[First off – nope, nope, nope. No “Gosh we love you and you’re important to us,” messages. I know you do, and I know I am. I’m doing fine. Just stepping back from playing Rick Steves for a minute and letting y’all into some of my internal meditations here. We good with that? I thought so. So let’s roll.]

It’s not the weight of history, per se, here. Not the unimaginable years these stones of Florence have been piled up and torn down again and again. It’s the weight of all the unimaginable lives of those unimaginable people who did the piling up and tearing down. The unimaginable mass of lives living themselves out to the fullest, then getting carried away in the river of those unimaginable years. The sonder of a place like Florence, or any of these ancient cities, can be crushing if you open yourself up to it.

I’ll argue that it’s a healthy thing to open yourself up to this sensation. In this city of seemingly unchanging stone monuments (which themselves have been built from the ruins of unchanging stone monuments), the only rational response – other than shutting your eyes to it – has to be to let go of any illusion of permanence. Of these monuments. Of this, or any civilization. Least of all any hope of making a permanent mark on the world with your life. Or any point in hoping to do so. Cue Ozymandias. Cue the Buddhists and Stoics from stage left and right, respectively. Cue Disney. Let it go. It’s healthy.

Local’ish boy Marcus Aurelius, from a couple hundred miles south of here, had a few choice words on the subject. The translation I recall from Meditations was something like, “What do you care what others think of you after your death? They too will be dead soon.”

Yow.

Those chipped, faded little cameos inset into the vast cliff-face of the cathedral – is there even a list of names anymore, let alone any real knowledge of what lasting difference those men made in the lives of others? And these were the favored few.

Perspective – that’s what this city offers. And perspective is rarely comfortable at first.

Yeah, I’ll ‘fess up – it’s been a surprisingly uncomfortable week. No, not in the traditional sense; I scored a cozy little top floor apartment around the corner from Ponte Vecchio, the only Florentine bridge from antiquity that wasn’t blown up during the last world war. South side, the Oltrarno, the Florentine equivalent of the Left Bank – a little less classy, a little less frequented by those on the museum circuit. Grocery two doors down and a three-stool coffee shop around the corner. And of course, more little pasta and gelato shops than you could sample in a year of Saturdays, each seeming to have its own regulars. Music on the bridge every evening – a right little Bohemia here.

View from the balcony

But what’s been uncomfortable is that I’ve let the profound weight of the City get to me. Or maybe it’s the jet lag. But I’ve not been able to let go and ride the irresistible flow of history through these cobbled streets. My ego keeps getting in the way. And if there’s one thing an irresistible flow of history doesn’t give a damn about battering, it’s a pesky little overdeveloped ego.

Like I said, it’s probably healthy. There’s that poster from my childhood (yes, mom – you know the one). No, nothing by any of the Florentine greats – perhaps one of the later Dutch masters? Much later.

The obvious question then is, If it’s a losing game to hope to make any enduring mark, what do we do in the here and now? No, don’t answer that question. Really, please don’t. It’s a good question, perhaps the “good question” that has been at the center of philosophy since the start of recorded history, amiright?

And, like everyone else, I have some ideas.

But I do want to give myself a little more time to sit with that question staring me in the face. So I’m going to try to hang out with Florence a little longer and see how things feel once the perspective has settled a bit more. After that? Well, I’ll keep you posted.

Oh, but since you’ve waded through all of this, some pics!