I'm still in Italy, far, far away from the stock market.

Sitting next to an American businessman during my most recent flight to Europe, he asked me the same thing lots of people do when I tell them I'm going to Italy for a few months.  "What do you do over there?"  They can't imagine, especially when I'm traveling alone.

It's the last week of February and our weather is mild on the Italian Riviera year round.  Today there isn't a cloud in the sky and it's sixty degrees, warm enough to get by with a sweater.  So I did what everybody in Savona was doing today.  I walked down to the Lungomare, the walk by the sea, and I sat on a bench in the sun looking out at the shimmering blue water.

I didn't understand what walking was really about until I started to spend longer periods of time in Italy.  It's not just a way to get from Point A to Point B for the Italians.  Walking is what people do.  It's a social activity, a hobby, a chance to get dressed up in your best pair of boots, window-shop and chat with your neighbors. It's built into the fabric of everyday life.

Even though I brought a book to read, I didn't open it, transfixed by the normal, everyday pageantry of the Savonese. The whole town was there.  Middle-aged daughters with their white-haired mothers on canes. Young couples cooing at babies in strollers.  Thick-wasted lovers, married forever, strolling slowly hand-in-hand - the same way they've done for years. The wifeless men, widowers, clumped in their own little groups.. A random tourist or two from the cruise ship in the port.  Families with young children on their first two-wheelers - they'd ride and wait, ride and wait. Everybody talking, everybody telling stories, everybody touching and kissing each other on both cheeks. All of them walking their dogs. "Say hello to your wife," they'd call.  "What a beautiful day."  An hour or so later, I knew the sidewalk would be almost empty, everybody home with their families for Sunday lunch, the same routine they follow every week.

In the United States, I'm always trying to accomplish something.  I need to exercise more or study Italian harder.  I need to fix things, get a better hair cut, make lists, solve major social problems, write books, figure stuff out.  I'm always figuring stuff out.  If I just read one more research report, I can beat the S&P 500.  But in Italy I am perfect exactly the way I am.  I already have everything I need and sitting on a bench in the sun on a beautiful day in February, it's all I can do to keep myself from bursting into tears out of a gratitude so pure, so complete, it can scarcely be contained.

That's what I do over here in Italy. Not all that much.  I sweep the kitchen floor every morning.  Maybe I'll run across the street to grab a wood-fired pizza.  Sometimes I write.  But mostly I take walks and refocus my heart on the everyday beauty of being alive..