One of the many joys of having a partner who is an artist is that sometimes, they bring you along for their working adventures.
This is why, for the past week, I’ve been journeying through Italy with my wife
, who also happens to be a consummate photographer. I’m a lucky human.This is Augusta taking time away from her own gadgets to marvel at the Tuscan scenery.
Vacation, in my mind, is time away from “home” and all of the things that it entails. Yes, this means time away from work and socializing and constantly checking phone and email, but it also means time away from disciplined writing—or at least time away from the guilt of not always following through.
Vacation is a time to put away the gadgets.
It’s a time to remember how easy it is to reconnect with what matters by disconnecting and venturing out into the world to meet new people in novel landscapes.
New chapters are always there for us to write, and I’m currently writing to you from one of my happy places on the planet, a small village somewhere south of Naples that need not be named because I treasure it.
Still, I couldn’t help but want to write you, if only briefly, not the least because last week’s Second Paris Substack Meetup was a humble reminder of just how friendly, curious, and inspiring this community really is. And so in honor of the antipasti, primi and secondi menus currently defining my evenings,
I now propose a 3-part course
of past writings for new readers to get acquainted and the stalwarts to rediscover them; the words are still just as much “me” as they were back then.
Happy Travels,
Samuél
Buon viaggio, Augusta and Samuél!