and so it begins

And so it begins.

or (re)begins.

I've been here before
and yet it's all very new.

Setting off on an adventure that I've been told
(or really perhaps I've told myself)
will usher in a new wave of

.emotions
.horizons
.frustrations
.set backs
.expansiveness
.freedom
.possibilities
.joys
.tears

---

Let me catch you up. I'm living once again in Italy, or (re)living in Italy. I lived here for a year between 2007-2008 and kept a blog then too. Then life continued, back in the U.S., for more years in Florida, and then a handful in the center of Manhattan, before circling once again to the country which wasn't finished with me yet. Or perhaps, I wasn't finished with it.

During the years in between life continued, but not as the same life, it changed and the 'continuing' part was the continuous motion of change that always seems inevitable from moment to moment, but this time it was a motion that demanded rather than whispered. (All of this is for another time, perhaps later on as this story unfolds.)

And this time with life's tantrum-like demands -- yet somehow, somedays the fists pounding on the ground felt more like loving nudges in a fully balanced contradiction -- I headed out towards the country not of my birth, not of my blood, but of my home. If home could be felt in our genes.

Then, after four years of settling back in, I've decided on yet another project.
to build a house. (a home)
on the land.
literally a sunflower field.
one that is

.beautiful
.barren
.empty
.full
.nutrient-rich
.fraught with challenges
.over a lake
.next door to a vineyard
.rough
.ready