Florence betrayed me

This week I went to a literary event organized by the Florence Writers Group, where Kamin Mohammadi talked about her book The Cypress Tree. It was a really interesting and insightful talk but most of all as I listened to the author’s first experience when coming to Florence, I realized Florence betrayed me or at least I felt very much betrayed.

As I was saying here, when I first laid my eyes on Palazzo Vecchio I just felt at home; so I’ve spent almost every day during my vacations and twice a week when I became a resident, just sitting on the steps in front of the Palazzo writing. Writing my story, writing about friends and family, about nothing and everything, and sometimes about what I thought the Medici family was doing inside that giant, artistically made, pile of bricks; basically I was given the gift of undying inspiration just by sitting on those steps and gazing at the balcony where Anthony Hopkins committed a fictional murder. Thus, I foolishly thought Florence made a pact with me and only me (and maybe a couple of tourists that would never come back), that as long as I kept coming and writing, it wouldn’t share any of its inspirational secrets with anybody else. But it seems I was wrong, and while listening to the story of Kamin and her arrival in Florence, I realized Florence lies to all of us, and her story is no different than my story or the story of another unfortunate artist that dedicated his life and work to it. It seems that this city lures us on this endless path to creativity and it pushes us to not disappoint its legacy.

So, dear Florence, although I feel betrayed, and although you broke our imaginary pact, I now understand that you have to gather us all just to celebrate your past so that we can create our own for your future. I thought about temporarily forgiving you and  why not try to help you bring together a crowd of cool, fresh, worthy of your inspirational factor artists who can treat you and model you, preparing new wonders for you to show off in the future.