And so it is Christmas, in Cetona. So unexpected for me, and such a gift.

I look out the window and the cloistering fog that has been settling on the piazza for the past several days has finally lifted tonight. I see the flickering lights of Christmas decorations, the Christmas tree in the piazza, the lights up on the Rocca. People are going to midnight Mass, arriving on foot and cars, coming out of the three bars on the piazza, and running up the steps to San Michele Arcangelo, to sing and pray. I had not seen so many people in Cetona since I got here. The little stage on which my life evolved for so long still runs as it did, and watching now gives me a profound sense of joy. It is simple, yet so full, for me.

It is hard to explain what a gift it is to be here, in this little hometown of mine. So much space and time have been between me and this, it is impossible to describe the missing. The deep lack of. The distance one cannot physically fill by sand or land or planks. For so many years, missing, my friends, my places, my landscape.

I have cultivated the art, the gift, of gratitude for some years, brought into my life most poignantly by my yoga practice and the good souls at Jivamukti Yoga in Charleston, whose community has changed my life. I knew gratitude before, I think, in my heart, but my yoga practice has made me put my mind into it consciously, teaching me exactly how to honor it and cultivate it in a way that your every day, your every hour, changes all for the better. And so now I feel absolutely and completely grateful for being here, and I feel it, fully. And I need nothing else.

Everywhere I turn I see a face I know, someone who says Ciaoooo, and kisses me on the cheek. Everywhere I turn is landscape I have longed for. My eyes and ears are hungry, my spirit hungry, my every sense completely alive.  I look at the faces and I want to kiss them all because I did not kiss them enough in the past. I want to hear everybody’s story, I want to hear everything I have missed. I want to hug them or look at them because I did not look enough, I did not pay attention. I want to see every kid I knew in middle school and know what they are doing, how they are. I want to see my old teachers and thank them, and I want to hug my old lovers simply because we loved each other. I relish every moment I can live today exactly the way I am for what I have in my heart today. I look down and see my vein pulsing, and I am here. Here.

Last night I went to a Christmas concert played by the band of Le Piazze, a fraction or frazione of Cetona, a separate town in the same municipality. La banda, as it is called, used to be something people scoffed at, a country assembly of wind instruments and drums played by older guys. Now it is a vibrant little musical group populated mostly by talented kids, young people, and conducted by a devoted and talented musician. Rachele, the 12-year-old daughter of my friend Cinzia, plays in the band, so I wanted to go. I was impressed by their spirit and performance. Most importantly, as most everything here now, it was a beautiful thing for me.

I had not been in Italy in any place in any public occasion to hear the Italian national anthem for so, so many years, and that was the beginning of a long set of emotional songs for me. I grew up with the Italian anthem, not the American one, and I had allegiance to this red, white and green flag, no other. There was a moment of disbelief for me that I was actually in this little church, with this band, and this anthem playing. Then the band played Morricone and Handel and Bach, a series of beautiful music for the holidays, and it was lovely, but what hit me the most was John Lennon’s Happy Christmas. I asked Cinzia for a Kleenex and I had to work hard to not weep. I love the United States, and I love the American spirit. It is the reflection of an important and large part of my being, my entrepreneurialism, my positivism, my way of looking at the world with a generous eye. My way of not wanting anyone to tell me what to do, yet my civic spirit, my citizenship of the world. That is all my American side, and nothing reminds one of the American spirit like rock.

But sitting in this little church in Cetona, well, I know that this is still the place where I belong. I looked at the ceiling and the freschi and the little ladies sitting in the pews around me, little ladies I have known by name or by face since I was a little girl. Little ladies who brought me up here, in this village. And that, the combination of those two things, was more than I could bear in sheer gratitude, in sheer, pure joy. I cried and I smiled all together, because I am so happy, so profoundly happy to be here, and yet to be there, too, in heart.

On occasion of this holiday I am grateful for many more things than I could list here: Hot water, heat, my eyesight, hearing, my feet, my health, my mind, my heart. Cinzia, Lucia, Fabiola. Every face I know here. Maria. Pippo. Giuliano, Nilo. Mauro Cardetti. Marisa. The streets of my town, the apartment where I live, every kindness that is shown to me every day, from a loaned car to a bought coffee to an invitation to dinner to a bottle of olive oil or wine, to Dario making me pieces of wood I can paint on. I am grateful for the moms of my friends who cross the street to hug me and give me the best hugs and hold me a minute longer, to hold me and pinch my cheeks. The talks with long-lost friends over a dinner table, and the talks with people I had not dignified with a conversation in years. They are kind to remember me, and kind to dignify me now. The hellos and hugs I receive, the love that I feel surrounds me in ways big and small every day here. I am grateful for all the inspiration I have, and the paints I paint with and the pen I write with. I am grateful for the fog I had missed, and even the cold. The climbs through the steep muddy hills that jolt my heart back to life. And every instant of this landscape I get to see, this glorious landscape, which on most days knocks me to my knees.

So, on occasion of this Christmas I need no gifts. To everyone who supported this venture of mine, who helped me get here, and who loves me from afar and gives me fundamental encouragement, this was the biggest gift I could ever have imagined. Thank you. And just know, I am home, indeed.

Merry Christmas to all, with a full and glad heart.

Sybil Fix©2013