Rome: The Deal
To me, there is nothing quite like being alone in a foreign country. Somewhere I don’t understand the language, preferably. Navigating places where I neither blend in nor stick out. Floating in between the lines of dream and reality. Discovering how even in completely different contexts and circumstances, we humans are a lot more alike than we are different.
—
Around Thanksgiving, Maman announced to the family she was making a different decision about how she would spend the holidays this year. “I feel like I need to be in Canada for Christmas.”
I was immediately overwhelmed with a sense of relief. For one, because she was deciding to do what she wanted to do - something I know to be difficult for her, split amongst her 4 children scattered around North America: Virginia, Kentucky, California, Vancouver. Good for you Mom!
Her declaration also brought me a wave of freedom - as a result, I felt like I could also do anything I wanted for the holidays. A luxury I’d seldom considered, valuing my quality time with family as a top priority in my life.
My instant thought, perhaps unsurprisingly was: “Oh, I’m gonna switch it up too and get out of DC.” I’d seen the family recently both at the event of the year: Myles and Anna’s (my now in-laws once removed) wedding in Little Rock and had returned to Lexington for a fulfilling Thanksgiving week with the Trudeau-Blackwelder clan.
My vision was that I would spend the holiday break parked under a palm tree somewhere and then go visit Carrie in Milwaukee to kick off the new year.
Naive as I was that I would be able to find a “cheap last minute flight”, I just couldn’t make the numbers work. Neither for the sun, nor for the snow. I consoled myself that I’d been blessed with a lot of travel in 2024. Sixteen trips in fact - half of those international destinations. I’d been away from Reston for 29 weeks already.
I quickly shifted mental gears, realizing that perhaps a solitude retreat at home, although a complete polarity to my desire to get out of dodge, was probably what I needed. I told myself: “Use December to rest hard. Something will show up in January.”
—
It wasn’t long after the turn of the year I connected with Linda. My original woman in automotive mentor, we’d been unofficially paired up at IBM. It was as if my all-male leaders back then knew I needed some pink influence in my professional life.
I ran everything “high stakes” by Linda. My “dirty decks” - those that first come out of my head, messy, often real out there and too complex. My rehearsals the night before the pitch. Linda saw what I saw. She helped shape my thinking so that others could see it too. Every time she could, she tagged along with me, to elevate my executive presence with clients. In New York City, her then hometown and my weekly consultant beat, I watched her work. And I learned. In San Francisco, she watched me work. And she taught.
Turns out the good guys were right. Over the 10 years we have known each other, our intellectual connection grew omnipresent. In fact, I still run my crazy ideas by her. She reads everything I write. I devour her big consulting stories on our periodic 4 hour phone calls. Yet what no one knew then is that a deep friendship would develop. One that would take us to 4 different countries together, and counting.
See we are cut from the same cloth me and Linda. We are thirsty for experiences. For getting out of our comfort zone, for seeing the world, for a non-mainstream lifestyle.
“Listen, I have to get out of town for a few weeks in February”, she tells me at our inaugural 2025 catch up. “Do you fancy Rome while I am gone? Stay at my place.”
I didn’t even have to think about it. HARD YES. “Absolutely, I’ll let the inspector in. And I’ll see you there when you are back.”
Count on me to make a big deal. Four weeks in Italy. Home base: Rome.
Dusk on Montverde, my neighborhood in Rome.
