“You looked so cute up there on the stage my dear. I know you have your trip to the Amalfi coast nearing tomorrow, so please be safe and enjoy your travels”…. These were the appeasing words of an older man she felt compelled to know better, intimately. He had been her professor in previous months but, for the time being, she was not under his mentorship, at least not paying tuition for it. This gave her some latitude to indulge her curiosity, as he flirted mildly – using subtle-poetic-expressions of written conversation that seemed half inspired by her Renaissance ways and half motivated out of a cliched path he had strolled before. Indulging him, she breathed in the romantic words that painted a picture in her mind of Italian impressionistic scenes and made her feel as though she was a subject of one of Vito D’Ancona’s famous nudes.

He continued, “Immerse yourself in civilizations cradle.  Go see ‘ourselves’ in the Pompeii Ruins and contemplate the sanguine figures flaking from the Athenian walls and fading pigments, whose artists-journalist’s, once recorded the height of civilization before the vulcan’s call. The Herculaneum buried city surrounding… late afternoon or early morning is best to imagine. Rub some virgin olive oil on your skin for a day at the beach and bask in the feverish sun. Bring your stories home and surely seek ‘grace’ (the important mysterious elixir of life), innovation and enlightenment – you and I are renaissance creatures, and as such, we have the fortune of pursuing all, and any mastery of credit – determined by how committed to one thing we choose.  I am glad I know you, I admire your grit, your multiple talents and your eagerness to learn and experience and the passion that accompanies it all!  Therefore, please do not get too lost, as I am already looking forward to your return.”

So with all this upon her breast, she boarded the plane and did as she wished and as foretold – in her far away destination. She laid amidst angels on rocky Mediterranean beaches, talked with enlightened strangers, and walked the narrow decorative conduits of Positano. She floated and drifted in clear blue waves, road buses along winding perilous Italian cliffs, and enjoyed the immense pleasure of each delectable bite of food she consumed. It was immeasurable at many times and she knew as she sat on her tranquil balcony that she was recording picture after picture of droplets in time. Imprints in her mind of its soon history, at least for her, were filing memories just as quickly and luminously as all the sparkling sun dots in the dancing water below. She tried to recall her family legacy whether known or not, in those moments and lay new ground, for a new chapter that began with the words, “you looked so cute up there on the stage my dear…”

This March, brave the adventures of life, match your soul with juxtaposing fabrics and materials. Pretend you’re stepping right out as the sultry female lead in a Fellini film. Combine faux furs with your bathing suit, gold lace pumps with spandex hot pants, and tuck yourself behind a vintage green-wool-quarter-sleeve jacket and allow for your ‘cuteness’ to derive into the ‘grace’ of a woman.