in fair Verona

(on opening up to the world)

I follow my feet through streets that narrow and turn, passing under an open archway into a wide piazza where carved winged lions adorn the buildings’ facades. On top of the arch stands a stone figure, a crow on its head, looking down at a grand marble statue of Dante in the centre of the piazza. Beside him spreads a restaurant shaded by square white umbrellas, with green tablecloths and olive trees in pots. Music breaks through the humid air and a man unfolds a small red and white striped tent, stepping inside. A Punch and Judy show begins in Italian, and a small crowd gathers. I lean back against a row of white stone columns, watching people swirl through the piazza, and think of Lucy Honeychurch.

Later, easing into backstreets, I choose at each junction the quietest path. On a corner behind behind Piazzetta Peschiera, the green shutters of a second-floor window have been thrown open. Through the gap, I see ceiling-high jumbled bookshelves. I am preoccupied with my own book, due to be published in a little over a week. My colleague from the bookshop where I work has sent me a photograph of their recent delivery: copies in beautiful stacks, ready for me to sign. Seeing the picture, my stomach flipped. The moment just before publication is when vulnerability rises, thick and heavy in my throat. This, my second book, did not start out as a memoir, but my story crept in and wove through; my fog-self stepped out from the shadows and transformation become a central motif. To write a personal book is freeing and elucidating, to publish one is revealing.

Why, I wonder at this late stage, have I torn into the feelings of my past? Why am I laying bare my thoughts and pinning them, preserved butterflies on a page for all to examine? The moment of exposure is approaching. All those hours of solitude—the walks in the woods, the research trips, the days in my study at the top of the house—have somehow led to this.

Behind the Roman amphitheatre, I turn a corner and inexplicably encounter the vast head of a woman, her eyes empty, her face calm, sweeping strands of elegantly gathered hair perfectly smooth. She towers over me, three storeys high, features touched with gold, metallic paint shimmered by the soft light of evening. I stop in the middle of the road to stare up at her. The bust is hollow: light shines through a crack above her ear and the top of her lovely skull is missing. Her thoughts—whatever they might be—are open to the world, releasing into the evening air like gentle moths. She gazes on, serene and unperturbed. In the weeks to come, I will remember her.

Thank you for reading,

Laura x