How to Tiramisu

“One tiramisu. Four spoons please”.

These words were said out loud no less than six times over the course of a few days recently. I had taken a spontaneous trip to Melbourne, where I met my cousin who was studying at University there, his older sister who flew in on a few days' notice from Delhi, and a longtime friend from Lisbon who coincidentally was in town to renew her Australian passport.

I had no expectations for the trip and it turned out to be one of my highlights of the year. 

It felt like a group of friends together in university, with no other purpose than to be together. Over the course of five days, we spent most moments together. The laughter, the smiles, the lightness, filled my heart. 

Our unexpected bond became tiramisu. What started as a joke turned into a common purpose: to find the best tiramisu in Melbourne. So after nearly every meal, we would find an Italian restaurant and share a tiramisu, alongside a heavy dose of commentary.

A few days into the trip, we spontaneously ended up at a comedy festival and saw an Indian comic perform. Half of his bit was about how he had competed in the tiramisu world cup. It was an uncanny coincidence and we took it as a sign to continue our hunt.

The next day we were at a Thai place that had a tiramisu on the menu. We had no choice but to try it. It was awful. But that didn’t matter. The shared experience was what again, continued to bond us.

I was surprised I did not get bored of the crew. I am not used to seeing the same people repeatedly. Most of the people I like, I may connect with once a week or once a month, hopefully in person or otherwise through exchanging podcast-style voice notes. Yet here I was, in the company of the same people for most of my days, and like tiramisu, wanting more and more of it.

Every moment together may have been too much. However my cousin’s jet lag from India meant that she was waking up a solid four to five hours after me. Despite us sharing the same Airbnb, I used that morning time to cook myself breakfast, meditate and journal, hit the gym and sauna daily, and stroll around the city on my own, without feeling any guilt for not spending every moment together. 

I’ve observed that on group vacations, be it with family, friends or romantic, there is often an unspoken expectation, either on ourselves or on the other, to always be together and to be doing everything together. Those few hours to be with myself, consistently each day, gave me the energy and grounding for me to be authentically myself when we were together, consistently each day.

My last few reflections have been about social media and phone addiction, as I had been feeling uninspired as of late by how I saw people, including those around me, and sometimes myself, use technology.

I was reinspired after this trip, as I saw all of us so present and so disconnected from technology while we were together. We really prioritized one another, and it showed in the subtleties of the inside jokes that never ended, the care for filling up the other person’s water, the calling out details in the restaurant that no one else saw. 

It’s one thing to move through life with presence and awareness, which I continually try to do. It’s a different experience altogether when the people around me also choose to live with presence, as they add to the depth of my experience by pointing out details that I did not observe and showing up for me in ways I did not realize I needed.

Our ages ranged two decades yet somehow we were able to connect. I found that inspiring and rare. To share experiences and memories, consistently through an extended period, with people at significantly different life stages and with different life experiences than me, was important to me. I’d like to invite more diversity of this variety into my life, on a regular basis. The people I interact with regularly are usually within a few years of my age. There was a richness of my intrigue to understand and empathize with others who see their world differently than I see mine.

I’ve been on some group trips where everything is planned. Restaurants booked. Show tickets reserved. Transportation planned. Sometimes there may have even been spreadsheets involved.

This experience was the opposite. 

Our attitude was ‘let’s see how we feel’. And by having no plans, it allowed for the space for us to co-create our experience. Everyone’s ideas and desires were welcomed. Sometimes it was getting yet another coffee. Oftentimes it was continuing our hunt for the best tiramisu in Melbourne. Or once in a while, it was allowing one of us to go home and take a nap.

My cousin who was visiting from India is more artistic and creative than me. One morning, after she finally woke up, she suggested going to a Leonardo Da Vinci art exhibit that was on and she had seen an ad for. It is not something I would have naturally chosen to do, however in the spirit of going with the flow, I said yes. Her younger nineteen year old brother definitely did not want to go but also said yes.

Fast forward a few hours later, she was done and ready to leave the exhibit, whereas her brother and I were so inspired and curious that we kept wanting to stay and explore more of the exhibit. It was such a pleasant unexpected experience for us, one that was only made possible because we did not have a plan and we were all open enough to say yes to something that was outside our comfort zone.

It taught me a lot about compromise and adjustment, in the most subtle ways. Not having a specific plan, and not being attached to a specific plan, was the key that unlocked spontaneous and unexpected adventure. Otherwise there we would have felt pressure to ‘do the plan’, versus to ‘be together’. Being together was more important than if it was sitting in a restaurant, walking along the river, going to an art show, watching a comedy show, chatting through a movie, or cooking at home.

I’m often reminded when I get too focused on planning the future of the understanding that in many ways, the act of planning is an attempt to control the future. It is a desire to know what’s going to happen, when it’s going to happen, how it’s going to happen. And of course, I have no control over the future. I only have control over how I choose to show up, at each moment.

Although we did make a plan to go to the world cup for tiramisu later this year in Italy, ideally as judges. 

And that is how I learned to tiramisu.