Spring, 2016. I was broken and exhausted, hobbled by grief, barely able to function. But I would honor the invitation to fly across the pond and abide in the old castle for a season. Perhaps maybe it could reawaken my appetite for life and fill my cup with beauty again. I hoped so. Can’t remember what day it was. Past the mid-point of my stay I think, when this question popped into my head. It wasn’t a question, really. Not something that needed an answer. Just a realization that sunk in deeply, a manifesto phrased like a question, that made me believe that inner-aliveness was possible again and maybe the time of slogging through sadness was over. The question became a lens through which I could see where I was — an exquisite place called Civitella. And all the exceptional people there, I could see them, too. They dined at a long table, prepared and served savory delights, expressively presented ideas, fluffed pillows from room to room, tended to a thousand details, and shared delicious secrets. To and fro, across the crunchy pebble paths they stepped. Up stone staircases, they flew. Over into the garden, they settled in. Around the cobblestone corners, into the library, through the iron gates, down the road to town, on all kinds of weather days, they jogged and swayed and teased, they rested, I mean ‘we’ rested, we renewed, we made and unmade this and that, we yakked, laughed, lifted, shifted and shed things, because you see, like in miracles, I came to realize I was not an outsider. ‘Them’ included me. And that made me feel so happy. Yup. For the first time in so-long-ago-I-can’t-even-remember, I felt great. As for that question: from then on, it informed everything at Civitella. I tasted it in my lunch pail. I felt it in the landscape. I even heard the birds chirping it: “Tweet! Tweet! What kind of heaven is this place?”