Le Foto Sparite, (The Vanished Photos)

Seven weeks in Italy. The food, the wine, staying above Siena's best pastry shop,....the unforgettable moments with friends old and new. Thank God for the precious photos that had captured so many of those delectable instances in time.......the very same photos that are now gone. "Sparite". Disappeared. My alter ego has reminded me that the visual majesty of the twelfth century, now roofless abbey of San Galgano, could make anyone lose there concentration just enough to leave behind their camera. Yet I have mentally flogged myself for that stupid mistake over and over these last two weeks, and I am desperate to really understand why. If I'm such a live in the moment person, then why so much attachment to images of what is now the past? The truth is that I had scrolled through those pictures enough times before I'd lost the camera, that I would have at least pretty decent memory recall of each snapshot. But I'm greedy. I'm an Italian culture vampire. I was in utter misery in the first moments when I realized the camera wasn't in its case, and subconsciously my trip was already over. Too bad really, because at that moment, I was enjoying one of the brightest, most romantic white wines I'd ever tasted, in a very unassuming but lovely piazza in the relatively unknown village of Monticiano with Dad and my best Sienese buddies, and I wasn't even really THERE for it. Why couldn't I shake it off? I answered question one with ease. I was over the loss of the camera itself within moments, (although it was a sweeeet little digital...). It was all about the images: The photos of my first real scuba diving adventure on the island of Elba, and the visions of the gigantic aloe and oleander strewn across its terrain. Photos of my father and I meeting our distant relatives for the first time in the fairytale town of Bettola, the very town where my great-grandfather was born. Climbing the equally glorious leaning tower of Pisa and La Torre del Mangia in Siena with a dear friend, and thinking that from up at those heights, anything was still possible. 'Momenti indimenticabili' as they say in italian. If the moments were indeed so unforgettable, then why am I still so gutted by the fact that I'll never again see those images? So much for staying in the moment. A picture is worth a thousand words they say. But what interested me more, was what those particular words would have to tell me. I had already teleported myself "trekky" style, back to the U.S., where I would lean on those images for mental support, for the times when I'd have a Jones for a good strong shot of La Toscana. I was in the midst of a major reorganization of my very chaotic life, and I would cling to those visuals as if they were no- fail recipes for reliving all the emotion and aromas of those moments with perfect accuracy. So I could feel the water from Bettola's Val Nure where I had dipped my hands and collected stones in the life-affirming river of my ancestors, so I could hear the laughter of my gorgeous community of friends at Cinzia's vegetarian dinner while we played Italian board games from the nineteen- seventies, so I could again smell the decadent cherry liqueur notes of the La Calla red of Montecucco that I savored with wild boar sausage and pecorino. I am somewhat of an addict to the landscape, cuisine, and people of The Tuscany, and Italy. So from the unkind snowbelt geography of The Hudson Valley, where I consider myself to merely half-live, I would use those precious photos to dose myself with italianita' as often as needed, to tap back into a lifeline....