Tanti Auguri a Me

Tanti Auguri a Me

One of the most valuable things I've learned from my coworker Amanda and friends at home is to take time for myself. And so yesterday, I didn't go to class. I knew I could afford the time; I felt like I owed it to myself. I had a mental ache; I needed a break from Italy. For the past few days I knew I had been slipping into a negative place, withdrawing from my friends and roommates, feeling miserable because of the rain and disappointed by my attempts at relationships. I stayed home, wrote, drank tea with my roommate Marisa while looking out into the courtyard and the sky above.


Just the day before (Wednesday), I received a long-awaited package from Justin containing a lovely letter, three pair of SmartWool Socks and a pack of white socks, three boxes of tea so we can have transatlantic digital tea parties, my paintbrushes, photos, a spoon from his kitchen (someday soon I'll explain the spoon thing), and some of his clothes (two tee shirts, boxers) that smell like him. It was the ultimate care package. So when I sat down for tea with Marisa, I enjoyed my first cup of the Aged Earl Grey ("Bergamot Assam, robust with fruity notes"!). She had a cup of Indian Spiced Chai.


It was nice to unwind and share a cup with her; sometimes I become so drawn into myself that I forget to connect with others.


After tea, I went to Zecchi's, a tiny art store jam-packed with supplies, located near the Duomo. Half of the things you need you can't find, you just have to ask for them. I needed a stretch of canvas, so asked for tre metri, which turned out to be twice as much as I expected. I wasn't upset when I saw it though, I just laughed to think about how this little 5'4" girl was going to carry a nine foot tube through the center of Firenze for the 10 minute walk to school. I knew I would get some strange looks, and I did; I giggled to myself every time I saw my reflection. There's an unspoken rule about how to navigate the streets here. You have to pay attention to who's coming your way, and who might be behind you, and if you've got an umbrella or something big you had better know when to step out of the way, or hold your ground. I think people thought I was going to hit them, but I knew how to handle it.

I saw my friend Alex at school; I lunged toward him, wielding my tube of canvas like a ridiculous sword. There was a similarly sized package of polyester film waiting at the front desk, and so he grabbed it and we postured playfully in the lobby. It had me laughing, and the good mood set the tone for the rest of the evening.

I stayed to work on the second painting in my series of beets paintings; this one is turning out better because the objective is to paint from memory. I have my easel set up with my still life behind me; I turn around to make a mental note, but I do no painting while looking. Doing so frees me up and I focus less on the exactitude of the objects, more on the impression they make in my mind.

When I left, I walked with friends Libby and Alex to an empty San Lorenzo market, parting ways with Libby when another friend, Anne, came around the corner. Anne was on her way to meet Marisa for a glass of wine. It seemed like the perfect cap to the evening, and so we came along. We met Marisa at the Duomo and then wandered for a while.

We stumbled upon a restaurant - and by stumbled, I mean stared at the menu long enough for the owner to come out and offer us a table. We were drawn in when he started explaining a bottle of wine, which he produced himself. We sat down, intending to enjoy one bottle and go, but Marisa and I split a margherita pizza and the others split bruschetta. The wine was crisp and smooth; the pizza was better than anything I had eaten thus far in Italy. The cheese dripped off the slices, warm and flavorful, deliciously salty (thus prompting more wine)

We were all giggling from the wine, except Alex, who generally isn't too giggly but brings out the best humor in us by being his goofy, witty self.


Here is the man himself, caught in an unfortunate blinking moment - though the expression is still pretty accurate.

I summoned Massimo the winemaker.

"Signore, il tuo vino è buonissimo! Domani è il mio cumpleanno, e vorrei mangiare qui."

"I ahm so flahhttered," he said. He gestured to where my table would be.

We spoke with him for a while after paying il conto. Massimo delighted us with his Italian accent on English words, and he enjoyed our best efforts at Italian.

By the time we left, fifteen minutes remained of the day, and so we headed towards the Ponte Vecchio. I skipped alongside the Arno, singing out single Italian words as they came to me, giddy and pleased that I had turned my mood around.

And so it goes.

When the bells of the Duomo rang out at midnight last night, I sat on the ledge of the Ponte Vecchio, smack dab in the middle, next to the Lover's Locks and three new friends. I'm one for symbolism, and it felt like the best place in Florence to spend the last few minutes of my twenty-first year, and the first few minutes of the next.

I embraced the silliness. "I want to be part of the river!" I cried out. I spit into the river, and then so too did Anne, who was next to me, then Marisa, then Alex.

If the best place to be when I turned into my New Year was on a bridge, then I decided we certainly couldn't turn back around and go home the way we came. We finished crossing the Ponte Vecchio and wandered alongside the Arno down to the next bridge, stopping only for four cannoli and for me, an unknown torta ciocolatta with rum. MMMM! to wipe the sugar dust off your face at 00:30, to enjoy a wine buzz, and then a birthday buzz, and then a dolce buzz.

And, Oh! to forget about blending in, to spit in the river, to laugh loudly on the street.