9. Seek out magic

and other epiphanies

Hello again friends,

It’s been a minute, hasn’t it? Thank you for your patience with me. For a few months there, it seemed considerably easier to keep going without intentionally figuring out how to do so, and so my focus shifted. The times when I did open up Substack, I would get so drawn in by all the other writing waiting in my inbox that I would invariably use up the time I had carved out for writing my own post reading others’, and put my own writing off again for another day. There is such an impressive quantity of high quality writing on Substack, if you have tips on how to keep up, please do share. Every time I open the app, I end up finding another one that I must subscribe to, despite the fact that I can no longer keep up with the ones I’ve already got, but I can’t help myself. I want to read everything.

On a few occasions I’ve received a little notification from the platform: New free subscriber! Huzzah, I would think as I clicked through. Which family member has decided to subscribe now? But on at least two occasions I was surprised to find that it was not a family member, or a friend, or anyone else I already knew who had subscribed. It was a real human who had mysteriously stumbled onto my Substack while I’d been neglecting it, and decided to stay a while. Welcome, kind strangers! I know what an array of choice you have, so I truly do consider it an honour for you to be here.

You have brought my total subscriber count up to 18! I am now workshopping a post on “How to Grow Your Substack from Zero to Eighteen in Only Ten Months”. (Step one: Tell three siblings, be pleased when one subscribes. Step two: tell absolutely no one else for months, unless forcefully pressed into sharing ‘what you’ve been working on lately’. Step three: This one is crucial: Write as sporadically as possible. Step four: Never, ever post a note. Step five: Be deeply moved when two total strangers subscribe and stay subscribed during a five-month dry spell.)

The selection on Substack is much like the lunch buffet at the retreat I’m currently at - far more than you can comfortably fit on your plate, or in your belly, but by golly you do not want to miss out so you pile your plate high and might even go back for seconds, Villa Pia half stone be damned! Does that simile work? Never mind, it was just an excuse for me to tell you about the retreat.

a glimpse of the balcony where a writing tutor told me I had to keep going

Remarkably, I find myself writing to you from a hillside in Umbria. I was in need of a rather substantial thing to look forward to a few months back and booked it, despite the obvious impracticality of travelling across nine time zones for a mere seven days. However, within moments of arriving, I already knew it had been worth it.

Villa Pia is an enchanted place. I have been learning to choose my words extra carefully here, so that was a deliberate choice, to use enchanted rather than enchanting, though this 15th century manor house and its surroundings are certainly the latter as well. I think so many of us are drawn to Italy precisely because of how enchanting (as in charming, captivating) it is - I know I am. But there is something distinctly enchanted (as in under a spell, bewitched, magical). I don’t know that I’ve ever experienced this as strongly before in my lifetime. For the first couple of days, I thought it might be the jet lag that was making me feel so different, I was waiting for my body to adjust to the drastically different time zone and then I would go back to feeling more normal. But even after several days, I continued to feel different, and not at all in a bad way. I’ve got no proper use for ‘normal’ anymore.

I was jotting down some notes in a tiny notebook at the dinner table last night (normal me voice in my head: don’t be so rude, you’re at the table, put that thing away. Villa Pia me voice in my head: this is what we all came here for, nobody minds, get down what you need to get down.) When I did put my pen down, I looked up across the table and one of my new friends was smiling at me, at the sight of me writing. I smiled back, and said, “it’s just been bubbling up through me. It’s like a fountain here at Villa Pia, I can’t explain it!” I truly can’t explain it. I am tempted to use that old cliché (I don’t know what they’re putting in the water here) but the three brilliant, incisive writing tutors have all been steering us firmly away from cliché. They might allow me to make it my own though? To say, I don’t know if it’s in the water, or in the wine, or the food - if I had to make a guess I’d say it’s in the cake, but still not sure if it was the cake at elevenses or the cake at teatime or perhaps it was actually the tiramisu we all marvelled at after dinner the first night.

Like a fountain, but not this one, in Lippiano, which appears to have been drained for the season.

What I can say with certainty is that something colossal has been dislodged in me. Something that was weighing me down. Not just in my writing, but in my life. I have been writing more, and better, than I ever have before, and that has felt tremendous. But little epiphanies have been bubbling up as well. I have had significant revelations about things that had previously eluded me.

Some of these realizations have been hard. Very hard, in fact. I consider this an integral part of the Villa Pia magic. It moves you in ways that allow you to identify long held personal fallacies, and it holds you in a way that fosters a swift recovery from the instability that any necessary dismantling may provoke.

While I am utterly convinced of the Villa Pia magic, there is a bit more to it as well. For the past four days, I have observed the labour that is required to steward it and the generosity that allows them to share it with people who need it.

I’ve got more to write, much more in fact. But it just gone seven here and the sun will be rising soon. The pool and the hills and the mist are all calling to me. I have three more days of Villa Pia Magic and I must make the most of it.

Parleremo presto!

with love,

Rebecca

- with special thanks to K for the peer review of this post