This morning, as I came back from a few errands, I was thinking about all of the things that I love about living here, in this apartment. As I opened the front gate, the mating mourning doves greeted me from the chestnut tree. The garden is starting to bud again, and the kids are playing more in the courtyard. The sun shines down just over the roof of the adjoining building, allowing me to sit on the bench, bask in the suns rays, but without the winds cooling embrace, and watch my children.
Being up on the troisieme etage (that’s the fourth floor to you and me) is no longer a climb – it is just the way into my home. And when I open the windows to let in a breath of fresh air, more often than not the cathedral, of which I can see the whole tower, is chiming its bells, marking the hour.
We now have enough basic items in the house to not feel like we are roughing it. I giggled this morning as I pulled out a chocolate bar to chop up for banana muffins because in the beginning we had no wrapping materials. I would save the foil from our chocolate bars and re-use them to cover my meal, along with the cups and saucers that doubled as Tupperware. Now we have enough jam jars to cover that department, and I even bought a few plastic containers to throw beans into freezer.
And even on a cloudy day like today, there is no need for lights, no need to turn the heat up any higher. The walls are still bright, and so is my heart. And so the days go…
One of the things I have done each morning and evening here in Rome has been throw open the window in our hotel room and look down at the street. While we don't have a view of a church, we do look across to food shop that I enjoy watching people work and shop. This is something we can never do at home in our suburban world in the same way.
ReplyDeleteI love the hustle and bustle of every day here - both watching it, and being a part of it ... and it really is just such a different perspective from our lives in Toronto
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