Now fair warning, this may seem self evident and perhaps it is to those of you who have journalled and kept diaries throughout your lives. I was not one of those, nor did I see value in doing so. Besides I was too damn busy doing whatever made me busy and I didn’t have any time for that!

So, here I am all of seventy-two years old weathered and scarred from a lifetime of living, humbled to say the least by this ageing thing. It was predictable to see my muscle mass shrink, to see my once powerful thighs a frail imitation of their youthful glory. It is predictable to ‘see” my vision weaken and for my knees to ache. These and a hundred other complaints are well documented and their arrival can be no surprise to any one of us lucky enough to reach this age. But the insidious relentless weakening of my mind? Now that I am not ready for. I am not ready to forget, not ready to be unable to remember, to recall a lifetime of memories.

So Thank God I started to write before it was too late.

Turns out the Sands of Time, unkind bastard such as he is, scrubs our minds of our most precious memories. I had no idea when I was young that memory and Time would be forever connected. Most of my memories were made back when I really had no concept of time. I was young and brash and narcissistic, mindful of nothing much at all other than what we were going to do next. I would pay lip service to the tragic news of one of our friends or business associates dying way before his Time but would give it no more than a passing thought, certain I’m sure that the Rules of Time didn’t really apply to me.

I have come to understand though as Time has marched on and as my mind weakens that memory and Time are forever intertwined. One does not exist without the other. We can have no sense of Time and place without memory, it is as though our memories allow us tell the Time. What happened, with whom did it happen and when it happened allow us to travel back in Time, sometimes decades.

I wrote what follows on September 23, 2007. Mac and I were in Italy on a magnificent Tuscan holiday with great friends. I was sitting in a gazebo in the garden of our villa, overlooking the infinity pool, the sweeping hills of Tuscany rolling out to the horizon beneath us, a tapestry painted in the autumnal colours of the Italian landscape. We had spent nearly two weeks at Podere Barberino Val d’Elsa, a 14th century villa nestled in a hilltop village between Florence and Sienna in Tuscany. I didn’t know at the time I was creating a Time Capsule.

And so this is where my writing begins, seated deep within the folds of a Tuscan hillside, the sounds of friendship all around, chatting and peels of laughter interrupting what seem like important thoughts, made all the less so by the lightness of the moment. Senses overwhelmed, memories from so many special moments so many memories, some spilling over into the darkness of what I am bound to forget. Rolling hills, a light September sun, a farmer in the distance shotgun shouldered, waiting with anticipation for the flush of quail, a little green gecko at my feet, more laughter, the familiar sound of my wife, her voice embracing me. This is where I begin the story.

You are welcome to read on but be open to the voyage. I hope it will shed light, I hope it will take you a merry chase, I hope it will take you up and down as surely as a road in Chianti. I hope it is a good read. I hope it will be read.

Seven years in the planning our trip was suddenly upon us. All the ‘won’t it be’s’ turning into ‘isn’t this …!’, all the anticipation, bottled up and put away, made better with time, all of a sudden becoming ‘right now’. Friends for life these girls have been and will remain, fast friends and friends forever, a true sisterhood, The Ya Ya’s. For the men in their lives there is a need to find our place, for to love one of them is to find place with all of them.

And as we travelled to meet in our long planned Tuscan destination we found ourselves at a table for eight, all friends, all laughing, all content in our awareness that our great Italian holiday was finally upon us. For me, a realization that it will never be the same again but in that moment, none of us would change a thing.

What an extraordinary beginning. Mac and I have just spent three days in Roma before we joined the ‘Gang of Eight’. There is no getting ready for Roma, a sensual magnificent city, throbbing with energy, self aware, self absorbed, full of style of grace, a city certain of its place, sure that all roads lead to Roma. Two thousand years in the making there are buildings like the Colosseum which had fallen into disrepair over sixteen hundred years ago. We are staying at the Hotel Lancelot, Rue Africa, a few hundred meters from the Colosseum, the Palatine and the Circus Maximus. It is a hotel straight out of a 19th century romance novel, small, intimate and welcoming. It is the sort of hotel where Hercule Poirot himself might well have dined during his Roman holidays. It is a wonderful oasis in a city that at any moment can overwhelm a visitor.

Roma is intoxicating and I love being here, drinking it all in, becoming aware that I have never been in a place like this before – frantic, intense, romantic, sexual, a city defined by style. Men look at a woman as though she is the only woman alive, hungry, intense, sensual, impatient. And these Roman women absorb it, appreciate it, embrace it. Mac experiences that directness when a well dressed Italian man approaches her outside a men’s clothing shop near the Trevi Fountain.

“Ummmmhhhhhh! Bella.” he looks right at Mac, sniffing the night air with a primal awareness.

“Your perfume, it is a beautiful choice for you.”

He had smelled her and spoke directly to her. I know this happened because I was there, standing beside her. In fact, he walked right past me as he spoke to Mac. He was sensual, direct and Italian, in another time and place disarming. Her gelato, the first she’d allowed herself in months, melted. From there a simple nod of admiration from a man as he passed her on an escalator. Of course it should be noted that Mac looked incredibly beautiful, like a gorgeous unattainable movie star rising silently on the moving stairs, her dark glasses adding an air of mystery. The butcher in our small village of Barberino Val d’Elsa speaking to her as though she was the only woman in the shop, somehow turning the purchase of pollo into a tango between a man and a woman. It is fascinating to be in Italy, these appreciative cultured men and the women who know them, it is a ‘place’ I have lived much of my life but never in a country where it is such a natural way to be.

We stayed three nights in Roma. We ate delicious meals and drank simple, wonderful wine. We marvelled at the motorcycles and the driving and we watched wide eyed as our taxi driver threaded his car through a needle head around a three motorcycle pileup, without stopping, without appearing to have any concerns about the fallen motorcycle drivers. High fashion everywhere, for women and men, more lingerie shops than one could have ever imagined. Exclusive Prada, Gucci and Versace shops near the Spanish Steps, a doorman welcoming shoppers after an assessment of their net worth. Roma is a narcissistic city, and Romans are a narcissistic people and completely unapologetic about it. It makes some sort of sense though. After 2000 years of history, each generation born into an awareness of past greatness, this ‘Italian way’ seems understandable.

We toured the Colosseum, built for the masses it could seat 80,000 and it was free to all citizens. Lions and tigers and all manor of animals fought to the death. Gladiators, the original cage fighters, the best in the Roman Empire fought in the Colosseum for their freedom. It is named after a huge 50m colossus built outside the building itself. The Colosseum fell into disuse in the 4thC AD and was badly damaged in a 14th century earthquake. The marble that once adorned all the seating was stripped and taken to the Vatican as that city state rose to prominence. Inside the great hallways we saw a display of ‘Eros’, which is so much a part of our literary heritage speaking as it does of platonic love, erotica, the indulged and permitted love of a man for a young boy and of sapphic love between women. It is all so startling to see it recorded and described and for me a simple man from Canada, so revealing. So many of our ‘modern issues’, our social wrestling matches are neither modern, nor new.

Our second tour was beneath the Vatican, a city state to this day which has for most of its history been the seat of the Roman Catholic Church in all its power and wealth. We took a tour, the Scavi Tour, beneath St. Peter’s Basilica, to see what are believed to be the bones of St. Peter, a discovery made in 1938 but kept secret until after the war. We finished inside the cathedral and I can only say it was breathtaking. The sheer beauty and sense of raw power and wealth is palpable. The faith of the thousands who were with us that day was undeniably compelling. It was a day I shall never forget.

And then we were off to rendezvous with our friends in Tuscany, a phrase I suspect I will never again be able to write. We had all arranged to meet in Florence and travel from there to our villa in Tuscany. Our party of eight and not just any party of eight but this party of eight! Stacy, Rick, Darlene, Paul, Rose, Bernie, Mac and Tony, not a shrinking violet in the bunch. Each and everyone of us had our own private ‘to do’ and ‘must see’ list, all of us considerate and fair and submissive to the group will.

The next day this herd of cats left for Firenza, on our first grand adventure together. It was a hot muggy day. Firenza is remarkable, the capital of what was once a powerful city state, at war against the hated Sienese for several centuries through the Black Plague of 1358 and beyond. The Duomo, the Ponte Vecchio (the covered bridge over the Arno River) with its shops and apartments, is centuries old. We arrived early and walked to an open market, a very happy place for Stacy and Mac, not so much for the ‘the boys’. From there we went on a forced march for our 11:30am reserved tour at the Academia Museum, home to Michelangelo’s ‘David’.

I led the way, map in hand, winding our way through ancient streets, through throngs of people, over narrow sidewalks. Tensions, I could sense, were rising in my extended single line herd of cats, impatience growing with every step, each caught up in their own experience of the moment, beads of sweat running down my chest and back. Rick, I’m sure was in full grumble, although I am only guessing as he was out of earshot. Stacy is impatient in the moment but keen on our destination. Mac as ever calm and supportive. Bernie limping, Darlene and Paul unamused, Rosie as ever worried, for Bernie. Add in sweaty, muggy weather, car clogged streets, horns blaring, sirens piercing the air and thousands of thousands of other ‘cats’, each of them part of their own herd, the quick insistent pace of our walk and I hope I have captured for you that moment in time for our happy party of eight. The consolation of course is that it was then what it remains today, part of our wonderful textured story of shared experience and friendship.

The other consolation: Academia. This home to what many consider to be the finest, most compelling sculpture of the human male anatomy ever to be created. Mac in particular was struck by the ‘perfectness’ of the sculpture, of the male form Michelangelo had been so possessed to capture in his lifetime. The sheer size of the sculpture is surprising, rising high above the onlookers as it does and that it was sculpted from one single block of marble. This ‘David’ is the David of mythology, the David of ‘David and Goliath’, naked but for a slingshot with his enormous hands and sculpted body, the twist of his torso, muscled legs and shoulders, the supremely elegant and confident gaze. This is what Michelangelo spent a lifetime trying to capture. It is breathtaking.

Mac, knowing little of all this as she sat down beside me, gazing up at ‘David’ standing under a naturally lit cupola, spoke quietly,

“He must have loved him.”

And I think she is right. This statue is not just another work by a great artist, it has emotion, it is erotic, it is all but real, the artist and model intertwined for all the world to see. It is spectacular and if you are ever in Firenza, trek through whatever maize you must and find your way to see it, for it will stay with you all your life.

From there a quick lunch and our moods improved, ever so slightly but it was all we needed to improve the day. Mac and I found the Ponte Vecchio first and walked over it, disappointed at first glance with its port of call cruise ship feel but for all that it is remarkable to walk where millions have before over many centuries of time. We found a young artist Carmine and bought two small paintings which I know we will always treasure. He was gentle and responsive and allowed our simple purchase to be special. He wrote a little salutation to us both on the back of the paintings.

And so we were off but this time in our rented automobiles, something I’ve been looking forward to since arriving in Italy. A right turn, another right, a bridge across the Arno, another right, Paul navigating so well, one more right, as it turns out ‘one right too many’ and we were driving headlong into six lanes of one way traffic.

A quick left, my first Italian hand gesture and we were out of town and on our way to the villa at Podere Barberino Val d’Elsa. So much fun.

Dinner, laughter, memories and to bed. This has become an extraordinary holiday, The Ya Ya’s and Their Men, full of expectations met, beyond anything we could have imagined. And on we go.

I was not to know at the time and it wasn’t my purpose but I now know that I was creating a Time Capsule. I have read and reread that story twenty times over the years since, each time remembering different moments, different smells, different people, each time travelling back in Time. I had no idea how precious this story would become because I had no idea that my memory would fade, would falter. I am so thankful that I wrote.

I of course have not stumbled upon anything most of you don’t already know. My friend Darlene has treasure trove of memories locked away in her diaries. Every once in a while she brings one I out and reads from it, allowing us all to remember. Our daughter Sophie and her husband Jon have just had a baby, their first, Sweet Baby Rowe. I don’t know how it came up but recently Mac brought out a diary she had written when she was the young mother of Sophie and her brother Toby.

“Sophie has an energy about her, even at a few months, an air of joy that fills the room.”

Another Time Capsule. There was more, much more of course and it was great fun to listen to. Mac would have had no idea she would be reading from her diary to her own daughter thirty-two years later and it would not have happened had she not journaled.

The Sands of Time are abrasive and relentlessly scrub our memories. Of that I am increasingly aware. So even if you have never journaled, even if it seems way too late to start put pen to your doubts and start writing. You will never be sorry you have. Whatever you write will let you remember long after you have forgotten. Even the Sands of Time can’t erase the written word.