Florentine Window

FLORENCE, Italy - I took one last look outside of my window overlooking my street at 5:47 a.m. The streetlights over Via Dello Sprone shut off as I watched daylight invade the morning sky over Florence. After a month of unpacking, I had placed everything neatly back into my suitcases, and my room was once again just as it was when I arrived, with no trace of me ever being there. The apartment was silent, except for the faint sound of zipping and clicking from the room next to mine as my roommates finished packing the last of their belongings. The last 31 mornings flashed before me as I shut the window and turned my back on the morning view outside. The hardest part of leaving my apartment was
watching the door close for the last time, knowing I no longer had a set of keys in my pocket.

In the process of traveling, there exists a point in time, if you stay long enough in one place, when you begin to break free from the label of “tourist.” I spent my first week in Florence navigating the city through the labels on a paper map. Hysterically, I dodged Vespas and Smartcars as they buzzed by in the streets with no sensible order or speed. I spent much of that time lost in a city where the streets seemed to have no names, and in finding my way, I have slowly become this city. By the end of my month-long stay, I was the one giving directions to people, sometimes in Italian, and I would often walk fearlessly in the middle of the cobblestone streets as the Vespas and Smartcars dodged me.

When you uncover the layers of a city like Florence, known for its Renaissance architecture and art, that is when you become property of the city. Visitors come to see things they have already seen in photos and movies. Most people go home with photos of things that are already printed on postcards. My photographs at the end of the trip were not of the statues in the Piazza di Signoria, nor were they of the bell tower of the Duomo. Rather, they were of the street corners, bars, and gelato shops that will forever be emblazoned in my memory. I took these photos on my last of many late night strolls in the city. I have come to love Florence as if it was my home.

What I learned from my 31 days in Firenze is that there are no destinations in life, only new points of origin. This window in this room in Italy is my newest point of origin. As the taxicab pulled onto our street to take us to the train station, I felt as if I was leaving one home for another. I don’t know yet how I will view home now that I have spent the last 31 mornings waking up to the sun coming through my Florentine window.