We travel to heal

A SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT FROM TORONTO PEARSON AND THE CANADIAN AIRPORTS COUNCIL

- By Florence Williams

In the summer of 2017, I found myself on a bicycle hurtling down a mountainous track in the Italian Alps, oblivious to any physical dangers that lay ahead—or the emotional turbulence that defined my life then.

My friend Betsy and I were north of Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, known for its stupendously steep terrain. To get to this trail, we pedalled some kilometres along a verdant bike path and then hitched our bikes to a gondola and climbed in: trails with mechanical assists!

The gondola took us to a tiny village nestled in a high vale. Singing filled the air from the open doors of a stone chapel. Geraniums and pansies overflowed the window boxes lining the sunny street. When the church bells started ringing, the choir voices abruptly paused for a few moments, then resumed.

We looked at each other, laughed, and mounted our bikes for the long descent. As we picked up speed, the meadow gave way to tall pines. Soft, fragrant wind blew into my helmet. Betsy was going fast, but I was determined to keep up. I noticed, with some surprise, that my facial muscles had shifted into an arrangement I hadn’t felt in a long time: a huge grin.

Just a few months earlier, I was curled up in a ball, crying on my living room floor. My husband of twenty-five years had walked out the back door with a small blue suitcase, never to return. I’d been with him since I was eighteen. I was terrified, grief-stricken, and existentially shaken. I cried every day. I ruminated ceaselessly on matters large and small: Who was I without him? What did the future hold? How would I fix the lawn mower?