Florence

The very last time I was here was the week before I found out I was pregnant with drew. I was living in Siena and wanted to visit the family I had lived with when I was 18. I remember, being only 21, that I wanted to show them how much I had matured. It's the silly things you remember like wanting to show off that I was a smoker, that stick out for me. How odd that at the time, I thought this would make me more Italian.  I visited them at their home in the hillside outside Florence for a huge Sunday pranzo.  I always loved that house. It had been bombed during WWII and part of it remained standing so they rebuilt it. It was ancient and had been in the Renzoni family for probably just as long.  At the time the family lived mostly in a Florence apartment, but would move to this large villa in the summer. By the time I visited the whole family was living in the villa full time.

At the time of my visit I had no idea I was pregnant but I remember feeling lethargic and slow.  I figured I was simply staying out too late. My friend Kristin had written me a letter from Vienna, where she was studying saying that there was some type of to fixity problem with Marlboro cigarettes and I remember wondering if that was the problem.  I just knew, honestly I really didn't want to smoke anymore once I got back to Siena.



After an amazing meal, Elisabetta drove me down to the Uffizzi where I planned to see my favorite painting: "Primavera" by Bottecceli.  I sat outside the museum waiting for it to reopen after the siesta and lit my last cigarette... I inhaled, almost threw up on the spot, put it out and threw away the pack. That was that.

Yesterday we went to the Uffizzi and like I often do on this trip, tears welled up when I say those amazing paintings. Drew kept asking me, did you ever think you would be standing here with your son? No... Never... It's simply magical... In fact, there wasn't even a line to get in!

It's an odd feeling to wander around a city and feel lost and yet, know where you are going. Every turn brought me to another place that held a story for me. Of course one story that I have told a million times is the one of my graduation from high school. Since I was in Italy when I graduated, I didn't participate in the ceremony, instead a group of friends and I went to an Irish pub in a piazza just beyond the station...I bought a pitcher of Guinness and the entire bar hummed the graduation tune as I carried a rolled up bar towel... It's a story I have told my students a million times... To wander into it, guided by a big martini sign above the buildings was the best part. My confidence soared as I felt my very old rhythms and patterns come back