“Only when a person reaches old age can he stop caring about the opinions of his fellows, or of the public, or of the future.”
– Milan Kundera
Italy
Good sea, a photograph
“I like a good story and I also like staring at the sea– do I have to choose between the two?”
– David Byrne
Candy, a photograph
“Youth is like having a big plate of candy. Sentimentalists think they want to be in the pure, simple state they were in before they ate the candy. They don’t. They just want the fun of eating it all over again.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald
Guitar, a photograph
“The guitar is a miniature orchestra in itself.”
― Ludwig van Beethoven
Creative, a photograph of life
“The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive. To him… a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death. Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create — so that
without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. He must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency he is not really alive unless he is creating.”
― Pearl S. Buck
Reds, a photograph of Rome
“Love does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.”
— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Arrangement, a photograph
“Technology is the knack of so arranging the world that we do not experience it.”
― Rollo May, The Cry for Myth
Together, on a lazy Saturday afternoon, one experiences the warmth of the sun on his face, the other the warmth of the phone in her hands.
No matter what, a photograph
“No matter what happens, always keep your childhood innocence. It’s the most important thing.”
― Federico Fellini
Off the track, a photograph of Rome
“Remember that it’s only by going off the track that you get to know the country…And don’t let me beg you, go with that awful tourist idea that Italy’s only a museum of antiquities and art. Love and understand the Italians, for the people are more marvelous than the land.”
― E.M. Forster
I’m in Rome visiting my dear friend and editor while working on my book. Between writing and editing, I try to find some time each day to get out and about to both walk and photograph.
Strange contrasts, A photograph of Rome
“It is a place that ‘grows upon you’ every day. There seems to be always something to find out in it. There are the most extraordinary alleys and by-ways to walk about in. You can lose your way (what a comfort that is, when you are idle!) twenty times a day if you like; and turn up again, under the most unexpected and surprising difficulties. It abounds in the strangest contrasts; things that are picturesque, ugly, mean, magnificent, delightful, and offensive, break upon the view at every turn.”
― Charles Dickens, Pictures from Italy
The Beginning, A Photograph of Rome
“Tell me about
your Italian journey
I am not ashamed
I wept in that country
beauty touched me
I was a child once more
in the womb of that country
I wept
I am not ashamed
I have tried to return to paradise”
― Tadeusz Różewicz, They Came to See a Poet: Selected Poems
Chef’s Salads
“People aren’t either wicked or noble. They’re like chef’s salads, with good things and bad things chopped and mixed together in a vinaigrette of confusion and conflict.”
– Lemony Snicket
Sigh, A Photograph of Life
“Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
Men were deceivers ever,-
One foot in sea and one on shore,
To one thing constant never.”
– William Shakespeare
Virtue, A Photograph
“Walking is a virtue, tourism is a deadly sin.”
– Bruce Chatwin
Poor, A Photograph of Questions
“When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.”
Hélder Câmera
With Us, A Photograph of Life
“The world is so empty if one thinks only of mountains, rivers & cities; but to know someone who thinks & feels with us, & who, though distant, is close to us in spirit, this makes the earth for us an inhabited garden.”
– Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
Boats, A Photograph of Italy
“There’s nothing––absolutely nothing––half so much worth doing as messing about in boats.”
– Kenneth Grahame
Mi Perdoni?, A Photograph and Plea in Italy
“I don’t want just words. If that’s all you have for me, you’d better go”
– F. Scott Fitzgerald
I leave Verona Saturday with plans to drive into France. I’ll stop in the coastal town of Noli, here in Italy, for a few days first and plan a route from there. It very well could be that I stay on the beach writing and hiding, or perhaps return home a few days early. I’ve decided against a plan and instead, do what I do best – or used to do best – just feel my way about.
I took the photograph below while on a late afternoon walk along the river. I like the graffiti here in Italy. It’s either words of love, words of politics or desperate pleas. So many words. It’s not so prevalent as the miles and miles of graffiti in Rome, but it still carries mostly all the same messages.
Maybe the Veronese will be offended that instead of showcasing the beautiful pastel colored city in photos, I chose to showcase the graffiti. But please, good people of Verona, Mi Perdoni? I promise to share the bright, beautiful ones as well. Eventually.
Trees, A Photograph of Italy
“I am at home among trees.”
– J.R.R. Tolkien
Girl, A Photograph of Italy
“Never did the world make a queen of a girl who hides in houses and dreams without traveling.”
– Roman Payne
Contemporary Leonardo, A Photograph of Italy
“Technology is the knack of so arranging the world that we do not experience it.”
– Rollo May
Games, A Photograph
“Oh, the places you’ll go! There is fun to be done!
There are points to be scored. There are games to be won.
And the magical things you can do with that ball
will make you the winning-est winner of all.
Fame! You’ll be as famous as famous can be,
with the whole wide world watching you win on TV.
Except when they don’t
Because, sometimes they won’t.
I’m afraid that some times
you’ll play lonely games too.
Games you can’t win
’cause you’ll play against you.”
– Dr. Seuss, Oh, The Places You’ll Go!
Fair Verona, A Photograph of Italy
“Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents’ strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark’d love,
And the continuance of their parents’ rage,
Which, but their children’s end, nought could remove,
Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.”
– William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents’ strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark’d love,
And the continuance of their parents’ rage,
Which, but their children’s end, nought could remove,
Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.”
– William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
I leave for Verona, Italy in a few short weeks – a much overdue visit. Verona, the scene of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, is an amazing little town. This photo, taken at Giardino Giusti, is one of my very favorites from my last visit.
Myth, A Photograph
“Fear is the enemy. Life is not your enemy; the Other is not your enemy; fear is the enemy, and fear has crowded you into a diminished corridor of that vast mansion of possibility that the gods provide us.” – James Hollis
Men, A Photograph of Italy
“You may have the universe if I may have Italy”
– Giuseppe Verdi
Wanderer, A Photograph of Verona, Italy
“We are all wanderers on this earth. Our hearts are full of wonder, and our souls are deep with dreams.”
― Gypsy Saying
Forgotten, A Photograph
“Nights through dreams tell the myths forgotten by the day.”
– C.G. Jung
Destino, A Photograph
“Non abbiate paura, il nostro destino
Non può essere presa da noi, è un dono “.
– Dante Alighieri, Inferno
Loud Work, A Photograph
“If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, will answer you: I am here to live out loud.”
– Emile Zola
As I begin to make my plans to return to Italy this June, I am reminded, through this and many photos, of one of the things I so enjoy about the country; It’s passion for the arts – a sort of living out loud
Color Float, A Photograph
“Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky.”
– Rabindranath Tagore
One Street Shy 