I never had a love affair with Rome before now. I didn’t understand it. It was hot and crowded. I tried to do too much and found myself seeing nothing in an attempt to do everything.

This trip I had one requirement- slow travel. To really see Rome we must slow down. Touring specific monuments 3 hours a day. Lunch 3 hours a day. Pool 3 hours a day. I’m not certain where the other 15 hours went . Sipping wine on a terrace? Flirting with my imagination? Laughing long into the night and mornings so deliciously lazy, I stretched like a cat and rolled over lingering in the sun?

Yesterday it was the Colosseum and Roman Forum.

It’s hot. Bring a hat. A hat so big it could have filled the colosseum.

The thing I learn about history- why I like it - is not much changes. There is a consistency in humanity, in mankind.

We are strolling the Roman Forum. Up up to the top of the hill- Here on Palestine Hill where the Nobels lived Lori jokes I must have once lived up here in the shade of the pines with the cool breeze in my hair in a past life with a team of servants to carry my wine.

I tell her and Raphael I had my astrological charts done recently and was told this was my first life as a woman - I don’t believe in past lives - But I was told in my past lives I was a man - someone else told me something similar another time - that I was a warrior in a past life, a leader in an important battle- but this astrologer said I had completed the life cycle as a man and this was my first life as a woman.

I may not beleive in past lives but I beleive in this one. My chart had lots of 0s and 1s.

I don’t understand what that means but Somehow that felt right. I see myself. A Colt. Born on shaky legs. But a colt right after she is born tries to run. And I often find myself running happy and free and then remembering I don’t entirely know how to walk yet.

This astrologer, a history of science professor at a local university in Venice, told me I had lots to learn about love in this life.

I find myself full of regrets in this moment. Awake 5am. My inbox is filled with suitors. I don’t have regrets of past love. I’ve lived freely and loved fully.

But I have regrets I didn’t give up earlier. I’m not a quitter. I fight too long to keep things alive.

I could have spared a lot of pain in my life if I had learned earlier on to Let Go.

This is my lesson in life I think.

Love Freely and Fully. No expectations. Let

Go. Don’t hold too tightly. In sleep I wake finding myself chanting my mantra, blessing and release in love past loves. I bless you and release you in love. You are whole.

I am whole. You are free. I am free.

These are days of closing doors, this month of July, closing doors.

I’m ready.

It’s housekeeping in a way. Taking tentative steps forward in a new future as I learn from the past. In the quiet streets of Rome I fall in love with myself.

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