Why Without Envy?

and a few other things that matter

Our mission here at The Revelate is simple: To uncover proof you can pull back the blinds of hypocrisy and sort through the nonsense we’re taught about life to surrender your heart to longing, forge meaningful purpose and find your place in the world.

Also, the goal is to entertain, to be transparent with our own experiences and empathetic to those of others, and at the risk of sounding shocking, naive or just being different from everyone else, better measure what matters in life to live longer, better, with less, wherever you are. 

Why Without Envy?

Years ago, to share our journey of raising a child with Type One Diabetes to live life to the fullest, I started a blog I called Without Envy, which helped me greatly in navigating this new normal way of life. The writing served me well—and others too, I hope—in what had become a very foreign and frightening world. Eventually, like the pilgrims we were, we found others on the road and in sharing our stories we discovered that while life could at times be a real motherfucker we were not alone.  

Our daughter is older now and so are we. With the scrutiny of decades behind us, our hope with this newsletter is to encourage everyone everywhere to age with intention and find in themselves the means and drive and perseverance to live life to the fullest, authentically, and realize their own aspiring, audacious self.

We know it takes work. It takes cutting through the bullshit we’re taught early on about life and living and while we don’t have all the answers—living well is not one-size-fits all—there is proof all around that it can be done, you can live a more meaningful life.

You just have to learn to live without envy.

And now, as life without music would be a mistake, here are a few meaningful measures that matter, I think:

• Of course, having just returned to Sicily after 30 days in the US our attention has been centered around what to eat (for the record, arancini was top of the list, then pizza. And cheese. Plus wine—Sorry. It was a long list). Anyway, not that the food we ate in America was bad—I would say this little jewel of a place was our favorite—but nowhere we went held a candle to the food we find right here in Troina. 
• Notwithstanding my poutiness and/or any other behavior in which I showed my ass disdain for being away from the things I love, like food, in order to be around the people I love, like these guys, it was a great trip and a real treat to visit many of the places we used to call home, making me hopeful for everything good about small-town America. 
• We’ve come home to earlier nights, cooler weather and more time inside than usual. While we both would like to use it to perhaps foster a better bedtime routine, spend more time with Adriene, or just giving our noggin’ a break, so far we haven’t been able to pull ourselves away from the show, The Big Bang Theory, now airing on Netflix. How in the world this one got by us in its prime we haven’t a clue. A victim, I suppose, of cutting the cable.
• That said, being entirely alone together for the first time in our coupledom has provided us the opportunity to work more intently on our relationship—though we wouldn’t fault anyone for thinking: An island, no kids, still somewhat young and healthy? Stop your bitchin’. Growing older together and not being cranky about it has less to do with Where, What and When than Who, and so for help in where to start we took what is one of the most popular, un-scientific, personality tests in the world. Our findings: Fun conversation starter but don’t believe everything you read here and if you do happen to see room for improvement there’s probably a good reason why. Which is pretty much just what you’d expect from a pragmatical One and a skeptical Six.
• What I’m reading: I have a number of books on my theoretical nightstand (I started using an eReader when we moved here, and not really thrilled about it), but the one I’m enjoying the most is How to Read Water: Clues & Patterns from Puddles to the Sea, by Tristan Gooley. It’s a fantastic read and encompasses all of the many things I love about water, from sound to surface to the hidden world below.
• Chart-worthy. I’m delighted to see Jimmy Buffett’s last album, Equal Strain on All Parts, making its mark on the charts for the late icon. Rollingstone says it is “every bit the laidback, eclectic, inviting set of tunes you’d expect from the beloved singer-songwriter, bridging pop, country, and rock & roll, mixing island sounds and down-home vibes, and balancing five-o’clock-somewhere good times with gentle life wisdom”. I couldn’t agree more. If you’ve not given it a listen, try Bubbles Up, Like My Dog or Mozambique, a beautiful duet with Emmylou Harris or… oh hell, it’s Buffett, listen to them all.
• Speaking of an inviting and eclectic personality, check out this incredibly moving film from Op-Docs, a New York Times forum for short, opinionated documentaries by independent filmmakers. It is an inspiring reminder to live more presently in the moment and never give up on life. Watch it here. 
• Indeed, you'll know, if you watched the short film above (watch it again here), that people who think positively about getting older often live longer, healthier lives. Repeat after me: I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.

That's all for now, thanks for reading. Behind my desk sits just me, unencumbered by shareholders or billionaire owners, trying to cut through the bullshit were taught about life to better measure what matters in life. If my writing here seems to be living up to those intentions or otherwise enriches your own life in any way, please consider supporting my work in one of these two ways: 

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I’ll end with an other Sicilian quote: Una bedda jurnata nun fa stati, which means one beautiful day doesn’t make a summer. It’s a thought we all should keep in mind, especially around this particular holiday season, and temper our delights with the fact that there’s a whole host of others less fortunate in the world who would at the moment give anything to enjoy just one singular beautiful day. 

Alla prossima,
SLG

one last thing: I do love being around water. Lo Zingaroo, in the western part of the island, is one of our favorite places here in Sicily to experience it and all the secrets hidden beneath it.