I've been taking the bus every morning and every evening, in and out of the center. Riding the bus can be fun, relaxing, terrifying, stressful....it has been a great addition to this trip as well as the bane of my existence. What it has provided me with is a new, challenging experience every day. From being unable to understand the people who talk to me daily while I ride, to encountering people who seem a bit nuts, to buses randomly not coming (or randomly stopping), to seeing a terrible vespa accident.... I've experienced all sorts of things on the buses here.
Today's bus rides were, for the most part, uneventful. I felt very good going into the center this morning, and very relaxed on the way home (which really doesn't happen much). Where I'm going with this is that I think I am beginning to "find" Florence again, finally.
I loved Florence the last time I was here, obviously that's why I wanted to come back. But the Florence that I loved so much, the weird, dirty, wonderful, magical place that it is, has been hard to find this time around. Maybe she (the city that is), is making me work harder now that I'm back, testing me to see if I really loved her. For the past two weeks there have been moments of brightness, of total openness and beauty, but there have also been an overwhelming amount of frustration, sadness, loneliness, anger, confusion....I wasn't in Florence the way I wanted to be, I wasn't open to her and her weird beauties. I've felt like an alien, someone who didn't belong...I felt trapped in a bubble that I was unable to break through.
No longer though! I think maybe this past weekend helped me to break the bubble. Seeing Florence through Matt's eyes was exciting. I think it helped me to see Florence again fresh, to take a step back from all of the confusion I've felt and actually embrace it, embrace her weirdness.
I drew and wrote inside the Duomo for quite a long time today. I love the space inside the Duomo, how empty, calm and quiet it is compared to the outside. While I was inside marveling, I realized how amazingly well the Duomo is a small representation of the vast wide kosmos. On the outside everything looks busy, fast, and separated, but the core is still. Just like all of us, we all seem so busy, so separate, but really we are all part of the universe, stemming from the same core of life. And of course, we have that stillness inside of us. Our exterior lives may seem insanely busy and stressful, but we are all able to be quiet and find stillness within ourselves, find that connection to kosmos.
I guess I had been forgetting for these past two weeks why I fell in love with Florence in the first place: because no matter where you are or what you're doing, whether it's riding the bus or standing at the top of the Duomo, you can't help but be aware of the fact that we are all just living people-we are all interconnected.
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