This was me about one year ago, September 1. I was fresh from the airport, tired and thrilled. I had just put my bags down in my new apartment. Three months!!, I must have been thinking. Wow. A whole three months in Italy. Just imagine what can happen…
It was great to be back in Florence, […]
Last week I returned to the United States for a *visit*. I emphasize the word because knowing that I have a return ticket to Italy is a comfort. The culture shocks I usually experience after leaving Italy (spontaneous burst of tears) are not happening. Also, the idea of re-entering with this economy, where prices for […]
I know this may sound strange, but have you ever seen through the seasons?
You know, when it’s October and the sun seems so bright and it’s an unusually warm day, in the 70s, and you get a sense memory of April, when things are just starting to thaw. It had been a long, snowy winter, […]
The other night I peered through the gates of the Pazzi Chapel, attached to Santa Croce. Such a peaceful scene. But after reading Lauro Martines’ April Blood, I now see rain, a screaming, mad crowd, and the corpse of Jacopo de’ Pazzi.
In 1478, members of the Pazzi (which means “crazy”) family and others conspired to […]
I am always at attention when someone is telling me a story that I half-believe–or rather, that I want to believe but if I did I’d have to revolutionize my worldview, and so I’m afraid to believe because that would require so much work. I stay in a kind of limbo of belief. I fully […]
Everyone who lives in Florence, or is here for an extended stay, has a piazza.
It’s the piazza that you have to visit after being away, the piazza that you show off to your visiting friends, the piazza that feels like home. It’s hard to explain what it is that pulls us to a particular one,* […]
(Warning: This post has absolutely nothing to do with Florence.)
The other afternoon I came home from the supermarket and discovered this in my egg carton:
I was disturbed and in awe at the same time. A strange sensation. An egg’s not supposed to have hair. Sweet, white, beautiful hair, presumably from a baby chick. Immediately I […]
Last night a friend gave me this:
A bike is a precious commodity in Florence. It is one of the most pleasurable, efficient ways to get around Florence. Everyone has one. And everyone has had to replace them, again and again, because they are stolen all the time. A bike changes owners every five minutes. It’s […]
I.
On Saturday night I went to a dinner party, hosted by a cuoca (chef) so well-known that she’s cooked for the Queen of Denmark. (Yes, I’m very lucky.) It was a fabulous meal of round juicy slices of bistecca, served on a wooden platter that we’d have to tilt up to spoon out the savory […]
Last night I had dinner with friends in Santo Spirito, a lively square on the other side of the river (Oltrarno). Tourists chatted away at the cafes and dreadlocked kids sat on curbs, laughing and drinking and smoking like it was Saturday night. A jazz band played bossa nova opposite the church. My friend Elizabeth […]