The dog was pulling on her leash trying its very best to hop up onto the sidewalk, but the owner, an older woman with sunglasses covering any shadow of an expression other than disgust, was not having it. Or so I thought. BAM! She hit the cobblestone. Her dog pulled her over. Now for the most part in Florence, from what I've seen so far, people mind their own business and kind of look like they could kill you with their looks, but as soon as she was down, several people came to her rescue. There wasn't even a question of "Oh should someone help this lady?" It was everyone nearby immediately coming to her side and holding her up and asking if she was okay. I think if someone had fallen like that in LA, people would have looked, reacted, and watched to see what would happen, but they would not have gone to help unless it was absolutely necessary. Maybe some people would have called over to ask if she was okay, but they probably wouldn't have held her in their arms and picked her up off the streets.
The way people act in Florence is a bit similar to the way people act in LA. On the streets, strangers will ignore you or give you nasty looks, but when you are in stores and shops they will greet you and smile and take care of your wants and needs. However, I think people in Florence have a kind of joy in taking care of the authenticity of their shops and products, well, maybe not joy, but pride that is not seen in LA. I feel special and unique in the way I am treated at restaurants and shops, but in the LA I feel like I'm in an assembly line. Sometimes it's nice to not have special attention, but sometimes it can feel like you're going day in and day out without anything changing. One day can be uncomfortably similar to the day before and the day before that and at the end of they day it feels like three months could have gone by in a day and none of it really mattered at all.
I think it's important for me to point out that I am grateful for authenticity. In a world where more and more things are manufactured, synthetic, and fake, I can't help seeing the surface level of things and people. It's easy to judge people by the way they look and on some levels that's exactly what people want you to do. But also, we want to show who we are. We want to share with others and care for others. I believe there's a lot more going on in people's minds and hearts and bodies and souls than people want to give other people credit for. We struggle and we think and we desire and we live in despair and we live in hope. But we don't know where people are at until we engage. Sometimes a breakdown reveals the most about a person. Sometimes a moment of pure joy reveals. I love the wildness of the emotions we can feel. It's a spectacular array that usually cannot be seen on the outside.
These past few days here in Florence have been good for reflection, for getting away, and for returning to myself. I feel like in the process of growing up, I've lost joy in life. I've come to painful terms with who I am, what I need to work on, and the people around me. I can't seem to get away from fear and pain. I am reminded of death, but more than that I am reminded that it is not what I have that will remain, but it is the quality of my soul. The quality of my soul right now is rough. It's been beaten up and warped. I desire to be a person of love and joy and hope and I'm far from those things.
I need to reconcile with myself. I need to love myself. It's a lot to work on, and I thought Florence might be ruined for me because of my mental illness, but it's not. It's better than I could have imagined and when outside circumstances are good, that is something. As opposed to nothing.
I hope living here gives me an outlook on life that will allow me to live well.
Ciao!
~Analise
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