Spring Fever

Looking at the dogwood and crabapple in bloom on this sunny April afternoon, and not feeling like leaving town at all and yet in a couple of hours Bo and I will be in a taxi to the airport, embarking on a month touring Campania and Puglia, the two southernmost provinces in Italy.

I am eager to be back in the Old World, where baroque churches grace town squares, the buildings seem to want to tell you their stories, through the flaking mortar and mellowed stones.  The patina of time polishes the cobblestones as well as the pews and the bannisters.  And the museums display treasures of 500 years, if not 1,000. Greek figures from the 4th century bc, Roman coins or funerary tablets depicting portraits from the past, Victorian watercolors of Vesuvius and Pompeii.  OK, yes, I AM ready to leave our spring behind and be blown by the wind over the sea to Rome tonight.