I have my mother to thank for losing my mind. Her confession made me feel like I’d been released from her womb all over again. It answered all the questions about our family; but what about the mystery that was me? 

I thought I had everything, but the truth was missing. Her secret inspired a transatlantic voyage. Followed by a nomadic lifestyle in Europe. In search of a home, and myself.  

Rome was fantastic for three years, until time stood still. Then Paris, where time flew by so fast it put me in a state of panic when it stopped. My mother’s death forced me into a pathological grief which felt worse than the terror felt while crossing the Atlantic.  

Homeless and broke, I found myself living in Malta. In the middle of the Mediterranean. Where the water gods laughed at me, as if to say “Ha, you risked everything and all that security, to end up here, surrounded by water; your worst nightmare!” 

Failure was everywhere. Until I decided to live aboard our sailboat near Venice. There was nowhere to escape, except to myself. My odyssey lasted 20 years. I had to jump off a lot of cultural cliffs, but eventually I found what I’d been chasing, which was grace. And a home, in the northwest corner of Italy, nestled up against the Alps. In a place called Piemonte; another secret that needs to be told.