Prime Impressioni

My first day, amid the towering stone facades, the brick ancient with Roman dust, ornate moldings of white-painted angels over heavy wood doors with iron hoops to knock, and weeds pushing up through the burnt umber terracotta roof tiles, I could see only the sprawling, invading muscadine vines further chipping the faded, flaking yellow paint back home. Over plates and plates of prosciutto, cheeses, and flaky pizza laden with artichokes and olives, my head drooping like the rain-heavy dandelions in home's overgrown backyard, I momentarily dropped out of the quaint restaurant terrace with its layered, bright Italian posters and lush potted plants and vased flowers, and into equally delicious blackness. After the beer buoyed my spirits and I realized I need to be an adult and enjoy what I can, however, the cobblestoned streets, swelling and sinking at turns from centuries-old earthquakes, became like the scales of a massive fish carrying the city of Spoleto—everything magic, from the view between the delicate wooden shudders of the tiny window in my loft, a hundred grassy roofs with charming gardens on top, to the age-pockmarked face of a fanged and grinning fountain. This morning, we toured Spoleto with our guide, Daniella (who had already hugged me several times as I sobbed the first day). The Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta was a favorite, everyone gripping each other in awe as we traipsed down the wide cobblestoned steps in the rain. The façade of the cattedrale is was like wrinkled silk, like the face of a beautiful ninety year old woman, the most delicate imperfections, a subtle palate of colors, the three great circular, prismed windows like clear, open, wise, crystalline blue eyes.