Today was not quite as full of art. Wait, actually it was—I forgot about our visits to the Accademia and Il Duomo. But we went to church too! And I've been back in our room since the early hour of 9 pm, so it feels like it wasn't quite as full.
But even so, I'm going to hold myself back and talk about the other parts of this trip a little bit. First, a (slightly diatribe-ish) letter to Italy:
Dear Italy, it is time I brought some things to your attention. You're old. We get it. But grannies are learning about "that internet thingy" every day! You should keep some of that stuff around. Second, I know you still use the antiquated term "water closet." However, it's really time that your bathrooms grew up. It is possible to have running water someplace besides a closet. There is really no reason to force people to sit on the toilet while showering. There is enough multitasking already happening in modern life, please give us some space in our bathrooms! Third, towels are made of terry cloth. It is a lovely, absorbent fabric that has these little loops in it that absorb huge quantities of water. They also make you feel warm after a shower! The things that you seem to think are towels are actually large napkins or small tablecloths, I haven't decided which, and you should probably switch over before you embarrass yourself. Okay, hopefully you're feeling a little sheepish now, so I'd like to follow those suggestions with some compliments. Nice job with the art preservation. Keeping that stuff nice must take a lot of work, and you're doing a good job. Second, thank you for giving us Rome, the Renaissance, and opera. It's a little scary how many of the things that I love are gifts from you! And finally, your gelato absolutely lives up to its reputation. In fact, it exceeds it. My favorite combinations so far are raspberry melon and pineapple coconut. Just, wow. You make really good gelato.
Well, that's the end of the diatribe, but now that I've started on the gelato thing, I think it's time to tell you about my new diet. I pretty much love it. It's called: when you only have so much money to spend on meals, and also you've been working to get rid of a couple of pounds that decided to settle in around your middle over the winter, you have to make choices. If you are me, and you are smart (these are not, as some might suspect, mutually exclusive, at least not all the time!), and you have realized that gelato is everything it is cracked up to be and more, you really can't see any problem with making a 2 euro cone of gelato into a lunch. So that's what I've done pretty much every day. And despite the fact that the pizza is also delicious (I haven't had a winner dish of pasta yet), it's the gelato that has won my heart. And if the hours of walking have done their fair share on this trip, I'm seriously crossing my fingers that the extra pound or two I'm gaining in Italian trinkets for the kids will be offset when I leave a couple off my tummy.
Okay, it's kind of sad that I haven't mentioned church yet. It was so fun to go to church here in Italy. In my amazingness, I uncovered the fact that the church, though two miles away, is only one train stop away. So we got up this morning and dressed in church attire (I had a real dress, thank you very much, and should probably take this opportunity to mention that I'm definitely happy with my decision to bring plenty of shirts on this trip even though Aaron and my dad recommended only two or three—they roll up so nice and tiny, as does my dress, and I do care about wearing cute clothes, or at least semi-cute clothes even while traveling!), and hopped on a bus for 1 euro each. Once we got there, the directions I had were a little off, so we ended up spending about twenty minutes looking for the building (it was inside an office building), but we got there about halfway through sacrament meeting. Even though the ceiling was square panels rather than painted frescoes, and even though the music came out of a tinny piano (yay pianist though!) instead of a glorious organ echoing through a spacious nave, the holy spirit was in the room, amid the happy banter of children.
It was fun to meet a mix of Italians, tourists visiting Florence, and a couple of families who have relocated from the US to Firenze. In particular, I felt a twinge of jealousy when I met a lovely woman just older than me with five children whose husband is a professor at Pepperdine University (where Aaron applied and interviewed) told me that her husband is teaching an eight-week course in Firenze and the university paid for the entire family to join him. Yeah . . . Aaron's university doesn't have quite that large an endowment. Afterward, an older woman and a younger girl who had walked to church from near our bed and breakfast headed home with us. Only just before we started for the train station, someone let us know that the train service had just gone on strike for the rest of the day. Oi! But this lovely Italian gentleman had a large car and offered us a ride, which was fantastic, especially since we had tickets for the Accademia in only a few minutes. We appreciated it so much! When we were back to the main drag of Florence, the older woman, Debbie, decided to join us for our trip to the Accademia. She and the younger girl were both there with a program out of Southern Utah University, studying art in Florence for three weeks. It was fun to have her accompany us, as she had an artist's perspective on some of the things we were seeing.
Both the Uffizzi and the Accademia were fascinating to visit because their original functions were not as museums, but as schools of art. The Uffizi was arranged somewhat chronologically, which made tracing the development of the Renaissance particularly interesting. The main draw of the Accademia is Michaelangelo's David. Here's what I love love love about his David: did you know that Michaelangelo sculpted it from a flawed piece of marble? There was this unusually long piece of Carrera marble just lying around in the sculpture gardens in the Medici workshop. Some other sculptors had noticed it, and one had started carving on it, but there was this gaping flaw, I think a hollow hole-type thing going right through it, so the other sculptor had abandoned it, and though several other sculptors had looked at it, none was satisfied that it could be made into an acceptable sculpture. But not Michaelangelo. Michaelangelo always said that the sculptures were already in the rocks, and it was the sculptor's job only to uncover them. When he saw that flawed marble, he could see the finished David already there, awaiting him. And indeed, from that flawed marble, he uncovered the most famous sculpture in the world. Interestingly, despite my knowledge of art history, I had forgotten that story until a few months ago, when it came to me as a metaphor for us. I imagine each of us as a big, clunky, possibly flawed piece of marble. But God knows us and can already see what we are capable of becoming. If we are willing to submit to the sometimes painful cuts and scrapes of his chisel, he can turn us into the masterpieces we are capable of becoming.
Also in the Accademia gallery were a number of Michaelangelo's unfinished sculptures, often called The Prisoners. What a contrast they make with the fine, noble, finished, towering David. In so many places they are strong and refined. But so many other places are left rough. There is a bulky knob of stone here, a block of a hand there. They have begun to be who they might have become, but they are left unfinished, never to be completed, never to stand atop the pedestal that their master had planned for them. On a spiritual level, it's so easy to become complacent, like The Prisoners. We see that we have a well-defined foot, a lovely elbow, a well-turned knee, and we think "hey, look at that! I'm looking good! I don't need any more of this hammer and chisel thing!" But in fact, there is so much more that is possible for us! It is in the details of our lives that we become not just half-worked hunks of marble, but masterpieces worthy of our master. I hope that I won't shun the hammer and the chisel when they come for me (even though I really really want to—I like it when things are lovely and easy, not so much when they're hard). I also hope that I can teach and my family to begin to see the masterpieces that they are capable of becoming.
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