Drinking from a Firehose

In 1997 and in 2003 I had the fortune of traveling abroad for school.  In 1997 I went with a small group for 10 days when I was a freshman in High School with Art and History teachers.  I think it was the first and last time they did that type of trip.  I was shocked my parents were open to it and allowed me to take my first trip to another country as a 15 year old.  My cousin from New Jersey who is 11 months younger than me came along, and I’m not sure how that even happened… nonetheless it occurred. 

There were a dozen of us literally and figuratively Roaming (or Romeing) around all the corners of the towns and cities we ventured to by bus.  Visiting all the museums, historical sites, walking the same cobblestone and rubbing marble feet as billions and billions of others, sticking chewing gum on walls with millions of other pre-chewed masterpieces, buying locksets to hang on chain link crossing the Arno River, and sitting on top of the Duomo seeing the tops of the Alps and wondering all along, “how the hell is all of this possible?”

In 2003, I did it all over again but as a Junior in college, paying my own way with a quarters (semester) worth of time studying Baroque Art, 18th and 19th century Architecture and Fine Art.  Immersing myself further into the quest of figuring out how such detail, strife, mental power, curiosity and tenacity built these cities.  How they have lasted through so much intense warfare, outbreaks, discontent, mother nature, and just humans.  Still finding myself each night for a week during my travel and study, back in Florence sitting on the Duomo until they would kick me out.  Sketching, writing, wondering.

I’ve been amazingly fortunate.

I have also made forced moves in my life that exposed me to opportunity.  I don’t fully believe in luck. 

Photo Credit GoTravel.com

Certainly Arnolfo di Cambio in 1246 didn’t believe in luck by creating the design of the Duomo (Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore).  He knew exactly what he was doing when detailing the ribbed vault of the interior and the faceted ribbed dome.  The multiple perfectly sized annex alters refracting the beauty of prayer and song.  Creating spaces and areas for other talent to don the cathedral with their precision expertise, perfectly framed and scaled in the space… from Georgio Vasari’s design of the vibrant ceiling illustrating ‘the last judgement’ in the baptistery, to the sculpted bronze doors “Gates to Paradise” by Lorenzo Ghiberti.

This wasn’t a choreographed effort really.  It grew and breathed and became - purposefully and slowly. 

Keep in mind the Cathedral was designed in 1246, The design was completed by another architect Filippo Brunelleschi (He get's all the credit which is bullshit) two centuries later, the doors were installed in 1426 and the ceiling was completed in 1579 by Vasari’s “less talented” (see a head shaking eye roll and the clear understanding that talent was measured far higher then than it ever will again) student Frederico Zacari.  Top all of this off with the intense list of “who’s who” with the other creatives involved in adding parts and pieces of their art to adorn the 4th largest Cathedral in the world.  And then it took until the late 19th century to finally complete the exterior to what you see today. 

For the math challenged - like myself - It took 7 centuries of changing hands with the same vision to create a breathtaking structure that all walks of life have, can and will walk through.  Telling an intense, impressive, religious and lifestyle story that transcends time.   

 

Drinking from a Firehose comes if you’ve ever seen something that was fascinating to you and been an ounce-worth of curious on what it took to create. 

    Who was the visionary?

    How was it named?

    What were important details required?

    What was unforeseen during the creation?

    How many approvals?

    What went wrong?

    What was never done “right”?

    What disasters happened along the way?

    Did someone tag it as a mistake and then who picked it back up from the cutting room floor and dusted off the plans?

    How was it funded?

    Where did all the parts travel from?

    and a million other who, what, where, when, why’s to get to the ultimate moment in saying     “How is it right in front of me?”.

There are a trillion billion gazillion things that you can follow the path of creation that will blow your mind.

I’ve been thinking of my moments on the Duomo A LOT lately.

It may be the last time and only time I found my full self in that moment without dwelling on any other component in my life.  And the funniest thing is that it took a traumatic event for me to even see the flier to study abroad being posted in the middle of the night, on a Wednesday, while I was on day 3 of living in the design studio working on my 3rd year project.  

Small backstory:  I had only a week prior found out that the guy I had been dating for a good portion of the year (who had talked to my parents several times, who had helped fly me home for my grandmothers funeral, who was talking about getting an apartment together for my last year in college, who took care of me and my roommate when we were sick) - was married to a women in NY who was finishing her masters degree that year before moving down to where he was.

KAPOW.

I flew home that weekend to get my bearings and figure out what just happened (again).

The flyer went up and I called my parents at that 1am time and said “I’m going to Italy for the summer, do you have any objections” and they didn’t, not one.  They have always known when I needed to fly and how I react to immersing myself deeper into my passions when something takes me on my blindside.

But that clarity ontop of the narrow look out of the Duomo, that curiosity about what I was on and the country I was in, has never been duplicated.  Until I became a mom.  And recently again when I’ve realized that I’m authentically loved by someone who is choosing to love me.

Everyday I see my daughter grow a little more, get a little more conscious of what’s happening around her, when she figures something out and I can see her brain working through the logistics - that brings me back to looking at the Alps in the distance and wondering if anyone was looking back.  

Every moment I get to talk to a man I’m falling in love with and hear him articulate his feelings and insights towards our relationship and life.  When I see him act out his care and respect.  When perfect timing and little moments from him feed my soul without depleting my current focus.  And recently noticing that he isn’t a daydream point in my life.  It takes me to all the questions above where I want to know how he is in front of me.

Our whole lives are made up of creation over and over and over again.  Moments that were abandoned and then picked up from the scrap room floor.  Time that stood still while ideas were forming on next steps and psychotic breakdowns.  Space that swelled with anticipation and nerves as the first step was taken to see if something would work.  

My time on the Duomo was breath-taking AND breath-making…well beyond 1997 and 2003.

I ask you to take an inventory of your life and where you had moment’s of curiosity and clarity.  And maybe it matters who was there with you during those moments.  I really invest in those moments that were held by me, those times I noticed something about my surroundings on my own and paused.  These are funny, inspiring, unique, visually awesome accounts of my life that caused me to take a full breath in and a full breath out.

Like a flash, my Duomo times have come and gone, but that feeling has recently been riding my mind showing me that there certainly was someone, something, looking back at me.  Like the creation of the Duomo, that project started with a crew that never finished their work and never met the people that did.  We all can say we can’t imagine that.  But we can.  We live it everyday. The people we started preschool with aren’t, most likely, still our crew of friends.  Our family members aren’t the same.  Our work has changed maybe over a dozen times in employer, title, division, location.

Life is a baton race that goes well beyond an ultra marathon.  I guess it’s a great question to ask… What are you noticing between the times you have the baton and don’t?

                                        ~ virtual chest bump