Respira: A Lane at Dawn

Light rises behind a single cypress at the far end of the lane and spills gold and

peach across the sky. It finds the upper windows of the old houses first, then the blue of the shutters, then the terracotta pots by the doors, where the herbs still hold the last of the shade. Beyond the low shed at the lane's end, the hills lie folded in haze, one behind another, each paler than the last.

Somewhere above the rooftops a bell counts the hour, unhurried, and behind a half-open shutter a white curtain lifts and settles as though the whole house were breathing in its sleep.

A pot rattles on a small flame two floors down. The smell of first coffee drifts out and meets the smell of cool stone, and the two of them stay together in the air for a while.

You are standing in this lane with one hand flat against a wall that is already faintly warm. Your own kitchen is a long way off, and so is the alarm, and so is the list on the counter that has been waiting since Friday.

Ti manca l'Italia?

Perhaps someone asks it from a window, or perhaps it rises on its own from somewhere beneath the ribs, where a particular morning is tucked away, small and kept.

A stranger's radio plays a song with an accordion in it, and a cat watches you from the roof of the little shed with complete indifference.

The ache arises before your eyes are open. It carries the sound of a bell and the weight of a curtain and the scent of cool stone, and it stays beside you, quiet as the lane.

The light has reached the cobbles now. It rests at your feet, patient and bright, and the lane goes on, a shutter at a time, with all the time in the world.

Respira.

Reliving a morning like this morning is just a card away.

Respira is waiting in my Etsy shop, in a 52-card deck for each week of the year or a 30-card deck to begin gently.

A free gift is waiting for you here.