m e l i s s i m a.

This Song.»

I can picture myself barefoot on a beach, in the middle of summer, with a glass of champagne in my hand. My hair’s down, my dress is strapless, and I’m twirling.

It’s a clear night, the moon’s huge in the sky, and there are white Christmas lights and tiki torches all around. People are mingling on white couches, others sitting by the water, and laughter fills the air.

This song is playing in the background… And starting tonight, Life’s gonna be the sweetest its ever been. 

September.»

He crept in so sweetly yesterday; almost unnoticed. And already, the first of his days has gone spent. 

I think of him, and all my mind sees is yellow. …Smiling mornings of softness and the sheer feeling of comfort, through sunset. …School supplies, and You’ve Got Mail.

A fleece North Face, fitted jeans, and new sneakers. A pony tail and head band, perhaps. Saturday mornings so crisp, you can feel goosebumps graze the skin as you drive down the highway. Sunglasses on, windows cracked just enough to breathe in the tingling sharpness, and new lipstick…a hint of tease seals your smile. That spiced coffee you’ll sip on, but not finish, warming the cup holder. And the company of red, orange, mustard leaves twirling down from the sky, filling in for the absence in the seat next to you. The music’s on…

September’s perfect thirty, its scent, its smile…the curvature of its S. I thirst for it all, every year. I love that he delivers everyone’s white slate. …Brings the one who’s supposed to stay longer. His flower, the Forget-Me-Not… (An oh so clever one…)

But above all, he makes me want to breathe it all in and Love it all out. Because after Summer, comes Autumn. …And lately, I crave Him more than ever.

Pure.»

I hope that my combining of these four short films into a single post doesn’t devalue any of them in any way, because they’re each absolutely beautiful. They were shot by Leonardi Dalessandri, an Italian cinematographer, I’m assuming, for pure fun.

The colors that come through in each shot are so vivid and so full of life, like the places and faces captured themselves. Each scene, a taste of Italy; the pure place that I call home. 

{Visit his website by clicking here.}

‘An Autumn’s Tale’ | Shot in Parma, Emilia Romagna (Italy)

‘A Day Like Today’ | Shot in Parma, Emilia Romagna (Italy)

‘Suddenly, Last Summer’ | Shot in Moliterno, Basilicata (Italy)

‘Ghost Town’ | Shot in Val d’Agri, Lucania (Italy)

Thirsty…Not Just Thursdays.»

It’s only natural to worry when a neighbor doesn’t call for a few days…when the mail starts to pile up, and the car’s parked on the same side of the driveway.

When dust accumulates in the corners of this blog, however, it actually means (in the most clichè of terms), that “life is good.”

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 

I’m living It in the form of a weary dream these days (“Life,” kid). The air feels stickier against my skin, my energy is significantly subdued, and the streets are more deserted than their usual (or busier, rather, and more populated by the ghosts that linger…I can’t decide). That’s what the New South is like, at least this time around.

BLACK-and scribbles of color entertain my eyes.

I feel like I’ve been here before, seen these familiar faces, tasted this exact flavour…but I haven’t. Conclusion: distant, faded, deceiving memories. But that would be too easy; to say it were all strange and foreign to me. (That part’s not all true anyway, and we know it.) There are some photographs…

Frustration, and I’m slightly bitter.

I toss once, turn twice. My dream swirls and the details twist.

I have been here before, I know these people, and damn straight, these are kiwis in my mouth. It just feels different; wearier than usual. And I’m thirsty. New words roll off my tongue (no more I love you’s), but I keep the new vocabulary concealed. It’s all recycled with a new kick.

Guess that’s what happens when the world’s spinning fast, and you’re spinning (well…) with it: you start to S W I R L, and you hit the ground running. My thirst these days is the kind that isn’t exactly quenchable; the thirst that nestles itself on your taste buds and tickles to no end; a thirst for novelty.

Tonight, I’m safe in someone else’s arms…the embrace of that stranger whom I haven’t hugged in a long while, but who welcomes me just the same, every time I need love and the reassurance that I haven’t lost sight of M e l i s s i m a. It’s my writing that brings me home.

My safe haven, once classifiable as the bosom of the south, is now but a pile of ash. But don’t you for a second think it’s burnt and dead. It’s what’s most ready to make fertile the new life that comes with what’s around the corner.

Autumn.

Come Feel the Peace.»

This isn’t a sad story.

I woke up on Sunday morning in a bed that wasn’t mine, within four walls that embrace the nucleus of a harmonious trio, separate from my own; of a mother and her two children. It was quiet; not lonesome…just quiet.

I got dressed and stepped outside; mother’s birthday, it was. My sister and I, the one whose heart I adopted as an extension of my own…we took to the sunshine soon after milk and cookies. I love it when the air is crisp, and only warm in the light. I love it when it’s morning in Rome.

Our first stop, the pastry shop, smelled delicious; little creations lining the trays of the windows, colourful and precious. Each a bite of Heaven, to be savored in a moment of pure pleasure. A moment, that is…here briefly, and gone just the same…instantly.

Serenity here. A walk, and the sounds of Bossa Nova on my mind. 

Our last stop: the flower stand outside sister’s doorstep. I always pretend I’m Mrs. Dalloway when I buy flowers. I stared at the colours, inhaled the scents, and took in the life of each petal, of each stem, of each green leaf. How special, the life of a flower; a birth so complex, so long in the making…only to fade away after a few days. There were hundreds of different shades in Rosa’s vases, and soon, they’d all be gone…replaced by new ones. Unsettling at first, this thought…this reality.

But then I thought…the life of a flower isn’t any different than the course certain stories take; Love stories, that is…those chapters we experience to attempt to cure the Human condition of Loneliness, amidst the scribbles of this crazy Life. We use caution, we use tender care, to build up to an idyllic euphoric greatness. We experience these short bursts of Beauty, of Passion, of that which is Pure while it feeds…until it’s time for it to fade…to take on the role of a nutritive layer that we use for what comes thereafter. Only then is it time for a new flower to grow from the wilted parts of the one before it. As it blends with the soil and meshes with the new, a second life is created.  

The cycle of life, of the flowers of Rosa…they’re little Love stories in themselves. Each one is short-lived, genuinely beautiful and delicate in its form, but special…important for its time on this Earth. It’s a concept difficult to settle with; fulfillment followed by death. But there’s a rebirth that comes from that which was before…And after Summer, comes Autumn. Different, yes, but sunkissed just the same, from the little pieces that shall always remain.

This isn’t a sad story…this is what it means to finally find peace. 

“And after Summer comes Autumn…” -500 Days of Summer