My "UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN " Moment

Under the Tuscan Sun

I have seen this movie more times than I care to admit.  It is one of my favorite movies and I live vicariously through Diane Lane every time I watch the movie.  Maybe it’s because I can relate with her movie character.  A woman who divorces her cheating husband, travels to Italy, falls in love with an abandoned villa, and decides to buy it.  Her life undergoes its own restoration as she restores her new home.

How many others have wanted to follow her footsteps?  Find that place where one goes to heal, the place that restores your soul.  A villa in Italy sounds like the perfect place for this life change.

I have been back from Italy for a few weeks and the urge to follow in Diane Lane’s character is even stronger.  Would you believe that I’m on a tour bus in Italy and as we pass this villa, I get  the urge to jump up and yell “STOP – I’m supposed to get off the bus here and purchase this place.”  It’s true, it really happened !

I’m sitting by my daughter on the bus and she is the one sitting next to the window with the camera in her hand.  I remember spotting this villa and telling her to get a picture of it.  Well, that sounds a little calm doesn’t it?  It was more like “get a picture, get a picture, get a picture, that’s my house !”  Simultaneously, I’m thinking I should tell the driver to “stop”  “this is my Under the Tuscan Sun house.”

Realistically, I know I have to come back home and go to work.  I don’t have the money to buy a villa in Italy so I think I will print this picture, frame it, and hang in on my wall.  I will look at it and think about my travels through Italy.  I will close my eyes and pretend that I did get off that bus.  That I purchased the villa, that I’m renovating it, and that I’m enjoying wonderful Italian food in my dining room with my new friends.  I will dream that my friends from the US come to visit me all of the time, that my daughter stays with me for months (sorry DJ) as we practice our Italian and that the rest of my life is filled with laughter and joy in my new villa in Italy.