I’ve been thinking lately about living with uncertainty…without the frustrating need to know why things are, what others are thinking,what will happen; without the need to plan everything.

Given that change is the constant, that things don’t stay the same, that we can’t control what happens to us or how others behave, it is fruitless to yearn for certainty…and yet we spend so much time trying to create it, to putting the future in concrete, nailing moths down. Learning to love uncertainty, to revel in negative capability, to accept all that comes with equanimity, and without fear…this is where it’s at…in the positive uncertainty of poetry.

When I arrived in my hotel room (see view from, above) here in Ischia with Gianni and Alessandra I opened my suitcase 1) To show them the pair of Shakespeare boxing shorts I’d purchased at the Folger Institute in Washington to prove to them that I was indeed a bilbiophile, 2) To present Alessandra with the pancake mix and maple syrup I’d brought, I noticed that my laptop was gone…and my camera…and my notepad…all valuable tools of the trade…necessary to the smooth operation of my assigned task.

What the fuck: the kindly wind that carried me here also blows cold? Instead of being unsettled and angry that, though caught in a whirlwind, I persist in ignoring the important details necessary to efficient functioning in this world, I will chillax. As Gianni puts it: things belong to us until THEY want to leave. We can buy them, but they decide how long they want to stay with us. We humans cannot control time.

Now I will fully appreciate my time here in Ischia, as it happens, during the coming days, without the distracting requirement to record. And the result will be better.