It’s been thirty years since I’ve travelled to Italy. The 24 year old, open parachute of invincibility. The free fall into newfound freedom, away from the eyes of permission. Clandestine staircase kisses, laced with smoke and gin and tonic and time. I have all these memories when the clock didn't tick so hard. When the numbers still drew a lazy circle around days.

Thirty years ago, and here we are.

Eight strangers turned friends settled on a hill somewhere outside Florence. A vision of a castle in the distance. New eyes perched above its cracked walls.

A friend of a friend of a friend and a rented house on a hill called Soldano. The friend of the friend. And their friends too. Four couples traversing the widening map of age, converging on this pin pressed deep into the Tuscan ground.

Here we are.

Here. We are.

And here’s what happens when the glass gets poured. When the sun follows the outline of an ancient castle made new by the morning light. I want you to know.

It’s all still beautiful.

The creases. The cobble stone paths inside the hearts. Opened doors to wounds. I want you to know. You. And your not-so-ancient heart.

Still beautiful too.

We are told to travel young. Soak in the seasons. Breathe the mountain air when our bones are still pliable, unshakable to the climb. The descent.

But as I sat with these strangers turned friends turned grace beneath a Tuscan night, I could see all the ways we get it wrong. The ways we wish for it all too early. The ways the age and the pain and the unwinding of the wound makes it all more beautiful than I could ever imagine.

There’s a strange beauty in words spoken between notes of silence. The soft plunge of presence with once strangers.

Grace.

Words huddled under the blanket of a house in the middle of nowhere. Yet somewhere so definite and sure. So perfectly placed with all its bricks and assembled stone. It’s ancient walls, still strong.

Still strong.

I want you to know.

You’re still strong too.

And I wonder who were we before all of this?

I have found something in the moon, she said.

Some kind of hopeful light between the deep crevasses of time. The holes dug out of mourning and sinking and waiting for the water to rise, sweep us away to where the stars linger. Where they stay a little longer.

I have found something.

Too good to put down. Too good to let go. Too good. To forget.

Don't forget.

You are more than all the things that happened.

Than all the ways you crumbled.

You are more.

Florence has a face. Chin lifted, eyes dark. She dares. Taunts, Begs you to follow. Only to leave you abandoned in the wake of her rush. I dare you, to find me between the stone stares, the influencer’s smile.

I dare you.

So we climbed to the top of the Duomo. The house in the sky. Windows blinking hard against the wind, stairs made soft under the weight of feet. Ascending, falling. Ascending, falling again.

And again. And again. Your heart, the duomo of your own becoming.

Look up.

You’re almost there.

Here’s the thing no one tells you about time. Or age. Or the crumbling bricks beneath your eyes. Here’s the thing no one tells you. You get to choose. What to believe. About all those crumbling parts. About all the beauty inside you. You get to choose.

To stop looking for the mirrors that make us look skinny. The mirrors that can't see the spark and mystery of healing wrapped between muscle and bone, weaving its way around the spin of blood and hope and heart. The mirrors that can't see what’s beneath the skin, when it gets pulled back. When we mend what hurts.

Together.

When we find each other’s eyes. The tiny pinprick hole between blinks that whispers,

Look here.

Look deeper. I’m in here. I’m in here.

I’m right here.

And I’m not going anywhere.

I’ve stopped looking for mirrors that make me look skinny. Instead I listen to my body. To the places on my hands that write words on a page, paint streams into skies, turn clay into a calm I can hold. I listen. To the places where fingers wipe crumbs from a toddler’s smile, touch the last warm touch of a dying hand.

I want you to know.

It’s still here.

And the beauty inside you.

She’s still here too.

I’m sorry. For what you went through. For the dark tunnel you travelled alone. I’m sorry. For the pain this world hands out in fits and starts. For the words I’ll never find. The tickle in the back of the throat I can't reach. To say your eyes have seen too much.

To say

You are here.

You are strong.

To say

This heart of yours.

It’s a work of art.

You and your beautiful art of a heart was never a mess. Or your wounds or the words too small to contain. You are the light behind your eyes. The little windows with ledges, tears teetering on the edge of uncertainty. You are an ancient city. A castle on top of a hill waking under the heavy fog of time. You are a castle. With rooms and memories and corners softened by the hands that held on

and never let go.

I want you to know.

The journey is you.

I didn't know you could feel a scar with your eyes. Feel a scar with your ears perched against someone’s words. Presence spun between us like rope. Feel a scar beneath your skin, the windows and doors opening and closing with each new breath.

I didn't know.

What we see with new eyes. The eyes that come only with time. With wrinkles and creases and forgotten maps is what gives our heart its direction, its compass.

The kind that always points towards love.

I didn’t know.

I feel so lucky to know

you.

Thirty years ago, I climbed mountains. Jumped from waterfalls. Climbed into stranger’s cars before phone lines kept track. Thirty years ago, you could disappear. Without someone telling you

You’re making a mistake.

Without someone telling you to come back

from who you are becoming.

This somewhere house, where I opened the folded paper of time. The little note of memory I pushed deep into my pocket, pulled out over the wash of 30 years, unfolding the past over digital maps. Feeling the places where the crease of memory left marks, smudges too dark to erase. Feeling the places where the stone came apart, where someone put them back together again. Spread the thinning mortar between seams. Walked over the shards of doubt. The cyclical sink of sand around my deepest foundations.

I want you to know.

You’re not broken.

Maybe aging is an art too. The collections that hang from our hearts. Our minds. The hollowed out halls of our own forgiveness.

You are more beautiful than before.

The walls collapsed around you.

More beautiful.

For what you have endured.

And I can't tell you how the skin feels after a Tuscan rain or how the crooked lean of a door can feel truer than anything I’ve ever seen before. How it worked so hard to keep itself from falling over. Worked so hard to keep itself open and welcoming and free from the hard lock of fear.

Stay open. The only way to feel the wind is to stay open.

I can't tell you. But I can offer you this:

Take a trip. With a friend. Or a friend of a friend of a friend. Take a trip. Find a castle somewhere. Inside you. Inside a stranger. Hold hands with someone’s heart.

See where these new eyes of yours takes you.

It’s beautiful inside.