Therapy Bits

In the heart of Tuscany, nestled among the sun-kissed vineyards and rolling hills, there lived a man named Luca Moretti. At fifty-three, Luca had abandoned the cold machinery of finance in Milan for the warmth of grapevines and good wine. His villa, once a crumbling farmhouse, had been transformed into a sanctuary of sensory delight—a place where pleasure reigned supreme.

The locals called him il edonista, the hedonist, and not without reason. Luca’s days were a rotating carousel of rich meals, exquisite wines, classical music echoing through ancient stone halls, and lovers whose names he never asked twice. His estate was a living, breathing ode to indulgence, where even the bees seemed to hum in contentment, drunk on lavender nectar.

But Luca’s hedonistic paradise was not built solely for himself. Every autumn, during harvest season, he opened his villa to the public for La Vendemmia Notturna—the Moonlit Harvest. Artists, poets, chefs, and dreamers would descend on the estate, lured by the promise of a week of blissful decadence under the stars. They dined by candlelight in the vineyard, painted beneath moonbeams, and danced barefoot in the wine-pressed earth.

One such guest was Elena, a quiet writer from Lisbon, whose almond eyes missed nothing. She arrived with a single suitcase and no expectations, hoping to escape the weight of a manuscript that refused to be finished. Where others lost themselves in revelry, Elena observed.

It was she who noticed the stillness in Luca’s eyes when no one was looking, and the way he stared too long at the empty chair at his harvest table. Over the course of the week, as music and laughter wrapped around the villa like ivy, Elena asked Luca the one question no one ever dared: “Do you ever tire of joy?”

He smiled, but it faltered.

“Joy,” he said, swirling his wine, “is not the same as peace.”

That night, Elena left a poem on his doorstep—about silence, about longing, about how even the most hedonistic heart craves something it cannot name.

Luca never responded. But the following year, La Vendemmia Notturna was quieter, more intimate. Gone were the fire dancers and orchestras. In their place: long conversations, books exchanged, and a single violinist playing by the vines.

Elena never returned. But her poem remained—framed above Luca’s desk, a reminder that even in a life devoted to pleasure, the soul sometimes hungers for meaning.

And sometimes, just sometimes, the two can meet under a moonlit sky.

RDP Thursday – HEDONISTIC