Finding peace in Pain

Sibari, Italy---After getting the news about my father’s death and the immediate emotions, I sulked around the Marina for a couple of days feeling a bit lost. Was not going to the funeral wrong? I now have no parents alive, how does that make me feel? Am I doing the right thing?

By Monday, I really had the need to leave the boat and just get away. Easier said than done when living on a boat with 3 others. So I borrowed the Marina’s bike; an old white one speed with a white basket on the front that was barely connected by one screw that you needed to tighten each time you stopped. I should mention that the wide tires would only inflate part way.

But I was off. Peddling down the road that turned into a small county road, that turned into a two lane highway. I had observed enough about other bicycle sightings and the crazy Italian driving habits to know partly, what I was in for. Imagine Interstate 4 as two lanes and both lanes honk and ANYTHING while using the yellow line in the middle as a passing lane regardless if there is room or not. Dangerous, yes. Going to stop me, no.

So there I was, sitting very upright like old bikes position you, looking a bit like the Witch in the Wizard of Oz before the house fell on her with my basket full of water and a backpack instead of Toto.

Two miles away, the archeological dig was closed on Monday, so I turned around and headed towards the town of Sibari, about 3 miles away. I decided to keep going and just peddled and peddled. The physical pain felt great. At the boat I had cried but really couldn’t yell and scream and pound my fists against anything. I couldn’t throw myself on the floor, cry and fall asleep on the cold hard dock without concerning my boat mates. So I peddled and poured all my grief into the pain. I headed to the mountain town of Villapiana but decided half way, to turn around and go see the sea from this angle. I was about 10 miles from the Marina.

Instead of the green-brown water locked in our Marina’s harbor, the water was the Mediterranean Blue. Beautiful. As I made my way back “home”, it came to me that my Dad, while volunteering with the Merchant Marines whose ship crashed into the dock in Greece, had rented a bike while stuck there for the two weeks it took to repair the ship. I felt a connection to his experience. It felt good imagining his exploring the countryside in Greece as I was doing in Italy, knowing that his future was not yet planned just like mine.

And then it was okay. Life is a circle; we all go round and round. Grabbing as much as we can in the window God gives us to enjoy this amazing planet.