I had this history teacher, Mr. Baker, in high school -- in the fabulous Arkansas public school system where I learned many things (e.g., that it's bad to be smart and how to play dumb. Also, kickball.) One day I said something in Mr. Baker's class that I had read in a book and I remember even now, decades later, the contempt dripping from his voice when he responded to me, "You don't get your ideas from books, do you?" I could have committed no impropriety more distasteful. (Mr. Baker later served several terms as the very popular mayor of my home town.)

Yesterday, I noticed that the wisteria outside the kitchen is putting out flower buds. Every day now, something new blooms. It's not quite April yet, but flower pots that have seemed empty and dormant all winter long are now sprouting shoots and even a few early flowers from long-hidden bulbs. The grass is filled with daisies and violets. Trees that I don't recognize are flowering. The Signora tells us that some of them are cherry trees. And Mimmo tells Jonathan, in their many talks together about their shared passion, that we should expect the olive trees to flower any time now.

The air has been very clear lately so that for three days running we have been able to see the coast of France from the living room windows. Why it is so especially exciting to us to see the coast of France rather than, say, our usual view of the sunset and the ocean and the ships heading in and out of the sea lanes towards the harbor at La Spezia, is unclear. But somehow it is.

The birds are riotous lately and I have been stuffing myself with fresh peas. Suddenly today the forsythia is covered in yellow flowers. I probably originally got the idea to move away to Italy, to a place with wisteria and sunshine on the shores of the Mediterranean, from reading about it in books. 

Fuck you, Mr. Baker.