relatives in the US calling us hobos like the old Red Skelton routine of Clem Kadiddlehopper, we prefer professional vagabonds. Or would you say we are caught in vagabondage? That sounds more
intriguing and mysterious! In what follows, I am presenting an American view, but since we are alike under the skin, what touches this human heart living away from the homeland, touches all…or so we think. Growing up in a small town, people often have a strong feeling of limitations, especially of our existence.

Living Seasonally has taught us to dream and act on impulses.

Here are the benefits that we are experiencing today:

– We are seldom disappointed because we keep our hopes realistic and put ourselves in situations to be informed and grow personally.
– We have a sense of “high-mindedness” enabling us to go through life with tolerant irony escaping to places that have an intense joy for living.
– Living Seasonally gives us the chance to create our own balance between idealism and realism. Sprinkle in a little humor and you become the wiser person. (NOT a wise ass)
– The wisdom of living seasonally consists in the elimination of nonessentials. Purging material goods makes the journey in life to other places more free of worries. Water pipes don’t burst if you don’t own the
pipes.
– Living Seasonally makes us feel young again. We are more playful, curious, dreamers, laugh frequently, wayward, and less cocky, but less afraid.
– Because we have lived seasonally, we have grown into more interesting, complex, subtle yet simpler people. Sounds contradictory. That’s us.
– Routines are not bound to a location. Within days of living in a new city, you can easily slip into routines that resemble the past and give you a new sense of home. Find a cafe that serves up a great cup of Americano and start a conversation with your barista.
– Without TV, we captured three hours a day to walk, talk and observe.
– The absence of close friends is a shock to the system. We need to accelerate our FaceTime and catch up. They add perspective, balance, humor and touch.
– We have moved past the Yes, BUT syndrome. Yes, we made the right move, BUT we miss our family and friends….has now been replaced with Yes, we made the right move and we are finding a way to stay in touch.
– Now that we have made this momentous move, we could have acted sooner. Why didn’t we pivot when the daughters left for college 14 years ago?
– Through this change, the certainties never changed. There is still God, family, taxes, aging and ambitious pursuits. God, we are glad to still be ambitious!
– Living Seasonally has helped us achieve “personal congruency.” We live where our hearts soar the highest. We live with flow and alignment with natural rhythms.
– It feels good to practice a life of decision making without fear. I will elaborate in a future post.
– Living Seasonally is one of the finest methods of self education ever. It has taught us about two important dates in our lives. The day we were born and the day we find out why we were born!
– The less we spend, the more we have enjoyed.
– Take in what every place brings without trying to turn it into some private pattern of your own.
– Success is an absolute release from fear and a confident use of your time. Wrapping up this walk, we came across a though provoking sign.

Florentine art has often been called “humans rising to their full occasion.”

That’s a fitting definition for Living Seasonally.