The Verge of Dawn

It’s midnight. In Florence, Italy, a violin plays softly. The music mingles with the scent of jasmine. The flowering vine surrounds a small patio, just below my second floor apartment. It’s branches cling precariously on a saffron-colored wall. The perfumed notes float through my kitchen window, and pierce my heart. 

One by one, the notes strike my sorrow and find refuge in my soul. Yes, I heard him say twice – (as if once was not enough), that he no longer loved me. Yes, I recall him saying we had drifted apart. Yes, I heard those devastating words.

Still wounded, with fresh scars of lost love, I hear the unseen violinist. The musician plays through dawn with conviction. My relationship with my partner has collapsed. The composition seems to unfold this fragile and broken stage of my life. The notes ring true and make me reflect on random events and flitting conversations. One evening, in my Italian class, I vividly remember my teacher describing the word crollato, “to crumble”, she emphasized. The world, she gestured, was in a state of crollato, or crumbling, or falling apart.  (She continued on this theme for a while.) Yes, indeed, my life seems broken, dismantled, and crumbling away. Just like the world.  

Yes, I heard him say twice – (as if once was not enough), that he no longer loved me.

I open the wood-framed window to view the verge of dawn. The darkness eclipses in full splendor, bowing to the arrival of a new day. Quicker than I can blink, a sudden shift of pastel colors takes stage. The stark black night segues into white linear clouds, burnished with small streaks of red. Tiny flecks of purple clouds huddle together and point east. I see an ancient bell tower appear on the horizon, and, further on, a reflection of the Arno River.

As the music continues, the violin notes are sustained, and seem to hang lightly in the air, as if to emphasize the astounding beauty I have witnessed. I am listening to love. The sheer unspoken love of playing music. Suddenly, I realize that I’m not lost. I’ve been found. Transformed by a piece of music, played as an elixir of love.

Today I am ready to re-enter Italy, with my whole heart. Beautiful Italian men bask in sunlit piazzas, vibrant artworks invoke inspiration, and food, oh-the-food, is so delectable. I mean, (really now), who could resist?

Photos for The Verge of Dawn by Unsplash.