This morning I woke up in Venice. Birds singing softly it the garden that I look on to from my bedroom window; the birds like to settle on the lemon tree right by my window. A gentle breeze blowing through the white linen curtains which screen that same little window. And the sound of the water lapping gently in the canal that runs just alongside our house. I woke up in Venice yesterday morning too, and the morning before that. But this morning it really sunk in. It felt like home – nostalgically so. And it felt like summer.
It’s a strange thing that ‘home’ feeling – tricky to pin down and impossible to label. Home is something that you sense, not something that you see. It smells and it tastes. It’s in the minutiae, those details imperceptible to others - and so all lifechanging-ly important to you. A plate of pasta cooked with a sugo al pomodoro just so – not any other which way; or the ritual of buying ice cream – gelato alla nocciola – from a specific shop at four in the afternoon – not at any other time of the day.
It’s everything that you long for when you’re gone and everything that you relish upon your return.