A Little Picture Story

I grew up in the Wild, Wild West of America; or at least what's left of it. Most days, I would saddle up my fiery, bay horse and we would gallop up and over the hill behind my house and spend the rest of the day exploring in the desert, literally not seeing a soul, road, house or sign of human life for hours and miles. The reality of farm life allowed me plenty of opportunity to develop a autonomous, confident self, who made things alone and if she failed, there was no one to blame but herself. I was an American girl, growing up without connection or perception of a past, only a present and a future of my choosing. We lived in a trailer for most of the childhood I can actually remember. It was a small trailer to begin, then one day we bought a bigger trailer and the old one was rolled away. We knew where our trailer was placed after it left our property. I recall driving by it every so often, my parents would point and chuckle as my sister and I pressed our face to the window glass, gazing at what was once our home. It sat on the side of a barren hill, looking tiny and opaque, giving up no hints about the lives it housed currently. The town I grew up in was incorporated in 1904, barely 80 years later I would be born. In history class we learned about the Indians that lived on the land for hundreds of years before Lewis and Clark arrived and after that, we shut our books and looked up to the current times. For me, my home and land were young, a near-white canvas that imagination and hard work would paint. From growing up in a house with wheels to living in a state with a mere 100 years of history, the thought of Europe, with all its recorded history, was an intriguing entity that called my name loud and clear for as long as I can remember. My huge obsession with Europe fueled my decision to live in Italy for a year. Living there I had one unrealistic experience after another. Vintage wine-filled afternoon with Counts in Palaces, rides through Mugello on a shiny red motorcycles, picking olives in the early Tuscan fog, horse rides through the woods and the one I am writing about today: a trip to a empty villa, complete with a Byzantine Silk factory. This day my friend and her boyfriend, knowing my passion for photo safari's took me out in the countryside near Pisa to visit a family estate. I hopped in the car as I did most of my mornings in Florence, a little confused as to where we were going or what we were doing (blame it on the Italian as a second language) but confident I would have the absolute best day of my life. And so it started, me staring wide-eyed, like a child out the window taking in the intricate beauty of Italy. We arrived late morning and parked in a gravel lot, walked across the street and unlocked a large gate. As we pushed the gate open it groaned a supernatural welcome into the interior silent paradise so layered with voices from centuries gone by, my ears were ringing in seconds and my imagination began to paint hypothetical situations in rapid iterations. When I enter dream-like real life scenarios I often hold my breath, but I also hold my breath when I am shooting. Needless to say I spent the next two hours intermittently gasping for air, sending blood shooting into my forehead, rocking me back and forth as I readjusted my eyes and stance. As my hosts coolly gave me the grand tour and answered my silly questions, I shot furiously, vowing to capture the unreal scene forever on film. The villa was situated next to a silk factory. The factory, now empty, with nature creeping from every angle, was Byzantine style architecture, which seemed to cut Italy's tender sky, so used to gentle arches and domes. Huge rooms, echoing in their emptiness, once held worms that produced fabric for the wealthy. Next to the factory were the servants quarters, long since over taken by trees and vines which filled the space once filled with countless generations of life. Behind the villa overgrown gardens twisted around ponds and sculptures leading to a cavernous "lemon storage" structure. Entering the domed building, the ceiling covered in terra-cotta tile, I snapped my way to the back where a dark passage pulled me in as far as I dared to move through the darkness. Next a proportional, but small, personal church stood ornately in the woods. Leaving me wondering about the loneliness inherit in these self-sustained enclosed communities of medieval Italy. Finally we were ready to enter the villa. While it was mostly empty in each room a small treasure and glimpse into the past sat serenely in the dim light, covered in a fine dust. Some rooms there were grand curtains, dingy and fading, still proudly doing their job of blocking out the world from pouring through the windows. Other rooms storm shutters were strewn across the floor, unable to withstand the storm of passing time. The main rooms seemed filled with life to me, layered with centuries of parties, dinners, interactions, relationships...their voices raising and fading out as I moved through each corner of the room. Long hallways were painted by zigzags of light, piercing the dusty darkness, despite the repetition of room after empty room, I excitedly crept into each one, shooting and leaving nothing altered from its dormant perfection. I think my European guests were amused and intrigued by my childlike amazement. Having grown up as part of this history, surrounded in layers and complex human evolution, their relationship to the past undoubtedly embedded them naturally into the larger picture. Alternatively I floated above European history, like a lone life raft peering down into the ocean of history and human stories. While I always was a tall, blond alien in Italy, I felt gifted with my unique west coast American perspective. While the American Dream runs strong in my ideology, I can't help but appreciate and be moved by the embedded European Dream. With Europe's sometimes subtle and sometimes harsh reminders that each one of us are entrenched in the intricate fabric of reality, spectators are forced to realize how very much we all need each other, something American's forget all too easily.