Who am I? Sometimes you can hit the target but miss the self…

I often wonder WHO AM I. Yes, I know my name, SS number and parents/spouse/daughter names. I also know I love sailboats, biplanes, red apples, rice and dogs. I know I love to read and I used to play the guitar years ago. I know, very well, that I love Tokyo and Florence to death and that I long for the Mediterranean licking my bare feet on yellow sand. I know the Tuscany colors even with my eyes closed, and the smell of London and NYC in a busy Sunday morning. I will also remember the smell of my daughter’s hair when I used to comb it every night (she was 4 or 5). I know all those things. But I am not those things. I am something else…

When I feel lost inside myself (the worst and loneliest place to feel lost) I open the windows of my mind and throw things away. I simplify as much as I can and discard books, shoes, winter clothes, old postcards and pictures… I empty my room, my desk, all the pockets in my shirt and pants. I then try to empty my mind as much as I can.

Then, sometimes I am lucky and the answer comes to me: I AM A MAN WHO ENJOYS LIGHT, COOKING AND POETRY, I AM A MAN WHO LOVES CREATING A COMPANY FROM ZERO. Then I see I am not my pain or my fears or my job (or lack of job). I am much more and much less than that.

Whoever I am, he looks at me then and I reach to that mature man with hope and a smile. And it is then that I bring back all those things to my pockets and the books and memories. It is then that I close my eyes and can be back in Tokyo or Florence or London or NYC. Then I feel the Mediterranean on my skin and I can cook some good rice dish or a good fish.

I am always beyond the last word so I don’t define myself verbally. I am this and that, I used to do this or that, I am not the person who owns X or Y. I, simply, AM…