Feeling Small - and Liking It

Some images from the day… Lunch in our apartment. My favorite: white lingerie drying on a line. A wonderful window scene with shutters and simple flower pots.

We have settled into life here. It is interesting to have been here before – we don’t feel urgent about seeing it all. We are most happy living life here on our terms and it is a rare gift, we know. Fortunately, we are both a little driven so don’t while away our days doing nothing. Okay, well we are in the habit of sleeping late, for some reason. We write, read, walk, talk, and see something artistic when we can get ourselves organized. I visit the internet spot twice a day to send a story to my editor or check on children’s lives.

I feel small here. “It is a good thing.” as Martha would say. I feel a tiny little piece of the long and lustrous lineage of humankind. I feel it when I am in a place that is old, that has seen suns rise and set for millenniums. It engenders humility, reverence, and a sense of connection. Sometimes, and I feel it here, it is wonderful to be nothing important at all – just a knot marking a little spot in the thread of life. I see the David and I feel that way. I see Botticelli’s Primavera and I feel that way. I hear the bells of Giotto’s campanile and know they have rung for 600 years before me. Michaelango heard those bells. Dante heard those bells. DaVinci heard those bells. I see the churches and I feel that way. I see the Arno and the palazzi lining their banks and I feel that way. Sometimes, in an enormous snowstorm on the Great Plains I feel that way too.