I have been blessed enough in my life to do a lot of traveling. I must say I am a bit proud enough to say I have been to four of the seven continents...but mostly my heart lies in the beautiful country of Italy. I don't know what it is about Italy, but when I am there it's like nothing else even exists....no place else even exists. It's like the country is magical. It can over power you so much so that you want so much of yourself to remain in Italy.... my love for this country could possibly be that my fathers roots lay from it. It could be that they produce some of the best food I have ever ate. That the country is so rich in history I cannot even fathom or because the people are so welcoming and blow our standard of family and hospitality out of the water.
Every so often.. I mean every so often I will be outside, walking the dog or something and in the smallest of breaths there is a smell that is in the air that takes me back to Italy. Go a head, think it's funny and say "what in south west Fla could ever trigger a smell so similar?" I don't know. I don't know how it could be but it happens. It brings me back to the smell of the Eternal City in Rome, or the Grand Canals of Venice. It brings me back to the sunsets in the Tuscan countryside, the mountain villages, the early mornings when things are so still in the southern country side and the smell of the Mediterranean Sea. It is there. It lasts only for a moment but I am swept away back to Italy. And then there will be a sound of a car in the far distance that takes me back. I love it. It is a random event that happens, but I feel like I should be there and not here experiencing it all over again.
I do have one dream in my life and that is to return to this country. I would like to give myself two to three years there and immerse myself in everything that Italy has to offer. To till the soil and grow veggies, to tour the ruins in depth, to dig deep into the Roman Empire, to learn to cook it's native foods. To speak the language fluently so that I dream in Italian, to swim in lakes and seas. To have a siesta for the afternoon. To drink wine that I pressed. To shop it's fine stores. Learn more about the beauty of art and music. To press olives and sail along the Italian shores. To retrace historic battles of World War II. To be surrounded with family and open my heart more than it is.to see George Clooney at a restaurant in Rome. To learn Italian hospitality and a way of life....I think it's an attainable dream really. This place pulls at my heart strings and makes me actually WANT something.
There is nothing like being together as a family exploring places and the food. we can all sit together eating olives, cheese, drinking wine, eating prosciutto, bread ,salami, a slice of potato pizza, and have happiness and beauty all around. It's love and family that draws me back to Italy. Maybe those sounds and smells that I randomly have is a reminder of My Love, My Life and My Family, maybe THAT'S what is pulling on my heart strings.
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