Chapter 10
RESEARCH NOTES
Interestingly, Maslow never directly addresses communication in his work.
It is likely that his personal experience of growing up in Brooklyn among many family members and friends made him assume that abundant communication would be universal.
While it’s true that one cannot achieve safety, love, a sense of belonging, or self-esteem without communication, defining adequate, positive, and/or prosocial communication has become difficult in modern society.
“Did someone drown?” Paola had called out to Andrea from inside the house, pulling him out of his trance of affixing bungee cords across the roof rack.
“No, Mamma, I’m going to go for a little paddle.”
“Why?” she’d asked, stepping out onto the terrace.
“Because it’s summer and—” He’d paused, looking around, hoping to find some reasonable excuse for taking a few hours of personal time, which he had not done in recent memory. He gave up. “I just want to. I’m going with a friend.”
“Good. You should do it more. You work too much, ciccio. You won’t win a prize for it.”
Driving back to city hall with the kayak spilling out almost three feet longer than the actual car, he realized that he could probably read any number of things into his mother’s comment.
But for now, he was trying to remember if he had the two life jackets still stashed in the trunk of the Panda.
He could imagine the headlines in the Levante News about the mayor of Baia Santa almost drowning with an undocumented American and no flotation devices.
Luckily, they seemed to be in exactly the spot where he’d put them, along with wire cutters, headlamp, a snorkel, hornet spray, work gloves, a flare, a length of rope, old campaign posters, and a mini chainsaw.
He was always traveling, as they say, con la zavorra.
He parked in his spot, and though there weren’t many people around, he wondered for a second if he should have told her to meet him somewhere else.
There wasn’t any need to hide, exactly. She’d be gone in a few weeks anyway, and anyone who wanted to gossip about his personal life would be back to judging him for his extravagant installation of a clothes dryer in a place where electricity costs rivaled a car payment.
He got out to check on the life jackets, aware that the idea of her being gone was not feeling much like a positive.
“You said no boats.”
Andrea pulled his head out from the trunk. Lora stood with a tote balanced on her hip, sunglasses on, and her long legs in short white shorts that almost broke his sour mood completely.
“This isn’t a boat,” he said, patting the side of the kayak.
“It’s not not a boat. I could be a person who gets seasick, you know.”
“Are you?” he asked.
“No.”
“Then get in.”
The Fiat Panda had many quirks. The designer of the car, Giorgetto Giugiaro, had skipped door handles entirely and created a recess in the frame of the door where you’d slip your fingers in and pop the lock with your thumb.
Despite the fact that it could be difficult for those who hadn’t grown up with the ubiquitous little car to figure out how to open the damned door, Lora popped it open on the first try.
And even though the kayak prevented her from seeing him on the other side of the car, he couldn’t help but nod. This woman was something.
“Should I turn on location sharing?” she asked as she settled in the passenger seat. “We’re not going to be paddling to Elba Island, are we?”
“Capraia is closer,” he said. He could feel her staring at him. “I’m kidding. We’re not going there. We’re going to go along the coast here. I want to show you something.” He pushed the gear shift to reverse and pulled hard at the wheel to crank the car back.
“Where I’m from, people get into a kayak and risk being eaten by gators. You basically turn yourself into a taco.”
“No alligators here. Orata, maybe. Sometimes an aggressive acciuga.” He straightened out the car and pulled onto the road down to the sea.
“What’s an acciuga?”
“Anchovy.”
“The thing you put on pizza?”
“Yes, but we have attack anchovies here.” He shifted gears, then clawed his fingers like they were about to bite.
“Oh, really?”
“Yes, brutal.” He smiled, not taking his eyes off the road. He could feel her smiling back at him, like sunlight through the window.
The descent to the cove was a steep and rocky road that then opened out to a flat, sandy area where they could park.
Beyond the parking area and along the coast, one of the town beaches stretched out toward the sea.
It was a public space—no pristine lines of multicolored beach club chaise longues and umbrellas here, only small clusters of people sunbathing on towels or reading in sand chairs.
At this late-afternoon hour, the tide lapped at the shore, and giant seagulls pecked at invisible snacks on the sand.
He pulled the car into a corner, and they both stepped out.
“Just untie the front there,” he said, moving to the back of the car.
“Am I going to be able to lift this?” Lora asked, running her hand along the side of the kayak.
“It’s light, you’ll see. But you don’t look like you would struggle.”
“It’s boxing. I like to box. But it’s been a while, you know?” She set her tote bag down on the sand and hunched down to unclasp the bungee cords.
“Ah, really? Too busy lately?”
“You might say that,” she said, standing and brushing off her fingers.
He picked up her tote and slid it onto his shoulder, then stood toward the back wheel of the car and placed his hands on the side wall of the kayak.
“Are you ready? We’ll slide it over and pull it up over our heads.”
“Got it,” she said, matching her hand position to his.
He counted one, two, three, and they hoisted the boat up and over their heads. He checked to see if she was OK, got a “yup” in return, and walked the back end of the kayak around. They marched down to the water silently, as if they’d made this trip together dozens of times before.
“Let’s bring it down to the right,” he called back to her.
“Aye, aye, Captain.”
They flipped the boat down to their right on the soft sand; then he pulled off his T-shirt and sandals, tucking them into the stern pocket.
“You probably want to take off anything you don’t want to get wet,” he said, though it took every ounce of self-control he had not to watch Lora pull off her tank top and slide her shorts down. “And I’m going to put your things in this dry bag, if that’s OK.”
“Oh, thank you,” she said, folding up her clothing.
She handed the neat pile to him while his head was down, and he pushed everything into the heavy rubber sack.
When he finally looked up, the sight of her in a black bikini made him swallow.
He reached in his pocket for the blister pack of Biochetasi tablets and slipped one into his mouth.
“I probably overdid the coffee today,” he said, pulling two bottles of water out of the stern pocket. “Do you want one?”
“I’m fine for now, thanks,” she said, blocking the sun out of her eyes with her hand.
They pulled the kayak into the water, and he had her sit first; then he gave it a shove and jumped in himself.
Within two minutes, they were paddling out into the cove formed by a wall of rocks that served as a protective break for the shoreline.
The sun was right in their faces as they made their way northwest along the coast, and a warm breeze drew across the water.
He pulled hard, enjoying the feeling of the work, but also noticed her contribution immediately.
Lora paddled ahead of him, the muscles in her back and shoulders working as she alternated dipping the blades into the water.
They cruised, falling into a cadence, and finally he felt his thoughts relax.
In New York, he’d found that not all activities had lasting benefits when it came to stress relief.
Running put him too much in his head, team sports were too complicated, cycling was asking for trouble in the city.
When he’d discovered rock-climbing, he immediately knew that he’d found the right fit.
He could lose himself for hours on a rock-climbing wall, only thinking about technique, breathing, footwork.
When he finally put two feet on the ground, it was very difficult to remember what drove him into the gym in the first place.
But it always came back eventually. Here, with her, he could feel the pleasant hum in his head he used to feel climbing, where thoughts fell away and this very second was all that mattered.
“Do you ever miss the city?” Lora asked, turning her head slightly back to him.
“I miss certain things.”
“Like what?”
“Specifically? I don’t know—a lot of things. The Sammy’s Halal cart on West Fourth, the Cliffs climbing gym, Strand bookstore, babka, soup dumplings, arepas. Maybe mostly food, now that you ask.”
“The climbing gym. Well, that explains that little move you did swinging off the scaffolding the first day we met you. I know what you mean about the food, though. I don’t know how I am going to live without bagels, to be honest.”
“No bagels in Zurich, I am assuming.”
“Nah. I think it’s all cheese.”
“Only cheese, huh?” He laughed.
“Seems that way. Aside from food, though, do you miss the feeling of New York? I am worried about that—missing the energy. You know what I mean? I haven’t actually said that to anyone before.”
“The energy is the one thing I do not miss. Sometimes it was too much, I think. Maybe it wasn’t right for me,” he said, scanning the coast to their right.
“But you lived there for so long. How could you live somewhere that long and feel like it was too much?”
“Because I was comfortable for a long time. Then I just wasn’t.” He knew he could go deeper, but it felt like it was too much to share with someone so temporary. Then again, maybe it would be easier to share with someone he knew would be gone soon.