LOVE AND LUNACY

Just returned from Italy, a crazy country that I love, but one which is full of frustrations, especially if you are trying, as I am, to build a house there with not enough time or money. It's a stop and start project and although progress has been dramatic since my last trip, the trail back to the beginning is a long one. In a rare gesture of practicality I met with three realtors in order to assess the current value of the property, just in case I want - or need - to sell it, and also to get some sense of what it's added to my net worth. The first realtor gave me a huge number, which I immediately dismissed as fiction designed to obtain the listing. But, admittedly, the numbers were swirling in my head - what I paid for the property, remaining mortgage and loan payments, commissions and of course, net profit. It all sounded so easy and so neat. The other realtors had other opinions, but in the end, it appears that after all is said and I done I could make a tidy profit and put a nice down payment on something closer to home, something that I could use, say, every weekend. I was ready to declare myself the Donald Trump of Umbria, buying and selling for a profit, congratulating myself on a savvy investment. Reality isn't often that simple, though. On the last day, I spent two hours at the house, taking photographs, measuring and laying out furniture schemes, breaking overgrown branches with my hands and cutting them off with a little scissors I brought from home just for that purpose - I was ripping at those things like Scarlett O'Hara tearing up the land at Tara. I'm sure I looked crazed. Perched on the newly created terrazzo overlooking the stupendous view, I said to myself, very Scarlett-like, "Shit, I can't sell this thing!" Thus are momentous decisions are made by quixotics. Sure, I can change my mind later, but for now I am back trying to earn more money so I can put in the windows and doors, which have been ordered but not paid for. And then there's the furniture....but I'm just putting one step in front of the other and walking....slowly.