We lived for a week in an Airbnb’d apartment in San Martion Buon Albergo, passing the time in writing and walking the town. The world has begun to hint at a change in seasons, with drifting mists across the fields and cold tile floors in the mornings. We have chased summer south and north for almost a year; but as we slow, winter gains.
We take this time to rest, letting the time slip by in local cafes over 1 € espressos and in walks through town. It slips through cracks in the windowsill and evaporates in the bubbling water as we boil pasta for dinner, our staple in a town with a local shop that sells fresh pasta.
We make one day trip to Verona, the nearest city and setting for Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Tourists come here to propose to each other on Juliet’s balcony and to leave their names scratched onto adhesive bandages plastered on the walls of the balcony’s courtyard. The sky is overcast as we visit the towering, angel guarded tombs of the city’s powerful Renaissance families. The sky remains gray as we sit on a patio overlooking the Adige River, watching the water drift past over another 1 € espresso.
One warm afternoon I discover a praying mantis on the ground outside the apartment. It twists over its articulated joints, serpentine-esque eyes tracking me warily. I pick it up to examine it and place it on a nearby bush. It inches off into the brush, swaying unevenly like a twig in the wind, though there is none. In a few minutes it is gone. Soon we’ll be gone too.
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