The Kindness Diaries: One Man's Quest to Ignite Goodwill and Transform Lives Around the World

by Logothesis, Leon

  He hung up the phone, “Filipo says you come stay with him.”

  “What?” I asked, flabbergasted.

  “Yes,” he smiled, nodding with an easy smirk as though he did this all the time. My new Italian friend drew me a rough map and sent me on my way.

  I was so excited I didn’t even bother to ask him anything else. I had the man’s name. Filipo. I had his address. Roberto Street. And I had a crumpled up piece of paper with a pathetic attempt at a map. Turns out, I was heading toward disaster.

  I started riding, and then I realized the patently obvious: I was lost. And not just, “Oh, it’s only around the corner” lost. I was Italy lost. Which meant I was in the middle of a field in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere. I pulled over to look at the map again. Whatever road I was supposed to take I had clearly missed, and whatever road I was on, I couldn’t find on the chicken scratches Ricardo had drawn for me. He said it was twenty minutes outside of town, but that was an hour ago. So I did what any good sailor does when lost at sea, I started to pray. Out loud. In a field. In Italy.

  So um, universe, I’m really grateful for this map. And I am grateful to Ricardo for giving it to me, but I could really use your help right now. Because I’m lost. Like, really lost. And scared. In fact, as I’m sure you can see I am in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure it’s lovely during the daytime. I’m sure you did a great job, but I really have to get to this man’s house because I want a bed. I need to sleep. I mean, I am the captain of kindness, you know? And the captain of kindness never gets lost!

  I stopped and realized that whatever divine spirit might be out there may not respond to pride—it is one of the seven deadly sins, isn’t it? I needed to change my approach. Maybe the spirits would respond better to pity?

  Okay, universe, God, old chap. You see, driving this bike is not easy. It’s very challenging. Emotionally and physically. It’s very challenging. And to be lost in the middle of nowhere doesn’t help, I am afraid. I don’t know. Sometimes I honestly just want to give up and go home. All I really want to know is where Filipo lives. That’s all. I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll become a Hare Krishna, and I will sell Kindness One at a scrap heap in Delhi. Just help me find Filipo’s.

  I waited. And then I looked down at poor Kindness One, whose fate I had just bargained with.

  Help me, Kindness One. You’re my only hope.

  Then in the distance I saw two bright lights. Either this car was going to save me, or it was going to run me over. At this point, I was willing to take my chances. I waved it down and asked a rather bemused Italian man for help.

  “Hello, hello. Um, Roberto Street?” I gesticulated wildly, hoping that if my English confused him, maybe my arms would do the translating. Thankfully, my rudimentary knowledge of elementary school Latin allowed me to understand that he had no idea what I was saying, and even worse, that he had no clue where Roberto Street was. I decided to take a different tact.

  “Filipo’s! Filipo’s!” I began to yell, waving my arms again in what I thought looked like “Italian Speak.” And then the miracle happened.

  “Filipo?” The older man asked, peering out of the car enough for me to now see his face. He had gray hair and the type of tired eyes that come from a long day at work.

  “Yes, Filipo!” I cried, beginning to feel those champagne bubbles of hope.

  The man got out of his car and joined me in wild gesticulations, “Si! Si! Filipo’s!”

  To my absolute astonishment, this man whom I had met in the middle of a deserted street, in the middle of a deserted town, in the middle of a deserted field, actually knew the Italian stranger for whom I had been looking!

  In broken English and a splattering of Italian, the man proceeded to explain where Filipo lived.

  He pointed down the road to a small pathway that was covered by trees as well as by darkness. It had been right there all along, but I never would have found it.

  “Grazie mille!” I exclaimed before returning to my native tongue, “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you.”

  I got back on my bike and finished my prayer.

  As I was saying, universe, you rule. Really you do. And so do you, Kindness One. And so does everyone on the face of this planet. We all rule. Wait, does that really mean I have to become a Hare Krishna?

  * * *

  As I approached the tall, metal gates of what looked like a rather large villa, all I could do was hope that my Italian friend had actually sent me to the right place. Otherwise, I would be riding into a random man’s house in the middle of the night. In America, I would most likely have been shot. In Italy, maybe strangled with spaghetti? All I knew was that it was too late to turn back. I opened up the gate and drove into the dirt yard that stretched across the front of the old house. I went up to the door and knocked. I looked around and waited. Okay, universe, if Filipo answers, I will . . .

  But before I could make another bargain, the door swung open, and an older man in a crisp, button-down shirt and fine leather loafers came out to greet me. He smiled broadly as he announced, “Benvenuto, Leon!”

  Filipo immediately pulled me into his house, as though we had known each other forever. I was just another good friend coming to stay the night, and I immediately felt at ease.

  “Do you know how difficult it was to find you?” I laughed, still giddy from locating his darkened villa in the middle of a moonless night.

  “Long road, huh?” he replied, his voice speaking of an empathy that I wished I were better at offering. It wasn’t the “Poor Leon” sympathy I had craved as a child, but the, “You will make it” faith that I hoped to give to everyone I met.

  Filipo’s cool only seemed to highlight my excitement as I offered him my tale, “I got completely lost for hours, and I didn’t know where I was, and I stopped this guy in the car, and I said to him, ‘Do you know Filipo?’ I didn’t think he would know you, but then he said, ‘Yes’—well, ‘Si!’—and he told me where you were, and I was like, ‘This is just crazy.’ And here we are!”

  I was nearly out of breath, feeling the last few hours of stress coursing through me. Filipo chuckled and led me through his home, which had been in his family for three hundred years. Sculpted in stone with portraits of his ancestors lining the walls, the villa felt like an old museum, his ancestors looking down on us with stoic concern. Filipo had prepared a slap-up dinner, which in Italy means a feast.

  We sat down in his wood-and-tiled kitchen and began to eat as he recounted the history of his family. With his gray hair and stately demeanor, he reminded me in many ways of my own father. When I was young, I always imagined that my father was a statue. He was so stoic, his posture so polished, that he seemed as though he had been cut from marble. But then, over the years, I watched as my father dropped his own mask. I think in many ways, because I did not fit in, he had to learn how to reach out. I wasn’t polished marble, and in my own reflection, he realized, that surprisingly, neither was he.

  As Filipo pushed a plate of burrata my way and refilled my glass with water, I could sense that he had perhaps experienced the same transformation. There was something about him that hinted at a changed man. He had been born in the legacy of wealth, but somewhere along the road, he had forged his own path. One that I could tell echoed my own.

  He smiled gently at me and asked, “So how has your journey been thus far?”

  I sighed, explaining to him, “I have traveled from Los Angeles all the way to here without spending a single penny.”

  “Fabulous,” he clapped his hands together as though he had been watching the whole time.

  I continued, “I’ve been relying entirely on people like you. On kindness.”

  I stopped, feeling that my simple explanation was disguising the far greater journey underneath. I set down my fork and continued, “Earlier today I was in Saint-Tropez, and here I am
in a house built over three hundred years ago. Sometimes I feel that I am not in reality. Like I’m dreaming. Right now, I feel like I’m dreaming. It’s like we’re having this conversation, but I’m dreaming.”

  He smiled, “It’s a lot of stress.”

  I sighed again, “The bike takes a lot of energy out of me. Not knowing where I’m going to stay takes a lot of energy out of me. Not knowing where I’m going to sleep.”

  He nodded with a knowing look, as though he too had traveled the world on a yellow motorbike with no money, adding, “It’s a lot of uncertainty about what’s coming along.”

  It was. It is. The world is an uncertain place, and often the only touchstone, the only marker we can find, is when another person actually stops us and says, “It’s all going to be okay.” I smiled, sharing, “It is, but when I get the opportunity to meet people like you and to sit in a home and to eat some food and know that I have a place to stay, the calmness returns. Even though I know tomorrow it’s all going to start again. Right now, I feel held by it, by your kindness.”

  Filipo picked up a scoop of pasta and put it on my plate.

  After the meal he suggested I go to my room and get some much-needed rest. I lay down and thought again of Dr. Mann. She had given me the courage to not just be free, but to also be myself. To know who I am and to believe in that person. As Filipo and I talked that night, I realized that sometimes it only takes one person to convince you to go on—just one compassionate voice amongst the cacophony to once again set hope alight.

  In the morning, I said my good-byes to my new Italian friend and continued heading east. This time I was off to Lake Como to search for George Clooney. I had promised Lina I would find Mr. Clooney and get his autograph (and his number) for her. On the way to Lake Como, I found some Italian Good Samaritans to give me gas, arriving soon after at one of the most beautiful places on earth. The sun was setting, and the lake was shimmering with the last rays of light. I had no doubt George would soon be on his way to greet me and my yellow bike, or at least someone half as nice.

  But like that yacht in Saint-Tropez, George never appeared. Instead I spent the next four hours trying to find someone to open their home to me, begging hotels for a free room, cajoling people on the street to let me crash on their couch. I even walked into a church to try and find some love. Nothing. I was facing the real possibility of sleeping for the first time in the sidecar of Kindness One. From villa to “homeless,” this was becoming a true riches-to-rags story.

  There were throngs of people along the lake, enjoying the fine weather and the light breeze stirred up by the waters of Lake Como. I stopped a few more people, but it seemed that kindness was nowhere to be found. Maybe all the generous people were over at George’s house. Sipping martinis and watching reruns of ER.

  Unfortunately, it was going to be Kindness One for the night. I put on all the clothes I had and lay down in the sidecar. I tried my best to ignore the drunken Italians walking by, peering at the sleeping madman. I woke up with the rising sun. I crawled out of Kindness One and walked to the water’s edge. Dangling my feet in the lake, I felt a burst of energy flush through me. I may not have had a home for the night, but I was fully alive. I was living my dream. I may not have connected with anyone in Como. But I was living my dream. I may not have had much gas in the tank. But I was living my dream—out on the open road, in the open lake, freed from all the masks and constructs I feared pinned me down at home.

  I slipped off my trousers, remaining in my Union Jack boxer shorts as I dove into the water, taking one of my whenever-I-can-get-one baths in the majesty of the lake. The sun dawned just above the surrounding mountains, birds dipping down into the water, singing out to one another as they flew overhead. The once-busy town was now quiet as I swam in Lake Como.

  I got out of the water, got dressed, and headed east again. I decided to stop off in the only town in Italy that didn’t speak a word of English. This was not on purpose. I had no idea that the inhabitants of the entire little town of Portogruaro, nestled in the heart of Italy, have never learned even a word of English.

  I decided to try the local police station. Surely they would help me. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the officer on duty spoke English (apparently, the only English speaker in town). I was less pleasantly surprised to find out that he did not like me.

  “I am traveling around the world and need some help,” I explained once I discovered we shared a language.

  “Are you in danger?” the bored man at the front desk asked. It didn’t seem like he had much else to do, so I thought my tale of adventure might pique his interest. I explained my travels and that I was looking for some gas or food or a place to stay.

  “Do we look like a hotel to you?” the police officer curtly responded.

  “No, but—”

  “No, but nothing, please leave,” the officer concluded. Apparently, he was up to his ears in British travelers crossing the world on kindness and had no time for me.

  I prayed that I wouldn’t have to spend another night in Kindness One, careful not to bargain anything I wasn’t willing to give. Surely the Italians would save me.

  Finally, after pulling into one of many gas stops, I was saved. But not by the Italians. Bertha and Max were a Belgian couple crossing Europe in their RV. Not only did they offer to fill up my precious yellow bike, but they also let me sleep on the floor of their RV, which they had nicknamed “The Beast.” Being rejected by the Italian police: embarrassing. The thought of spending another night in Kindness One: exhausting. Being saved in Italy by Belgians with a Beast: priceless!

  In the morning, I waved good-bye to my Belgian friends after eating a breakfast of pancakes and sausages. Pancakes and sausages? My luck was looking up. I drove through the green and winding countryside of Italy, heading east from Venice. The Italian Alps jutted up in the distance, their caps still covered in snow. A couple of hours later, I arrived in Trieste. Bejeweled in the colors of the Mediterranean, the blue sea sparkled below the tree-lined cliffs, while red-tiled roofs embroidered the sculpted town.

  I drove into the heart of the city and threw the memory of my parking ticket shenanigans away as I parked the bike illegally, again. I knew that one day I would probably regret doing this, but I didn’t have much choice. If the French army were already after me, what difference would it make if the Italians joined in?

  The piazzas of Italy are all spectacular, but the one in Trieste seemed to stretch on for miles, bookended by the sea and the stately city hall. I thought surely someone out here might be feeling generous. A man slowly cycled past me on his bicycle, and I hoped that he might be one of them.

  I stopped him with my usual bold but slightly delusional outburst, “I need someone to put me up in their house for one night.”

  Alex was in his early forties, with a head of prematurely gray but thick hair. He was dressed like a bike messenger, which I thought he might be. He stopped his bike, and looked me up and down before saying nonchalantly, “Okay.”

  Although that is exactly what I wanted to hear, I was a little taken aback. “Okay,” I repeated hesitantly, asking him, “What does that mean?”

  “That you can stay,” he replied, smiling at my surprise.

  “In your house?” I asked, still astonished by how easy this was.

  Alex laughed, repeating himself more slowly, as though I were the one who didn’t speak English, “I have a house. And you can stay in it.”

  Since Alex was already on his way home, I followed him through the narrow stucco streets of Trieste until we came to his apartment. There, he introduced me to his wife and young daughter. It didn’t take long for Alex to share with me his other true love: fencing. Alex had once been a great fencing champion, spending his childhood and early youth competing in the ancient sport.

  He no longer fenced professionally, and I could sense how, despite his obvious love and vivaciou
sness for life, he had lost a piece of himself because of it. He picked up his fencing sword and swiftly cut the air with it, leaving behind a faint trail of regret. We had coffee with his family, and then Alex persuaded me to join him in a fencing match on the streets of Trieste. It was a rather random sight, if I may say so myself. He dressed me up in full gear, and we left the apartment with our swords in tow. Though I had never fenced before in my life, Alex’s passion for the sport was contagious. In many ways, he reminded me of Tchale and Finesse, his generosity stemming from the love that once grounded him, offering him not just a discipline, but also a deeper philosophy on how to live.

  As we found a place in the center of town with a bustling contingent of foreigners and locals walking by, I started to train in the ancient art of repartee. I discovered that fencing isn’t about striking your opponent; it’s about understanding his motives. Because behind those large white masks, there is a dance taking place, and though you might not be able to see one another’s faces, you can still feel each other’s energy. And that is the art of fencing: feeling which direction your opponent is going to move before he takes that victorious step toward you. After an hour or so, we sat down at a coffee shop, where Alex bought me a much-needed lunch.

  “When I was young,” he explained to me. “I learned so much from the man who taught me, my fencing master. He teach me everything.”

  In Alex’s broken English he described a relationship I knew well. In his fencing master he found someone who believed in him, who showed him that his talent was unlimited. I sat there as his eyes welled up with tears. It was evident that his fencing master had been the one to give him that connection to who he was behind the mask.

  He described how the relationship had taken on a sacred form of family. “For me,” Alex shared, “it was like a father because he teached me for fifteen years, hours of lessons every day. It was better than a father. I learned a lot from him.”