Storied By Josh

Slowly the sun rises against the mountains. The air bites sometimes before the sun rises to greet me. Then it settles its rays against me. We were old friends. The sun has been friends with all of us since life began on this planet billions of years ago. She is warmth and promises that she’ll be here tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.

Sometimes in the summer and winter she can’t be as warm as she would like so she is blue and her light is blue.

Anna awoke a little after I did and we were meant to do this, I feel. She wasn’t so sure, at least until she had her coffee. Her bravery returned after breakfast. “Come now. Firenze awaits us.” I say to her.

It is unlike any other town in Europe, like most European towns are, they are all so different that they are the same but this is even more different. We stayed in a hotel that over looked the river. Michelangelo’s David stood on a hill above us and looked down on the city. Today we were to walk to him and see this park they say is beautiful and listen to the monks sing.

The cars sound Italian and not American at all. Their small engines are nearly the size of our lawn mowers and sometimes the same. But the people do not mind, these are just to go from where they must be to where they need to get. It is not a race.

We walk along the river. The road is very close and there is a decidedly diesel smell and the river is quiet so we cross a footbridge and begin our slow ascent into the Tuscany hills. The trees have long needles that dance in the pale blue of the morning sun. The shadows they cast are hypnotic against the old pavement. It is dry and the light dust stains our trainers. She brought water because she always thinks of these things. We pause for a moment by a city bench. It is metal and durable. I take a few pictures of what we see. I smoke a cigarette and we talk our secrets that couples have.

It is a day before New Year’s. The tourists are not up yet. They will have beaten us to Piazzale Michelangelo by the time we get there. Then they will climb back into their buses and go on other adventures as we go on our own.

The statue is very large, nearly fifteen feet high if one counts the pedestal. We turn and look down at the city. Il Duomo and its tower jut above the rest of the rooftops. We see some figures on the top of the tower in the distance. Just beside us there are merchants milling about with stalls. Some of them sell their trinkets out of the back of their cars. Anna browses the figurines, t-shirts and magnets. We have many of these already and she finds nothing of value. We stay near the statue for a while and the sun grows a little warmer.

It would be nearly summer temperature for Alaska, but 45 degrees is cold to us now and we decide to walk to a nearby basilica to stay warm. It is called San Miniato al Monte. Its facade is intimidating and grand. We hear muted singing from inside it. It grows louder as we pass through the threshold. Some people use the holy water basin near the door but I ignore it. There are a few visitors here today and they pepper the pews as the sounds of angels dance in the air for their ears. It is dark with rays of light pushing past small slit windows down onto the pews. The roof rises above us to a pinnacle. Anna and I spend time inside and I peek around a corner. The monks are standing in a semi-circle in their plain robes. The sun shines through an intricately painted glass window. They sing together. Their voices mingle and bounce around the building, seemingly growing in volume.

After a time they finish and the visitors leave. Anna and I go to a large and impressive graveyard in the back. It is all concrete and some of the mausoleums are larger than some studio apartments. Rich men lay here, but so do poor men and it does not matter the size of the afterlife’s home. In the end all of us return to the same dust that made us. We talk in hushed tones about this. I take a few pictures that don’t quite turn out. There is a quiet procession a few graves over for a recently departed. We decide to make our way out.

The basilica and its grounds are surrounded by a wall. We walk along this until we come to the wild which opens up to a road and an orchard in a grassy valley. Beyond lies a tower peaking over. It looks medieval and I wonder about the original owner and how they must have had to protect these grounds from thieves and madmen. Instead, I find it correlates more to the neighborhoods outside of cities now. The ones with the mansions and gates that lock out the poor.

The sun warms us and we sit together here for a while. There are no figures in the orchard as the growing season has passed. It seems for a while that we are the only two people in all of Italy. I find it agreeable. We are meant to go to Giardino di Boboli. But for now we sit and let the sun be our very old and dear friend.

After some time we walk together down the hill and back to the city. The buildings are close, they were built before cars were needed and the only room a town needed was enough for people to walk through. The Italians are singing and talking in the sunlight. Some of them are drinking wine and smoking cigarettes at tables outside of cafés. We cross over a simple bridge and then back over a world famous bridge which homes many buildings, many more trinket merchants and even more tourists. It is of little consequence to me though. It looks best from afar so we do not spend much time there.

Giardino di Boboli is beautiful but there is a long line for its main gates. Anna finds a small back gate and we pay there. It does not take nearly as long. Because of its location we get to see the best part of the gardens first. It is tamed wild with vines growing over the trail and on trees we walk past on the well-groomed gravel trail. I leave something here that I’ve saved for Tuscany all day. Like most things left over from old Europe, its design has an artistic purpose. The climax of the gardens is a wide field overlooking Firenze and Tuscany. We stay here and say little. Most of everything is closed so there is no food to be bought, but it is all just as well. The crowds are much smaller than they would be normally. The birds a few but chirp loudly to us. The grass is a little more brown and dry than green, but it is ours. The cold stone bench is a welcome break to walking so we sit and I smoke a cigarette.

We grow hungry. We are in Italy and hunger is just an unacceptable feeling in this country. We decide we will spend the rest of our day down below in the city of Firenze. We cross over the simple bridge and then walk toward Il Duomo. Anna holds my hand and the city beckons us into its embrace. The Tuscan sun isn’t quite so blue.