hold my hand, and let’s say yes- a story of friendship, exploration, and growth.
What if two girls walk into a fine art print shop in San Gimignano, just like we did, but 100 years from now, and they see us hanging on the walls, just like the people we were mesmerized by, just like the prints you brought home to hang on your walls?
Will it be your grandchildren selling the artwork, just like the grandson we met, selling his family’s generations of prints?
What will the images be titled? Will they have our names?
What will they know about us?
Here are a few things I hope they know about us…
I hope they know we were genuinely this happy, that these smiles weren’t faked for the camera.
I hope they know the third time we ever hung out together was in Italy, and nearly 2 years to the date we were back again, just because we took a chance, said yes on a whim, and it changed everything.
I hope they know how grateful we were to be there, how waking up and opening the kitchen windows to the fresh morning air and how going to sleep with the twinkling lights of the medieval city never got old to us.
I hope they know we laughed, a lot, and we cried a little too. We cried because the connections we made with passionate people were overwhelmingly beautiful, and we cried sharing vulnerable stories because we felt safe enough to be honest.
I hope they know how many times we vowed to come back together with our husbands… and how I hope I can say we finally did.
I hope they know I felt brave with you- 2 women, traveling alone, running down dark streets, driving through confusing traffic, dashing through airports, dancing in restaurants, saying English words in an Italian accent hoping it helped… I just knew we would figure it out together.
I hope they know whatever they might think is impossible, isn’t- they just have to find the right people to hold their hand through a tuscan grape field, and through life.
I hope seeing us makes them happy, makes them feel brave, makes them feel more connected to people, makes them feel like anything is possible, makes them feel everything we felt in Italy.
When we walked into the print shop inside the walled city of San Gimignano we were greeted with hundreds of emotive black and white images of Italy and its people. The images had soul- you could easily flip through and enjoy them for hours. More than 100 years old, the images showed people in the fields working, sun beams over vineyards, picturesque winding roads masked in fog.
Ashlind had made the tough choice of deciding what prints to take home and we made our way to the register to check out. I began to notice each print had the same name on them- Fontanelli, the same as the store. Assuming I was wrong I asked, “Are these your work?” How could they be, being nearly 100 years old? He explained that yes, some were, but all of them were prints from his family, going back generations.
Amazed, we looked around with fresh eyes, realizing that every image in that building had been captured by the same bloodline, that just 1 family had produced and preserved those moments of Italian history to share with so many of us from all around the world.
It didn’t really hit me until I got home, when I was editing these photos and changed one to black and white, that every photo we took there, every video, every poem written after, every story shared, will one day be all that is left of this trip. Just like the images of the people and places that hung in that shop- we will be a memory.
The passing of time is inevitable. Holding such fond memories is not.
And to think… I almost didn’t say yes to this trip.
I had been to Italy 2 years prior and thought, “I don’t need to go back. Really, who am I to go back again?” It felt almost extravagant, unnecessary, maybe a little selfish to go back again. And really, I suppose I was right. I didn’t have to go. It wasn’t necessary. But why look at life like that? I had the means to go, good reasons to go, support to go. Saying no wasn’t about being responsible, it was about playing small, it was about not asking for too much, it was about not taking too much, it was about staying in a comfort zone.
Instead, for the second time, with Ashlind, I said yes to Italy. I said yes to myself, to my craft, to our creative adventures together, to that version of myself that knows who I am and what I am capable of when I stop getting in my own way.
I struggle leaving home. I love my husband, I love my kitty, I love being in close proximity to my family and friends. Saying yes to new, far away things means leaving them. But I also love watching as the clouds part and the dirt roads of a country square mile start to come into view through an airplane window, I love exploring new areas I’ve never experienced before, I love meeting new people an ocean away and instantly becoming friends, and ultimately I love coming back home with a new perspective on life that I wouldn’t have had I never left. I am learning saying yes doesn’t mean I’m leaving what I love, but inviting more of what I love into my life.
Sometimes we have to get uncomfortable, sometimes we have to take up space, sometimes we have to say yes, sometimes we need to grab onto the hands of those we trust and make memories half way around the world with them.
If we don’t, why are we here? I don’t know, but I would like to think the moments in these photographs is why…
Special thanks to UnicoStay who hosted us at Raccianello, where all of these images were captured, which is just a short walk in the country side to San Gimignano. After filling up on espresso, gelato, and probably too many gifts for ourselves and others to walk home with, we retuned and changed to check off the last thing we had put on our to do list for the day- frolic in the tuscan vineyard.
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