Home is what you make it.

I didn’t have a whole lot of time to read on my trip to Italy, but I did scribble a bunch:

Walking “home” over the Fiume Arno river right before a storm is the most peaceful dreariness. Standing mid-bridge with sheets of wind & grey gloom- grey with old age- this place embraces it’s years, it’s decay & past inhabitants, it’s foundation. Suspended between waters, sandwiched between the river below & the storm above, I can see they welcome this rain- not so much like East Coast rain that drowns out our already blurred vision with cold- but rain that brings them more flowers- that they’ll put in their shop windows & braid in their bike baskets. The same flowers reflective of their swirling window ironwork, paintings, door engravings & kitchen curtain petals.

Straight out are miles of other bridges, repetitive curves like the arcs of the Duomo. These arcs quickly became our best friends- connecting us from the Brooklyn of Firenze to everything possible. We grew to love the daily crisscross, the one familiar landmark that meant “almost home”. The non-nomadic element of our explorations. One of these bridges, the golden bridge, shelters gold jewelers for miles. It’s similar to walking through a pirate’s Amber tunnel of treasure- from a distance, this gold and these drops must reflect the Italy-Sun like sequins all over Florence.