Hello from Italy

We landed in Brindisi and walked off the plane onto the tarmac, because that is how small this airport is. No jet bridge. No corridor. You come down the stairs into the actual air, and the air smells like heat and dust and something green.

Toto peed on everything he could reach. Every wheel, every pole, every unfortunate patch of pavement between the plane and the terminal. Thirteen years old and holding it for eleven hours. He had opinions and he expressed all of them.

Inside at baggage claim there were dogs sniffing for drugs, working, serious, extremely employed. Someone asked me to pick Toto up so he would stop being a distraction. So I carried him through, this small smug creature who had just relieved himself on an entire country, past the professionals.

And then out through the doors, there was Leo. Big smile. Caffè crema already in his hand, ready for me.

I was not sure we would get here.

For months this trip lived in my head as one enormous impossible thing. There was Toto, who is thirteen, and a rabies booster I could not decide about. Does a thirteen year old dog need another shot just so I do not have to leave him behind. I asked three vets and got three answers and lay awake with all of them.

There was the paperwork, which I read so many times I could probably still recite it.

There was the rebuild, which chose that exact month to become complicated, because of course it did.

And there was an insurance check that had to arrive before I got on the plane. Not shortly after. Before. Because if it did not come, I was not going anywhere, and I would be spending the summer in Los Angeles staring at a construction site.

I want you to understand that I did not handle this gracefully.

I did the thing where you carry all four problems around at once, all day, like a woman with too many grocery bags who refuses to make two trips. Toto and the paperwork and the rebuild and the check. On a loop, at two in the morning.

And then something shifted. Not because I got wise. Because I got tired.

I could not solve all of it, so I did one thing. I called the vet. Just that. The next day, one email about the rebuild. The day after, one form.

None of it felt like progress. It felt like drowning in admin. There was no moment where I sat back and thought, look at me, conquering my life. It was phone calls and follow ups and waiting.

And then the check came. Less than twenty four hours before our plane left for Italy.

The paperwork cleared. Toto got his shot and was completely fine and looked at me like I had made it weird.

And now there is a coffee in my hand and an olive tree outside and a dog asleep on a cool floor. Today Leo and I swam in the most gorgeous water, while Toto watched us from the shade, resting under a rock...

Here is what I keep learning, forgetting, and learning again.

We never conquer anything in one day. We complete things in pieces so small they feel meaningless while we are doing them.

You know this feeling. You look at the thing you want and it is so big that you do not start. Not because you are lazy. You are the least lazy woman I know. You have run households and companies and other people's emergencies for decades.

You do not start because some quiet part of you is asking, do I have Everest in me. And when the honest answer is I do not know, you stay at base camp and reorganize your gear for another year.

I did that for a long time. I was excellent at it.

But nobody climbs Everest. They climb today. Then they sleep. Then they climb today again.

This month in the Magic Garden Circle we are working with abundance, and I have been turning it over since the fires.

I always thought abundance was the full picture. The house rebuilt. The account settled. Everything handled. Abundance as a place you arrive once the list is finally empty.

Well. My house is not finished. The list has never been longer.

And I am sitting in an Italian courtyard with a thirteen year old dog who is thrilled about the shade.

So I have changed my mind about what abundance is.

I think abundance is being able to feel good about what you completed without immediately turning to look at everything still missing.

One thing for your business. One thing for your money. One honest conversation in your marriage. One walk. One boundary you finally hold.

Not because small is all you are capable of. Because small is the only thing that actually moves.

And on the other side of it is not more. It is ease. It is trust. It is the deeply unfamiliar feeling of enough.

That last one is the hardest, and I say that as a woman who has spent most of her life scanning for what is missing. We are all so good at it. We can walk into a beautiful room and find the one wrong thing in four seconds.

So this week, find your one thing. Not the mountain. The step.

Do it, and then be embarrassingly grateful for it. Not as a spiritual practice. As training. Because if you cannot feel good about what you finished today, more of anything will not fix it.

I got the dog on the plane. I got the check. I got here.

Not one of those was the whole picture.
All of them were something.

Ci vediamo ✨