Italy, or walk, eat, drink, pray, revel

Here in Italy, I want, I want, I want.

I want to explore, roam, browse, buy, consume, swim, run, row, climb, grab, have, revel. 

In my other life, I have learned to tame some of my worst desires and urges so I can (quite happily, most days) live a nice, quiet suburban, semi-Catholic life. 

But here in Florence (and before that, to some degree, in Rome and Milan), I become someone  who could work for the Home Shopping Network. I walk into stores I like and just begin grabbing things (mentally, at least) because I know I want everything and my time is limited and I need to go home with something that reminds me of the holiday's golden hours (which, of course, remind me of the original golden hours, so many years ago).

I want to do high-brow and low-brow and no brow. I want to spend the time here tiring my body -- no, I want to spend the day tiring my mind. Wait, no: I want to spend the day tiring my spirit.

I engineered it so I would wake up early today – usually that means writing, and here we are, 7 a.m., Thursday morning. But I also want to run along the Arno. And I also want to see the pietre d’inciampo.  And search for the best ciambellina (while having another caffe). I want to revisit old haunts but no, I want to find new worlds and environments.

That's not all: I want to write in my journal. I want to take photos. I want to record snippets of conversation at bus stops.

Also, like I said: I want to shop until I drop (which I NEVER want to do). Oh and I’d like, with Leo, to light a candle in every church we encounter (while saying a prayer for Mommy).

I want to walk along the cobblestones. I want to find the rare green oases hidden in this city (or go up into the mountains, as we did yesterday with Mike's friend, Dante. The other Dante?). I want a holiday with my family where I am explaining my Italian world in English to my American son, and I also want to be so immersed in Italian I feel buried by la lingua di Dante (Dante Alghieri and Mike's friend, Dante).

I want it all.

And I have already written this diary entry! More or less -- four years ago, and also six years ago and also…

But I feel these desires so keenly now because I know how time works. When I was here in 2018, we were already speaking of a future trip in 2020.

Need I say there was no future trip in 2020? We were prisoners of the backyard.

Yet even now, as Covid has slightly receded (or our fear of it has), I know I won’t be back next month – maybe not even next year.

And so I want, I want, I want. And I only have three days left to fulfill all of these voglie and desideri and fantasie.

While I would prefer to want less, I am happy to say the thing I want most is to walk every street in Florence. And you might be surprised how close I am to doing just that!

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