returning to Florence, Italy, with April Lindner's LOVE, LUCY

Today, with her vivid reimagining of EM Forster's A Room With a View in a YA novel she titled Love, Lucy, April Lindner has returned me to that city of art—Florence, Italy. She has given me Lucy, torn between two cities and two boys, a father's demands and her own instincts. She has taken me to Fiesole, a village outside Florence where I traveled many years ago—a town that, in fact, became the setting of my favorite published short story.

It's all so clear, in April's book. I see the streets as if I am walking them, the red-tiled roofs as if I am up above them, that Arno as if I am Vespa-ing by.

And that first photo in this post, right down to the red bike, is a picture I took in back in September 2012, when I was researching my own Florence novel, One Thing Stolen. That precise scene and angle, right down to the the red bike, is pictured on the back of April's novel.

We wrote our Italy novels at the same time. Worried them through together. Gave each other the support novelists need. Indulged in all flavors of gelato.

And so, April, it was a pleasure this afternoon to read your story, to find your gelato, your streets, your romance, and, of course, your music, in the pages of Love, Lucy. Congratulations on another wonderful reimagining.

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The Most Beautiful Thing: a short essential film

My experience with the National YoungArts Foundation program yielded many moments of joy, new friendships (I'll be seeing two of the young writers this weekend at Penn!), and some encounters with astonishing work.

This short film took my breath away, left my face wet with tears. Written, directed, and edited by a young man named Cameron Covell, starring Nick Lopez and Analisa Gutierrez, and already the winner of the LACHSA 2012 Moon Dance Best Film Award and Best Actor Award, this is what you must do in advance of Valentine's Day. You must watch this.

Thank you, Julia Elizabeth Hogan, for returning this to me. I can't wait to see you and Peter LaBerge this weekend on my ole Ivy League campus.

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The Small Damages Quilt: Wendy Robards, Artist Supreme

Less than an hour ago, I discovered a big box on my front porch.  It was addressed to me.  Return address:  Wendy Robards, of Caribousmom.  I had written of her just yesterday.  Called to thank her for her glorious words about Small Damages.  Listened to her wise counsel.  We talked for a long time.  She never said a word about the sensational, handmade, unbelievable, I have never received a gift like this, I am stunned Small Damages quilt that she had already boxed and sent my way.

She never even hinted.

Look at this quilt!!!  Look at the colors, the care.  "Use it!" she kept saying, when I phoned her just now to say (fumbling for words, breathless) thank you.  But how can I? How could anyone?  This is art and it belongs on a wall.  This is an extraordinary gesture of friendship.  This is color interwoven with love.

I truly am too speechless to write much more. But Wendy, on her blog, has described her process.  She has photographed this quilt throughout its making.  Please, I implore you, visit her there.

And celebrate her heart, with me, today.

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Finding Romance at the Mall

Late yesterday afternoon I made my way out, to the mall. I was not original in my plan. You would have thought it was Black Friday. Or two days before Christmas.

It was Valentine's Day Eve. It was also post-blizzard. The lines at the registers were epic. I persevered. I have been wearing the same things (in fabulously creative mixes and matches, but nonetheless, the very same things) for quite the long time now, and besides, I had a gift or two to buy. I'm not big on shopping, and I was never very good at standing in line, but yesterday I had no choice.

So I paid attention. I watched men buying their gifts for their women. I watched mothers and daughters. I watched friends out on a spree.

But it was this one couple that made me stop. Middle aged, for sure, both tall and perhaps not so recently at any gym. She was trying clothes on. He was gushing his praise, suggesting a jacket for the skirt, a belt for the dress, a pair of earrings. There was so much love and, it seemed, genuine adoration in the air that soon I was swept up in the happiness of it, and soon I was complimenting their taste (which was exquisite) and soon they were suggesting a dress for me, predicting a best size.

Wherever I went, then, in the mall, they were there—their arms thrown around each other, their bags dangling from their shoulders. "Hey," they would say, and update me on their travels, and I would update them on mine. And always and forever he couldn't take his eyes off of her. And she could not stop being grateful.

I love that kind of love.

Happy Valentine's Day to all of you, my blogging friends.

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What Was Enough

The Neighborhood Crazy (me) found herself in the mirror on a tree, and there, too, found her world—the comings and goings, the cross roads, the sky, the branches waiting for leaves. She wanted it all. She wanted it to make sense and to transcend, so that it wasn't just her story anymore, but a life decoded and returned.

She wrote down what she saw. She took pictures of it. She ran toward it, and she held back, and nothing was ever enough.

What was enough were the voices that answered back, that entered the world this Crazy sketched, conjured, contemplated, loved. What was enough was you.

A Happy Valentine's Day to all of you who make this life so much bigger.

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