Life’s ebbs and flows occasionally necessitates a step back — a respite to reflect and to recharge. While Erika has recently hit the pause button for her blog, rest assured, it is only temporary and soon enough she will return to her digital canvas. To her loyal readers, Erika offers her heartfelt gratitude for everyone’sContinue reading “Some Updates”
Author Archives: Erika Bizzarri
Arches
Once upon a time there were small towns where the buildings, the people, communicated with each other. But this is after all Italy where even now one lives surrounded by the past. Stairs used to be outside – now they are almost all inside. Houses still touch each other as they march along the street,Continue reading “Arches”
Doors — Who Knows
You never know what lies behind a door. That’s the point. A door may conceal what was never meant to be seen. The odds and ends, the remnants, of some magnum opus. The mundane residue of what once was grand. An open door may suddenly reveal three levels of brick arches, piggyback one on theContinue reading “Doors — Who Knows”
There Are Doors and There Are Gates
A door is just a door. A gate is something more. Concealing. Revealing. Separating in from out. A door might be humble or it might be ostentatious, A gate may be one or occasionally the other. Doors are shut, enigmatic, attempts to keep us out. Gates welcome February snows or burning summer sun. When facedContinue reading “There Are Doors and There Are Gates”
Fire and Trees
Overnight it had gotten cold. No, it hadn’t snowed although some years it had. It was time to get up – one couldn’t stay in bed all day. She pulled out the first sweat suit she could lay her hands on. Not that she used it for jogging but just to keep warm while theContinue reading “Fire and Trees”
The Last Rose
It was the last rose. The deep red blossom had not opened all the way or perhaps had no intention of opening. Still I found it beautiful. That was weeks ago. Even now the rose sits there in its vase. The petals brown and withered. Yet even so I find it beautiful. Not simply theContinue reading “The Last Rose”
Drive to Town
One can also go from the so-called Villa to Orvieto by car. Once upon a timeshe lived in a stone house overlooking a valley. Almost every day she would cross overto the town on the other side.She might walkdown the cobblestone roadwhere in the past wagonshad rumbled, bearingwheat and wineand workers.Or she might drive hersmallContinue reading “Drive to Town”
Walk Down Tamburino
While from my house, I could once walk on my own two legs down that cobblestone road called Tamburino, immortalized in Brockedon’s early 19th-century guide, with a view of the town in the distance, these days I need three, as in the sphinx’s riddle. But since even that, as things go now, has become tooContinue reading “Walk Down Tamburino”
Journey Through Memory
She sat alone in the front seat of the car as it moved swiftly through the hills, oblivious to the chatter around her which she could barely hear. It was night. The moon was playing hide and seek with the clouds. Turner and his moonscapes came to mind. Tall ghostly grasses heavy with seed pods,Continue reading “Journey Through Memory”
Happy New Year
New Year 2024 2023 has left us many memories of good and bad. It is now up to us to make new memories for the coming year. May the New Year open the door onto a new world, answer many of your questions and give you the strength to keep on going along the pathContinue reading “Happy New Year”
Christmas Memories
If you haven’t grown up in a religious family, you still celebrate Christmas. Although you may also celebrate Hannukah and Kwanzaa. To me Christmas is really a celebration of the family, of the joy of giving and receiving, anticipating what might delight members of the immediate and the acquired families. It is thinking of others. WhetherContinue reading “Christmas Memories”
Memory Two
1980s We all have memories. Our lives are basically memories of what we did yesterday, creating new memories for tomorrow. How little we know, of others, or ourselves. We may think we know, but do we? The world we have lived in. The people we have known. How we interacted. We can look back atContinue reading “Memory Two”
Memory One
One of the most moving accounts of the past and memories is Tony Judt’s Memory Chalet. Succumbing to Lou Gherig’s disease, he gradually could live only within himself, within his memory. There he could relive the story of his life, a life that had moved through space and time, now captured in those countless roomsContinue reading “Memory One”
The Voice of the Violin
Camilleri. Thanks to Camilleri, his police inspector Montalbano and the small Sicilian town of Vigàta have become what might be called household words. Albeit the town so familiar to the devotees of the mystery series shown on television is a collage of various Sicilian towns, there is no real town by that name. Although CamilleriContinue reading “The Voice of the Violin”
Antonny and the Blue Bar
I know I’ve written about the Blue Bar and its owner before, but this is a bit different. Besides which I have also discovered that he spells his name Antonny. For someone who has never frequented coffee bars (or any other type of bar), just to hang out and wile away the time, my relationshipContinue reading “Antonny and the Blue Bar”
Thelma
A memorable cat. Her name was Thelma although I never did find out why my granddaughter chose that name, presumably thinking of Thelma and Louise. Over the years there was no dearth of cats in the family. Cats of all colors, from black to white to grey tigers. They had a variety of names: RadicchioContinue reading “Thelma”
My Three James
It can get complicated when you have more than one friend with the same name. I’ve solved the problem by calling them James 1, James 2, and James 3. James 1. The meeting with my first James goes back to the 1970s in Florence when he was a student in my art history class. MostContinue reading “My Three James”
So Says the Cat
As dusk falls, as the years gather like clouds, I sit at my desk searching, reaching for thoughts and words that sometimes seem to hover out of reach. The cat on the windowsill knocks softly on the pane. “Oh come on. Please let me in. It’s getting cold out here. It used to be funContinue reading “So Says the Cat”
Further Thoughts II
Further thoughts on the book Pages flutter through the years. Their time-worn state betrays the fact that they were loved, meant something. Woe to a book, to a life untouched by time. The written word. Once impressed in clay, meant to be permanent. On papyrus, on parchment, paper, too easily devoured by fire. Now onContinue reading “Further Thoughts II”
Before it is too Late
The book. A repository of words, reflections, reduced with time to torn and mangled dog-eared pages. Ideas, words, thoughts on the verge of disintegrating. Set in print Before it is too late. What we had once thought ineffaceable gives way to that fugacious vocal surrogate, no sooner said than gone. Before it is too late.Continue reading “Before it is too Late”
Erika Bizzarri 