Napoli

Something about the smells of this season remind me of Italy. There is no question I chose this city, this neighborhood, this life, because it reminds me of the light, the plants, the smells, the feel of the Italy of my childhood.

I was startled to realize the other day that Theo is now 6. The age I was when I moved to Italy. I think of how that changed me. I think of what it was like to suddenly be in a country that adored children. Where children are tiny Gods and mothers are the center of everything. Where every stranger comes up and pinches the cheek of a beautiful child and coos, "Che bella!"

It is a country where the poorest families spend their last dime on outfitting their chubby children in beautiful clothes for the weekly passegiata in the park, where waiters hold children while parents eat, where children run shouting in the piazza and everyone rejoices in the noise, the chaos, the life of children.

It is a country where family is the greatest gift, the most prized possession, and life means nothing without that. I think of how the sun, the light, the food, the tastes, the colors, the smells of Naples live on in me decades later. And I think I want my sons to have that. I want them to experience la dolce vita first hand. I want them to be adored, to be the light of the world. I want them to eat fresh campana peaches and cherries til the juice runs down their chins, and to run shouting in the piazza surrounded by the musical sounds of Italian. I want them to swim into the Blue Grotto, eat zucchini pasta at Bagni de Tiberio, climb over the ruins of Pompeii and eat the world's best pizza in the birthplace of pizza! I want them to ride a vespa, eat fresh mozzarella, leap from rocks into azure sea, and run up and down alleys for miles under lemon trees.

I just want it all to be a part of them, too.