Friends and changes

Ms. Packratty is rather sad. An old friend has abruptly and without any explanation or any honesty, effectively fired her as a friend. She suspects this former friend had her nose put out of joint by Ms. Packratty’s Italian adventure, although Ms. Packratty extended several invitations to undertake a joint excursion – her now apparently former friend had countered a proposal for a week in Rome and a couple of days in Florence with the desire to do the sort of city hopping that makes your head swim – i.e. if this is Tuesday it must be Turin.

Since we had such opposing ideas about Italy, Ms. Packratty had concluded that she needed to go to Italy by herself and had suggested to this friend that they undertake a Grand Canyon trip, since her FF lives in the West and has made much about her outdoors activities. That was shot down, first with the comment that her FF was not comfortable with wearing a bathing suit and then with the plea that she was no longer very outdoorsy, countering with the idea of taking a cruise to Alaska. Ms. Packratty started doing research and sent her some details for a late summer 2013 sailing and then was flabbergasted to receive a deadpan, unfriendly, unemotional and patently dishonest “I think we have different ideas about what a vacation is.”

Well, what is a vacation?

Some vacations are for learning, some are for relaxing, some are physically demanding, some are all of the above. Ms. Packratty’s Roman holiday certainly was all of those. What other things could a vacation be like? Constant motion, I suppose, or sitting still and imitating a log, but in between those two opposites, what else is there? What a vacation is not in my eyes would be a frantic slog from one city to the next with minutes instead of hours budgeted for museums, packing and unpacking and checking in and out of hotels.

If I go to Naples, I want time to see Pompeii, to go to the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli and spend half a day or more without time pressure, or wander through the Pompeii ruins until my feet are ready to drop off. If I go to Positano, I want more than a half day race to “see the sights” – I want to sit under an arbor, sip a limoncello and then go watch ceramic artists at work. You can’t do those things if you have allocated a week and you are trying to see most of the “boot”. You can rush around and do exhausting drive-by tourism or you can stop and concentrate and be in a place. Or two.

Am I sad? Yes, I am. I really treasured FF but apparently she has taken some offense and doesn’t want my friendship. I’m very sorry about that, but there’s absolutely nothing I can do. I know I have many faults as a friend, but lack of honesty and openness is not one of them and I am deeply offended at the way I was treated. However, knowing what I know about FF’s family and upbringing, I’m not surprised. Her family appears to suffer from one of the worst cases of emotional constipation I’ve ever heard of, although the only emotion her parents seemed to be perfectly free expressing was disapproval.

So I don’t know what FF’s underlying problem is. I’m sad about it, but you know – I can’t fix anything if she won’t be honest and open with me and I’m just not able to go digging for it. When someone lives 1000 miles away and you aren’t face to face with them, if they want to be hostile and evasive, there’s no way to get them to open up.

Do I like it? No, it’s always sad to lose a friend.

What am I going to do about it? Nothing. There’s nothing I can do. I’m going to send her the souvenir yarn I bought her in Rome, wish her well, tell her that I’ll be glad to listen if she ever decides to talk and get on with my life.

So next stop? Planning for that Grand Canyon trip. It seems only fair to alternate US trips with trips to la bella Italia.