May 19, 2024
This is a Rome appreciation post.
For her magical terracotta color pallet and her history and the jasmine and fig trees spontaneously bursting through cracks in the sidewalks.
I haven’t done one in a while. Why?
I’ve been feeling down on this city that I call home lately.
Feeling a low humming voice ask me if I’ll move back to Asheville, or when. Looking at life in blacks and whites (which I rarely do!)
But then, Rome. The sun came. Spring came. I have been flooded with gratitude for this life I get to live (in a visceral way).
Visceral, skin deep, but even deeper. I feel the beauty of living here all the way into my bone marrow.
Yes, she’s hectic and chaotic and superficial and sneaky. Rome doesn’t need to prove herself to anyone.
And here’s the wild thing: as my love for Rome has come back, so has my creativity. My inspiration. My playfulness. My joy. My remembrance that this city has inspired my appreciation of beauty and my awareness of slowing down and that everything I am today is in part because of my 15-year long romance with her (Roma).
I love walking down the streets and understanding the culture and seeing the differences and similarities between life in other parts of the world, between life here and in Asheville.
I love the hidden corners and the big obvious ones, too.
I love the pace of life, and the predictability, *and* the fact that this Eternal City still surprises me.
And with more sun, more time with friends, more community, more connection— my love for Rome is flooding back in.
This is a Rome appreciation post.
It’s also a (gentle) reminder to you: if you are feeling stuck, or like you’re in a cocoon or a liminal space… that’s normal. We expand and contract. We grow and change and our needs are different now than they were last week, or last month, or last year.
This social media world will sometimes have you believing that things stay static. They don’t. Let yourself be wherever you are. Feel it. Let it exist. And remember that this too shall pass.
Buona domenica!!
