Let me take you back, back to the summer I was a 14 year old. I jammed out to punk rock boy bands, was an avid Spongebob fan and was impressed I finally had a best friend who stuck around. I was thrilled to be headed to the High School, me, a freshman. One day my Granma Alice dropped by a book she found in the high school's parking lot, knowing I read anything my fingers could grasp.
"Daughter of Venice," by Donna Jo Napoli- the same author I had the opportunity to meet in middle school but decided not to (kicking myself now). Napoli wrote about a girl my age wondering the ancient city of Venice, Italy with a newfound and forbidden love, trying her best to shy away from the life society had mapped out for her. I relished in it, her sorrows were mine, as it captivated my every interest; we even seemed to favor in looks. By the time I finished the book I had to start it fresh from page one to live vicariously through it again. My little mind couldn't fathom any other place I would want to be in the world....
Fast forward 8 years later and the same thought kept popping up into my head, totally Ghost Of Christmas Past style, "ittttaaalllly!" And then a series of fortunate events happened: Graham said he was required to take a week off from work, I realized my school schedule would be in harmony, we don't have any kids to tie us down and we thought YOLO right? Can't you just substitute me with Lizzie McGuire as she marveled over buckets and buckets of gelato? (But definitely stop there, totally not riding off into the sunset with another man on a moped.) So we nixed all plans of smaller trips we had played around with, started saving immediately and I just bought our round trip tickets to spend 10 days in Italy :)
While I let my brain calm down from the crazed storm that came from finding non-agonizing plane tickets, I'm fixing to purchase my old book and dream of the days I'll be in Rome, Venice, Florence or wherever else we can get to. As they say in Italian: chow!
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