A riveder le stelle -- Florence, here I come!

I’m about to write the most incredible sentence I can imagine.

(OK, it’s the second most incredible sentence. The first was, “I’m having a baby.”)

Here goes.

I leave for Florence in less than a month! FLORENCE, ITALY.

(No, not Florence, S.C.).

OK, so I will only be there for less than a week.

But I hardly think about that.

I.Am.Going.To.Florence.

The city I lived in. The city I loved. The city where I fell in love.

It must be the old woman inside of me – the person who emerged after maternity leave when everything is stripped from you and you learn to live again in a much more basic way – but I swear, two days there may be enough.

I will be so overwhelmed by every little change I see, that it will be any wonder if I’m able to get to sleep at all while there.

Wait, didn’t there used to be a fruttivendolo on that corner?

Wait, they finally removed the scaffolding from that church after a decade?

It will be a journey as much through time as space.

Just to see the faces of the people I once knew. Or walk the streets. Or look up at the white stone blocks on every vicolo, viuzzo and piazza, to re-read street names I haven’t seen in a decade. Very small pleasures that loom large inside of my head.

There’s also a few new things to discover. Like the tram! I plan to ride it into Florentine neighborhoods I’d previously ignored.

I'm going to Florence, Italy. It won't be the same.

But I'm not the same person I was 10 years ago, much less 20. So I think we're good. Real good.