Daydreaming in Florence…

Renaissance: the rebirth and revival of classical art and literature and architecture.

I walked past a woman who was holding a small book eye level and I didn’t think much of it, until I glanced over her shoulder. I was stuck by the sketch she was doing of the Piazza Repubblica. Just pencil on a small little sketch book. She had done the arch way that framed a statue that stands in the middle of the piazza. I tripped over my feet and stopped. I wanted more than anything to turn and go back and strike up a conversation and watch her create, but this moment she was caught up in was her moment of inspiration.

I’ve watched plenty of people sketching and painting in this city, but watching someone who was struck by a moment and who just had to capture it, well that’s the epitome of what this city stood for, isn’t it?

Besides, her moment of inspiration spurred my own moment, my feet flew me to my favorite place in this city to sit and contemplate and dream and write.

I’ve watched all morning as tourists smile, awe, glance, gaze and some even look bored, weighted down by the heat.

I’ve cried.

I am moved and happy for it.

I want to share each of these moments, over explain perhaps. Tell you all why these moments sing to me.

There is construction everywhere, new scaffolding is fitted around ancient structures for cleaning and rehabilitation reasons.

The Ponte Vecchio stretches across the Arno River. The life blood of the city looks green in the heat of the day.

The bars that serve gelato have it stacked high for the coming tourists who will hand over their euros for the creamy cool treat.

I acknowledge the patron saint of the Florentine Writer, Boccaccio.

The pine trees of Florence remind me of something out of a Dr. Seuss book. Tall spindly trunks that give way to airy puffs of green on top.

In the Uffizi’s gray corridor, a man playing acoustic guitar is the best I’ve ever heard, because of the spell I’m under. His music bounces off the walls and strangely soothes my overheated self.

The man who is painted in white face and dressed like a statue in 98 degree weather is either crazy or dedicated to his art. And perhaps there is thin line between the two.

I imagine the world before me as it must have been back in the day. The cobblestone bricks that hold up my weary tourist feet, I’m wearing them down just as Florentines before me did. Just as Michelangelo, Dante, and Galileo helped to do when they walked these streets.

I imagine the Medici’s at work in the Uffizi “The offices” long before it was a museum for great works of art.

I imagine the local people of the day going about their business, buying bread, meat and vegetables from local vendors in the city center. They carry with them the news of the day and the gossip, both bleeding into each other I expect.

I am not the first hopeful artist who has walked these streets or sat on these steps and I won’t be the last. But I add my words and tears to the wind, mix them into the dust and I am a molecule added to a greater moment.