It is November in Florence, though it could just as well be September.  There is an inkling of chill in the air, and yet most days become warm, even humid and I end up sweating profusely through my layers.  Perhaps this is the reason that I can’t shake this sickness, the cough that plagues me several times a year and renders me exhausted.  I went to my doctor (who I love) and she gave me some foul-tasting drops to help with the cough and antibiotics.  She’s convinced that it’s not that I keep getting sick, but that I’ve never gotten better and she suggests that I might need to stay home from work longer than 1 day.  Ha!

My  job is really lovely, and I work with really lovely people.  It’s a dream, even if it’s not what I want to be doing forever.  However, it is a great job and I’m happy to be there for even a few years if it comes to that.  Eventually I would like to be doing something really creative.  Writing, baking, decorating, designing.  These are avenues I would like to explore.  And yet I wonder if I will ever get there.  I am a coward, a dreamer, and I have not actively pursued a way to make these dreams a reality. I have to find a place in the world, a location, a pull.  Something that makes me want to stay and put down roots.  I have lived a nomadic lifestyle and I feel the tugs of wanderlust, of adventure, of new beginnings pulling me somewhere.  Will I ever be somewhere and feel settled, forever?  Doesn’t Dante deserve that?

I want to be somewhere that is everywhere.  I want the smell of the sea, the shade of the trees, and height of a mountain.  I want family and friends, city and countryside, here and there.  I want adventure and roots and I’m not sure if I can have it all.  In the meantime I may just have to content myself with a mug of hot tea and the inkling of chill in air telling me to be here now.  It’s November in Florence, after all.