"Carpe the f...ing diem"

As seen on a wall in Florence

I woke up at the villa on the second morning around 6 a.m. a minor miracle considering the jetlag. Lee gets up early - around 4 a.m. to meditate and then makes us coffee whenever I rise - literally no matter the time I get up. This seems like a particularly noble thing to do.

So on this morning, we pull the only two chairs we own into the salone grande so we can look out the window at this view. I think I may have taken 30 photos of this view already, the view over the tops of the olive, down into the valley, and toward the town of Pistoia with mountains beyond. I like the green shutter in the photo; it places me right inside the large living room. This is what I see. We sit right here, side by side, at this window to drink our first cup of coffee.

Room with a View - from our Salone Grande - Big Living Room

“Wow, I say.

“Wow,” Lee says back. The combination of the view, the cappuccino, the terrcotta floor from 1700 under my feet, the soaring ceilings, the frescoes of some ancient Greek-ish looking place wrapped around the room and Lee’s eyes popping out of his head. This makes us sound and feel stoned out of our gourds. Maybe we are - some contact high with life. Wow. Just wow.

After orienting to this altered state, I say, “I think I want to live here. LIke, full time. Or most of the time. I was thinking in the night when I couldn’t sleep. We aren’t getting younger. What I was thinking….was… “Seize the day.”

“Well, I’m in.”

Il Duomo by Brunelleschi in Florence at night

Then, the next day, I went to Florence with my daughter, Isabelle, visiting from New York. We went to this wine bar and found this happy little table right under this hand-written note. Carpe the fucking diem.

It’s a sign. It’s done. Carpe the fucking diem. Seize the day, people.

The sign - AND the sign.

Do you believe in signs? Do tell me about some signs that have shown up for you!

I am actually getting settled this week and fingers crossed we receive our furniture on Friday so we’ll have more than two chairs. I’ll give you a house tour after that! And then will officially fill in the story about how we found ourselves here in Pistoia Italy at this late but very happy and sometimes gobsmacked stage of of our lives. An Enchantment with Italy: Part II. Thank you so much for reading!

Italian Word of the day: Tempesta meaning “storm” - we had a few this past week! They were very tempestuous! Isn’t it a fantastic word?