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| The medieval Duomo in Siena, photographed by Carey Moore in Views from a Tuscan Vineyard |
Because it's New Year's Eve, I'm reminiscing about times that have had the most profound influence on my (long) life. I would have to rank my 1965 college semester in Florence # 1. The sensory memories of that trip are still so vivid that I can pull them up with just a momentary sight, smell or taste. Today I was paging through one of my books titled Views From A Tuscan Vineyard and I came across this picture of Siena. Suddenly, I was flooded with memories of Italy in 1965. I think the experience was so intense because I was young and impressionable and homesick and because Italy was much more foreign than it is today, and also because each of us was placed in an Italian family where we were forced to speak Italian on whatever level we could. We had what is now called total immersion in the culture. In some ways, I have never emerged from that experience, so a random photo, a whiff of diesel or the scent of sage can transport me back to the cobblestone streets of Florence, Siena or Pisa.
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| The Florentine Duomo also photographed by Carey More |
By today's standards, it's pretty amazing that I don't have one photograph from that Junior year abroad. Of course we didn't have cell phones, but I guess we also didn't carry cameras. It seems that because we weren't distracted by the need to capture our experiences, they became all the more vivid.
Buon Anno
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