“No matter what happens, always keep your childhood innocence. It’s the most important thing.”
― Federico Fellini
verona italy
The World
“In the great cities we see so little of the world, we drift into our minority. In the little towns and villages there are no minorities; people are not numerous enough. You must see the world there, perforce.”
– W.B. Yeats
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
Secret Garden, A Photograph
“Her heart was a secret garden and the walls were very high.”
– William Goldman, The Princess Bride
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.
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
A Garden To Walk In, A Photograph of Italy
“A garden to walk in and immensity to dream in–what more could he ask? A few flowers at his feet and above him the stars.”
– Victor Hugo
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!
Magic, A Photograph
“This old barbaric music has magic in it.”
-Michael MacDonagh
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.
Real, A Photograph of Italy
“You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”
– Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit
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
To Seek, A Photograph
“Heaven forbid that we should believe in such a way as not to accept or seek reasons, since we could not even believe if we did not possess rational souls.”
– Saint Augustine of Hippo
Earth Poetry, Photographs
Trees are poems that earth writes upon the sky,
We fell them down and turn them into paper,
That we may record our emptiness.
–Kahil Gibran
I am an advocate of many things – of the arts, of humans, of trees, of philosophy, of poetry and literature, of interaction, of expression and of love. A man whose words have always touched me deeply were those of the Lebanese-American Kahil Gibran. If I could bring anyone back for an evening of conversation over a meal, it would be him. I’d like that – to sit in an olive grove with Mr. Gibran and just listen…
Olive trees, as you may have read in my past posts, hold an allure for me. I like that their gnarly trunks make this bold statement of, “I am here and have been for many years and will continue to do so,” while their dainty silver-like leaves seem to be fickle in their presence..almost blending in to the sky behind them…
Home, A Photograph
“How often have I lain beneath rain on a strange roof, thinking of home.”
– William Faulkner
I am home, here in rainy Seattle….but not really
Artists at Work, Photographs
Harp Man, A Photograph
“Music in the soul can be heard by the universe.”
― Lao Tzu
I Want To Ride My Bicycle, I Want To Ride My Bicycle…
Bicycle bicycle bicycle
I want to ride my…
bicycle bicycle bicycle
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride my bike
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride my…
Bicycle races are coming your way
So forget all your duties oh yeah!
-Queen
Verona, Italy and Giardini Giusti
“My garden is my most beautiful masterpiece”
― Claude Monet
Verona, Italy and Shadow Life
Arches and Walls, Oh My
While taking a break from writing today I sat at a bench and sketched what I saw instead of just snapping a photo… Here is a piece of my sketchbook.
One Street Shy 