As I've mentioned in passing before, I'm not one for extreme religious beliefs. In earnest, I'm not even one for slight religious beliefs. I don't look to the sky in puzzlement when something bad happens and I prefer to thank real humans versus God when something good does. That aside, every once in a while, something so unbelievable, so emotionally-charged, so incredibly fortunate happens to me, and I begin to question the existence of someone or something out there watching over me.
From narrowly avoiding a terrorist attack along the Champs-Élysées in Paris to catching an extremely rare sighting of a leopard on my birthday in South Africa (stories for another time perhaps)––I'm reminded that positive things do come to me, and more often while I'm abroad.
I've been steadily keeping up with my little five-by-eight-inch sketchbook since I bought it back in Lisbon, and it's genuinely become a part of my daily, (sometimes hourly), routine. I try to draw at least a couple sketches for each city we pass through, working from real life when I can and from photographs of architectural/landscape subjects when I can't. In total I probably have around 15 renderings at this point, and that may not sound like a lot, but coming from the gal who literally never used to finish even half a sketch before diving into the next one––it's big for me. Anyway they've sort of gotten better with practice which is normal, but they've all maintained this sort of hybrid-crosshatching technique that I'm gradually becoming more and more fond of.
I've always enjoyed drawing in front of people, and that seems to be atypical. I remember hearing of several artists on Monhegan Island who despised being interrupted by tourists whilst painting, but for some reason I always find it quite flattering. Of course it's challenging too, mostly because I'm usually listening to music too loudly through headphones, but there's a sense of pride I take in someone noticing me even when I'm being silent. It's a moment where your work genuinely speaks for itself, no sales pitch, no charming personality, just solid content. So now with years and years of sketching in art museums, on park benches, atop restaurant tables, bellied down in the grass, under tree canopies, etc. I've developed an affinity for it. It's almost a separate art form in and of itself. There's making art alone which I'll often do standing up at an easel––half painting and half dancing to an obscure playlist. And then there's drawing in front of people which requires a different level of vulnerability and holding yourself accountable. You have to commit to looking calm and aesthetically artsy while also ensuring there's something on your piece of sketch paper that's worthy of the fleeting glance from a passerby.
All in all, I haven't entirely decided whether I think the intentions behind "drawing in front of people" are all that benevolent or not, but then again I suppose making art always requires a certain degree of selfishness. It is the business of observing and creating beautiful things for people to look at after all.
Anyway, back to my original story, what was I going on about again? Ah yes, fortunate things happening to me for unknown reasons while I'm out of the country!
So a couple of days ago, in my typical fashion of needing sporadic alone time, I decided to take myself, my sketchbook, my Spotify, and an apple for a walk outside of the hotel we're currently staying at in San Casciano, Tuscany. I walked about ten minutes down the road, taking a right outside of the hotel gates towards an olive vineyard, past a few villas deserted for the holidays. The olive trees were growing on the side of a hill which offered endless locations to sit both in the sunshine and get a perfect bird's eye view of the rolling Tuscan countryside below. I nestled myself against the rough trunk of a twisted olive tree and sat for a few minutes basking in the sun and loosening my scarf at the surprisingly warm mid-January temperature and sudden lack of wind. After popping in my headphones and starting up a playlist to set the mood with a groovy mix of Gerry Rafferty's "Right Down the Line" and "Tu t'en lasses" by La Femme which makes you feel like the understated main character of a very undiscovered 2015 Netflix film. I drew there like that for two hours, only pausing to close my eyes and inhale deeply before gazing out at the world before me in an attempt to force a reality check from the euphoric bliss that seems to be my life lately.
Eventually I chowed down the apple I'd packed in my little bag, fun fact (side track rather) about me, I actually don't think I'll ever tire of apples. And it's interesting because I'd never say an apple was my favorite fruit. If you asked, I'd come up with some exotic, fun-looking, taste of the rainbow like pineapple or coconut or passionfruit, but I really do love a good crisp apple, and they taste even better outside along a Tuscan slope, among the gentle company of olive trees.
Once I could no longer rationalize sitting in the increasingly chilly wind and my apple core was nothing but seeds and a few millimeters of core––I packed up and headed for home, which as I mentioned before is a hotel room at a (shockingly affordable, yet majorly boujee) spa resort.
Later that evening Olivia and I made the trek into "town" which is a very loose term to describe downtown San Casciano during the winter off-season. The walk is about a mile and a half, and to our chagrin, rural Tuscany is not too pedestrian friendly. Everybody gets rental cars (or bikes when the weather permits them), so all the major roads have about six inches of walkable pavement on either side of the white lines to walk on. And let me just say the drivers here are less than patient and leisurely. Throw in frigid temps, whipping wind, complete darkness, and zero guarantees that anything will actually be open for dinner and you've got yourself a game of Tuscan roulette also known as "Olivia and I's average weeknight scout for food."
To be fair there is a hotel restaurant which we did splurge for on the first night, but when I say splurge, I mean splurge so we made a decision early on not to make a habit of eating too close to home for the week.
We ended up killing time in the little downtown area before either of the two available restaurants opened up by getting gelato and a couple aperol spritzes––I know it's so tough to be me. At around seven we meandered to a pizza place for seriously some of the best Napoli-style pizza I've had outside of Naples. In total we spent 15 euros for two full Margherita pizzas and a liter of house red wine (which is pure gold when you're in the chianti region). With the slightly disorienting liquid courage to distract us from the cold and bellies full enough to fuel a fast walking pace, we made it home with ease (and quite gleefully might I add) by cutting through olive vineyards, guided by the moonlight.
The next day, we woke up at our normal time of 9:30 am, late enough to sleep in, but early enough to make it in time for the all-inclusive breakfast buffet. After breakfast I went for another walk, did some travel planning, hit the sauna, took a shower, began to pack up my stuff for our departure the next day––that's when it hit me. As I loaded the usual suspects into my leather knapsack as I always do the day before leaving for the next place: pens, passport, vaccine card, headphones, chargers, various toiletries, sketchbook... sketchbook... where the fuck is my SKETCHBOOK!!
Panic immediately set in as I scoured the room, double, triple, and quadruple-checking each of the spots I would normally leave my tiny leather-backed booklet of drawings. Olivia and I dumped bags, checked under furniture, emptied drawers, but ultimately came to the conclusion that the sketchbook had fallen victim to one of two scenarios: 1. The housekeeper could have mistaken the book for trash and unintentionally tossed in the bin during her routine cleaning. Or 2. I had stupidly left it behind in that olive vineyard that I'd been drawing in the other day.
I promptly ruled out option two as it just didn't seem to be "something I would do." I seldom misplace important things, and in the off chance that I do, I usually find them immediately and in close proximity to my current location. But regardless of my reservations, I took Olivia's advice and hustled to the same spot I had been drawing at the other day.
I walked the exact footsteps I had taken, scanning every inch of dry grass for anything out of place.
No luck.
Still thinking that there was a chance the housekeeper had accidentally tossed or pocketed the sketchbook, I then went to reception to plea with the two women working.
"Ciao... ummm... I'm so sorry, I seem to have lost a small, black, notebook from my room and I was wondering if anyone or maybe the housekeeper found it or accidentally threw it away? It's a very important book to me." I said, feeling awkward and silly for making my mistake their new problem.
After sympathetically assuring me they would contact the person who had cleaned my room, I returned upstairs to once again turn my belongings inside out in the hopes of finding my prized possession. The reality that I would most likely never again see my sketchbook (and even worse, with no explanation) became more of a depressing reality with each passing moment. I could feel the emptiness welling up inside the pit of my stomach. My skin felt hot, my neck itched, my eyes dampened, and I couldn't stop beating myself up with the harshest of words inside my head for managing to lose the one thing I'd committed so much time to. That sketchbook was my testament to travel, my artistic lens into the foreign sites I'd seen. I'd put so many hours into it and had only a photo of a few completed sketches to show for it.
Olivia had to go on a pre-scheduled Zoom call with a close friend from home and thus couldn't help me search outside of the room, but before she answered her phone she took out a familiar necklace. It was a pendant of Saint Christopher. My mom had given me the exact same one a few years ago as a symbol of safety and good fortune specifically meant to be worn while traveling. I always wore mine in new places but had completely forgotten it for this trip, but Olivia had hers which she swears helped her locate a friend's lost cellphone in the middle of Bangkok last year.
"Here, put this on." She said as she slipped Saint Christopher over my head. Grateful for the gesture, but too pragmatic and forlorn to truly believe it would do much aside from give me false hope, I thanked her and left the room.
In more of an attempt to feel like I was doing something aside from gloomily waiting around for no news from reception, I decided to once again walk the same path towards the olive trees. Maybe it fell out of my bag along the road? I pondered. Not even half-convincing myself that it was a possibility, I glued my eyes to the ground as I retraced my previous steps, stopping at a few roadside trash bins to see if by some miracle, someone had come across the thing and left it with the piles of recycling.
Still nothing.
Once more I approached the area I had been sitting and sketching within in the grass. Again, I checked all of the surrounding trees, sure of exactly where I had been sitting due to some photos I'd taken while there for reference––everything felt hopeless. I accepted defeat and declared internally that I would never draw again (probably dramatic and untrue, but in the moment I was seriously done with art for eternity). Then, as if planted there by Saint Christopher himself, I looked down and not ten inches in front of me lay my sketchbook.
Neatly faced up, with the strap slipped over the front, straight as a rod, there was undeniably and inconceivably my sketchbook. How? I thought to myself. I just looked in this spot a half-dozen times? Suddenly okay with not needing to know how or why it had magically materialized before my very eyes, I picked up the booklet and held it to my chest. With tears forming in my eyes and an uncontrollable grin growing across my face, I thanked the world and laughed out loud at my luck.
Not only had my sketchbook survived a night outside in the Tuscan countryside (which is rather prone to rain this time of year), but I had somehow found the urge to check the same outdoor spot twice, even when I had zero expectations of finding it there.
I'm not sold on there being a God (or some version of higher something) sitting on a cloud up there, granting good fate to those who deserve it, but I do believe in karmic principles and I simply can't ignore the fact that I found my lost possession only after Saint Christopher was placed around my neck.
This may be more of a jewelry endorsement than an existential quandary, and a tiny sketchbook may seem like in insignificant loss in the grand scheme of belongings, but I'm grateful nonetheless, and I think I owe St. Chris a favor or two for this one.
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