Remembering What Life Is About on the Road to Lake Garda
Mindfulness, Italy, and a terrible camper van experience
As the lights come on, the stars come out
So do the bugs. A gray haze swims above the cold waters of the lake, the same haze that followed us all the way from Munich, softening the sharp-toothed ridges of the Dolomites, dulling their famous pink flanks into slate. Clouds drift through it like ships lost on a becalmed sea the color of ash, an echo of distant smoke.
We sit outside on chairs with price tags on them, the gas-powered mosquito repellent hissing gently as it creates a chemical bubble around us. Lake Garda seems less surrounded by mountains than birthing them, gray slopes patched with dark green firs rising out of the water on all sides.
They have lakes like this in Canada, too. They have mountains like this, the bed of what was once an ancient ocean now thrust into the sky by restless volcanic activity. They have eagles circling the mountains there just like they do here, the bright eyes of the world scanning the slopes for weakness, hesitation, uncertainty.
They don’t have these lights. They don’t have the beautiful villages that surround the lake, each wearing its crown jewels in the gathering night and mirroring…
