The pavement is already hot enough to
cook on at 7 in the morning, and the dog doesn’t care. He pulls toward the one patch of wet grass the storms left behind last night, thunder still echoing somewhere in the memory of the house, the dry lakes finally swallowing what the sky offered. The air smells like hot concrete and rain. Texas summer has arrived, fully and without apology. Which means, predictably, that it’s almost time to escape to cooler altitudes.
Glowing From Inside
A text landed this week from my buddy Mitch: “Every post you made from Italy, you looked younger and happier.” Someone else said I was glowing. I’ve been sitting with that word. Glowing. Not rested, not tan … glowing. Like something internal had been switched back on. The question worth asking isn’t why I glowed over there. It’s why the switch gets flipped off over here.
What Inspired Means
I’ve been trying to trace it. Ten years ago I had three days alone in Tuscany, painting the hills all day, every day, no agenda, no schedule, no one needing anything from me. Those days carved themselves into the permanent record of my life. They didn’t fade the way most good things do. It happened again after my Switzerland trip last fall. I can’t get enough.
This spring I got to relive the feeling, weekend after weekend, driving the Chianti district, Siena, Lucca, Pisa, Fabriano, and the Tuscan hills. Every view was a scene someone had already decided was worth painting, centuries ago. On my last day I was invited by a friend to a 1,500-year-old private estate overlooking vineyards and rolling hills, and I stood there genuinely grieving the fact that I had to leave.
That grief told me something.
When I lived in California, I was more inspired. The high Sierras, the rocky coast, variety within two hours in any direction. I painted more, thought more clearly, felt more like myself. Same in the Adirondacks. Texas is home, and I love what’s here. But inspiration isn’t everywhere.
The Silence Spoke
What surprised me more than the painting in Italy was the silence. I never once turned on the television. Never felt the pull to scroll, to catch up, to fill the quiet with noise. I was so fully occupied, so pleasantly exhausted each night, that the usual hunger for distraction simply … didn’t come.
There are entire industries built around the premise that you’ll need to fill time. That boredom is a problem requiring a product. I wonder how many of us have accepted that bargain without realizing it, trading our actual lives for the sensation of passing time comfortably. What if the goal isn’t to pass time at all? What if it’s to spend it and live with enthusiasm?
Three Hours Was Enough
Here’s the number that stopped me: I ran my company in just three hours a day. Not the normal 10 hours. Not perfectly, not without triage, but it ran. The decisions got made, the crises got handled, the thing kept moving. The other 21 hours went to learning, painting, walking, eating slowly, sleeping fully. And somehow, at the end of five weeks, my face looked younger.
Mitch, I think that might be your answer.
Dad’s Old Question
My father, forty-some years ago, asked himself why he still lived where he lived. The reasons he came up with were about people already gone, history that had already happened. The question shook something loose in him, and it’s how our family discovered the Adirondacks. A new chapter disguised as an honest question.
I’m asking myself the same thing now. Not with urgency, not with any plan to blow up what I’ve built. But with the seriousness it deserves. My new goal is simple: Find a way to spend spring in Italy and more time in beautiful places, not all of it work-related. Every year, if possible. Because I think the man who shows up there is the man I prefer to be.
What You Deserve
The convention last week reminded me how alive I feel on stage, around people, helping someone crack something open they couldn’t see before. Italy reminded me I love silence, solitude, and the particular satisfaction of being so tired at the end of a day that nothing trivial can find you.
Both things are true. The life worth designing holds both.
I don’t want to live with Groundhog Day anymore. Some of what I do, even the parts I love, has gone on long enough to calcify into routine. Routine is fine until you realize you’ve stopped choosing it. Then it’s just a groove you’re riding.
Here’s what I keep coming back to: That glow Mitch noticed wasn’t Italy. Italy was just the conditions that let it surface. The glow was already in there.
So is yours.
What would it take to let it out?
