#3. A Spell With Roots, A Prayer with Desire
I think I feel the other world I’ve left behind by coming here pulling at me. Not in a “this is the way” but more like trying to suck me back in. And I don’t want to be sucked back.
A spell with roots, a prayer with desire…
I want to notice butterflies sleeping on drooping dried flower heads. I want to watch the rain roll in and out over the valley and the wind come in waves over the trees. I want to stay as quiet in my mind as I have been this past month. No spirals just one peaceful step after another.
I want to be a stranger on cobblestone streets and have meet cutes that seed friendships while I try to navigate broken internet or someone hunting too close to the house or how to use the parking meter —all in a different language. I want to sip thick steaming chocolate from a tiny cup and let the voyeur in me take her fill as the world strolls by.
I want to drive a practically toy sized Piaggio Ape on my way to prune olive trees. I want to let my silvers shine and sink into my farmer grandpa wardrobe. I want to become well acquainted with work gloves on my hands and fertile dirt beneath my feet.
On Saturdays I want to go to one of the many piazzas in the nearby towns and sit on the park benches near the elder Italians. They will speak progressively louder as the morning goes on about folks who walk by, about Rosalba’s errant daughter, about each other and slowly, slowly I will begin to understand them.
Right on the edge of October, I want to buy a fruiting fig tree from the market and tend to it lovingly in a glass greenhouse throughout the fall and winter.
I want to eat croissants glazed with citrus, perfect bursts of sour currants, wild boar braised in wine, and good, good green oil. I want to visit the tucked away espresso bar on Via Guelfa that had warm light and something soft flowing through its doorway.
I want to see all of the cheeky street art and pour my heart into something of my own creation then paste it on an ancient frescoed building next to renaissance lovelies.
I want deep wild love that doesn’t make me beg for just a little but instead seeks me out with curious eyes soon turned to adoration. I want to learn this land and for her to learn me. I want to dance joyfully, sacredly in the full moonlight with my sisters on these temple stones as the Etruscans once did.
I want to live with rosemary and sage and lavender and wild fennel right outside my door.
The wind whispers, “stay stay stay” and I know I will return.