Experimental Writing with a hint of James Salter.

Morning light in Italy. The earliest light to sprinkle a sleeping face. The imprint of sleep is often caked upon a cheek, still hot from a dream. This daybreak radiance seems to erase each nocturnal fear, like the evaporation of one’s breath on a mirror.

The paleness of morning is comforting. The peeking face of sun, makes its way into the day, illuminating each shingle, every brass window lock, the minute and hour hands of a clock that sits on a bedside table. The world is entirely peaceful during these precious morning moments. An inexplicable calm seems to encapsulate the city for a few valuable minutes, as if allowing it time to plan an agenda for the day about to commence.

In Via Deliziosa 12, the corner window near the bell tower is the first to be struck by morning light. This window belongs to my bedroom. With the constant purr of the city and the never tiring garbage men who tend to raucously gather our bottles at five in the morning, I continually find myself awake early enough to catch the first dusting of dawn.

With the shutters open, the room expands. The surrounding buildings are old, sturdy and stunning in their rigidity. Laundry hangs limply from tired wires. Looking through the window past the aged rooftops, glimpses of Assisi wave from the distance.

The adjacent medieval homes are balanced precariously on the side of the Umbrian hill, slightly slanted, and seemingly magical. It is inherently strange, but a veritable truth that the rooftops neighboring Via Deliziosa are eerily similar to the set of Mary Poppins. It is as if at any moment, Mary, Bert and the children will whirl by the window, their dancing enthused chimney sweeps following close behind.

The widow itself isn’t very large. Two feet wide and six feet tall with exterior plantation shutters for the humid, summer evenings. It has become a perfect alcove for reading, an escape from the airless heat and is where I love Italy the most.

With the soft lightness of the morning and the stillness that settles within the first few hours of the morning, one cannot help adore Italy, for there is no pretension up here in the rooftops, nothing to complain about. A foreigner’s fears are erased with the silence of thought and the soundless voice of quiet.

And so, this window, with its serene morning light and its flawless dawn of calm, is my epitome of Italy: calm, still and unnervingly beautiful.