My parents and I are leaving Florence on Monday…that is, day after tomorrow. Destination: Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A. I have a question: why is it that natural disasters or plane crashes always take place on the eve of my departure? Always. I mean, it’s almost uncanny…

This time, it’s Hurricane Earl. I have been tracking its course…Luckily, it appears that we won’t be running into it. I can’t say I am sorry about that. No, not one bit. I have traveled in bad weather, snowstorms and whatnot, but this would have been my first experience with hurricane-force winds…eeekkk!

I am a fatalist. I believe that, well, if it’s gonna happen, it’s gonna happen. And statistics show that you are in more danger of kicking the bucket just sitting at your kitchen table doing absolutely nothing than by getting on a plane. I am well aware of all that.

Still, I don’t like to fly. I can’t help it. My heart starts racing at the slightest turbulence, thumpety thump!, let alone if the plane runs into an air pocket. Now, that is an interesting expression. In Italian, an air pocket is a “vuoto d’aria,” which literally translates to “an empty space with no air.” Well, at those altitudes there is no such thing as an airless space, of course. “Vuoti d’aria” are nothing more than strong air currents that make planes lose altitude, usually only for a few seconds. I know all this, I know all this…yet my rational brain cannot stop my irrational heart from going crazy…

As soon my feet leave the ground, you see, things…change. I feel as though I have no control over my life, which both annoys and scares me. It is similar, I suppose, to my attitude about having multiple myeloma. I have no control over what may or may not happen to me in the future. Taking curcumin and doing research and keeping updated and writing posts for my blog and keeping in touch with blog readers…well, all of this helps a lot, as does my cheerful, optimistic, ready-to-laugh disposition…but the fact remains that myeloma is an insidious type of cancer. Even though mine is currently dormant, I am well aware that one day it might raise its head, then yawn and stretch its scrawny little legs…

It might wake up. Or…it might not…

Anyway, having myeloma is a bit like getting on a plane that might, or again, might not!, have to go through hurricane-force winds. You can never be entirely sure that you will safely reach your destination…and have your feet back on the ground, like this man near Worms Head, UK (I watched him jump off a cliff, fly around for a while and then land safely on the beach…)…

Okay, enough with all this morbid talk! Uffa! Of course, everything will be fine. My parents and I will have a smooth trip and land safely in Boston on Monday night. And I will be back in Italy, back with Stefano and my kitties, on the 22^nd of this month. No worries. 

I am taking a laptop with me, and, hah, IF I can manage (!) to hook it up to my parents’ Mac-friendly but perhaps not-PC-friendly (!) modem, I will be posting at least a few updates from Massachusetts. I have so many unread studies lying on my desktop, so many unfinished drafts…but I probably won’t get to them until I return. Tomorrow, though, I would like to post about one of them, at least…

I just have to see how the packing goes… 🙂