nel limoneto

I'm still convinced blogs are the best form of social media – if they count? – despite my lack of presence here. 

I am back from several weeks abroad and filled with gratitude. I turned twenty-seven, an otherwise odd and boring age, on an island off the coast of Naples. There are too many good things to write about, so I will just write about one, which A. and I keep referring to as "the loops." On our bike ride home from dinner on my birthday, we decided we wanted to bike a little further and so turned right instead of left back to the cottage where we were staying. We headed up a quiet hill and kept going before realizing it made one big loop before sending us down the hill again. When we got to the bottom, I said, "let's do it again," which we did, and then another time too. A. says he was whooping with joy. We had the streets entirely to ourselves and it felt like we were navigating a race course, following the curves of those narrow streets on our speedy bikes. It was the simple joy of childhood, that sense of freedom, of warm wind passing over your hands and up your arms, of the focused attention required to avoid potholes and take each curve, of the silence of the night air and the awareness that your companion is right behind you.

For these moments, small as they are, I am full.

[pictured: a stop on our bike ride, earlier in the day, overlooking the porto]