Dear Readers,
A fellow Italy blogger, Lisa over at Renovating Italy, inspired me with her post 'At the Back of the Beginning' which talks about a rather amazing coincidence regarding a photo taken in Venice long before she'd ever dreamed she'd make Italy her home.
This is a photo of me in my college dorm room at Michigan State, sophomore year, with one of my dearest friends, Kelly B. (who had recently had her own expat experience in Sweden). Forget Kel's über-80's hairdo, and notice the poster on the wall behind us.
In case you can't quite make it out, it's of A Room With a View, and that's Florence's Duomo in the background--little did I know then that one day this famous, eye-poppingly gorgeous cathedral would become a daily sight for me.
The movie came out in 1985, the year I graduated from high school, and I went to see it at a Dearborn theater with another very dear friend of mine, Lisa D. (who would eventually migrate to Chicago). We loved it, of course. And I still feel my soul flap its wings like mad when I hear 'O mio babbino caro.'
We never know where life will lead us, do we, if we're open to adventure?
Campobello
*The wonderful Norwegian soprano, Sissel Kyrkjebø.
Amazing how the mind's eye works, Liz. Seeing that poster day after day must have set the tiny seedling that sprouted. I wrote an affirmation one day when I was in graduate school about what I wanted my life to look like when I completed my studies -- my car, type of boss, work hours, pay, etc. I stuffed it away in a book and found it years later and had a hair raising experience when I reread it. Every single solitary thing on the list had come true excepting for the color of my Saab. Amazing what can happen when we dare to dream. I don't know why I don't do it more often. Think I will today.... I'm a successful jewelry maker, living in Mendocino, traveling the world buying gems... XOXO, Kel.
ReplyDeleteI like the current dream and can completely see you living that life. I remember the tenacity with which you made the Sweden experience happen, and have no doubts about you accomplishing anything you set your sights on, luv! You are a force to be reckoned with :)
DeleteI'm just enjoying the hairstyles.
ReplyDeleteYou would, Mark--because you're SO eighties ;)
DeleteI had a little Clara Bow thing going, actually.
That is one of my favourite all time movies!
ReplyDeleteI've always loved it, too! It's irresistible :)
DeleteI sooo did this experience backwards. I didn't watch a single movie about Italy until after I moved to Florence. I never imagined I'd live here. I believe (since I am still in Minnesota and currently snowed in) I should watch a few classics before my flight home. And the hairstyles are perfect for their time, which has come and gone, thank God.
ReplyDeleteHi Michele, thanks for stopping by and commenting! While you're snowbound in Minnesota, see if you can get your hands on Summertime: an old fifties film, in color, with Katharine Hepburn and Rossano Brazzi, about a spinsterish schoolteacher who goes to Venice and pretty much runs into every Italian cliché imaginable. It's the precursor to Under the Tuscan Sun, and it's a hoot :)
DeleteThat is so incredible - I wonder if its like what we see/believe comes true?
ReplyDeleteI love that Renovating Italy inspired this bit of dramatic foreshadowing.
The photo is incredible :)
Cheers
Lisa
Lisa, thank you for your comment. I think you may be right--on some level the idea of living abroad was already forming, and while I would have thought that France would have been my likely future home (I was a passionate Francophile), I suppose the idea of Italy was seeping into me unawares!
DeleteYes, yes, yes, to all of it! A Room with a View has been one of my favourites since it first came out and I was still in highschool. I remember watching it with my boyfriend at the time who SO did not get it. And just like you Campobello, I would have guessed at the time that France would have been a likely future home, not Italy. Oh that film still sets my heart aflutter, it's one of the most romantic movies of all time, and is one of those lovely reminders of how really lucky we are to live here--something we really need these days!
ReplyDeleteYou're right, Michelle--you wise woman. I think I need to watch it again, pronto!
DeleteI've also done everything the wrong way around. I was convinced I would move to London, but fell in love with Paris and stayed there. Then I thought I would be a journalist in Asia, but ended up running a bar in West Africa. And now in Veneto - I always swore to my now-ex husband that I would never live here and yet I've been marooned here nearly ten years now, fairly happily, while he is in Belgium.
ReplyDeleteIt will be very interesting to see where my children's dreams take them!
Wow DLC, what an interesting life you've led! I feel like a sloth in comparison ;)
DeleteYes, I've often wondered about my own children, too, and where life will lead them. I am (hopefully) bringing them up to believe that anything--and anywhere--is possible.
Thanks for sharing your experiences.