5 | A Quest for Music in Italy

Priorities are hard to manage. They get covered up by unnecessary complications. They grow long shadows, prone to paralyze action. When this happens, it’s important to remember that things should be simple.

They say it takes twenty-one days to settle into a new routine. I’ve been in Europe for thirty days now, and I’m wrapping up my third week teaching English in Italy. My skin is tan, within the confines of my tee-shirt lines. I’ve done this before and loved it…

Yet something doesn’t seem right.

My last time around, I was a younger twenty-two and not as settled into myself as I am now. I didn’t have such firm opinions about what I’d do with my life and who I wanted to be. Life was more simple. This creeping difference strikes an imbalance between what I expected from this trip and what is.

A lesson I’ve learned from this experience is that though it matters where you’re at, it matters what you’re doing a little more.

Though life has been an adventure, I find myself pining for the hobbies I need to have a full life: writing and playing guitar. Complicating my sense of happiness and fulfillment with barriers (good or bad) keeps me from acting naturally.

For instance, I’ve been searching for the perfect little travel guitar over the past few weeks. I looked online between work and went across Brescia after a day of chasing kids around, to two shops. Still, I didn’t find the one. It’s a tricky gambit, but what I need is specific…

However, this barrier, this quest for the right guitar, keeps me from one the longer I take.

My first delay is that my backpack is about to pop already. I bought a pair of gymnastic rings for working out this week (they’re awesome, by the way), but that’s plus two pounds. Any added weight would set me over my (and many airlines) limit.

But I have a trick up my sleeve.

It’s something with a more loosely enforced regulation, which I believe I can slip past in most cases, though it may be risky. Airport warriors know what I’m talking about: The Personal Item.
(sorry I said airport warriors)

Still, a full-sized guitar is too big to stuff into the backpack I use for my personal item on flights, so I need something that can accommodate many facets… My problem becomes further complicated.

Introducing: The Washburn Rover

https://www.washburn.com/product/rover-2/

It’s not in my hands yet—I’m actually having it personally delivered—but I can feel it now… the one.

After my searching, I remembered the first guitar I picked up while roving across Italy. It was smaller, though not tiny. It didn’t fit my rigid rules, but it had six strings and all. Could I have made my life easier by keeping things simple? Where is the line of prioritization between simplicity and details?

Live your way,

Noah