Beauty

It was warm. But not too warm. It was what ‘The Neighbourhood’ would call sweater weather. But, it was in the loins of December and the week before, it had almost snowed. But it was warm now. But not too warm. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky on this particular day. It was around 1 PM. Or ‘13’ they would say. More accurately, “tredici.” I stood on a rooftop; the rooftop of my most adored building in the entire world-Museo del Palazzo di Venezia.

The winter wind blew away from the sun. So east. The wind blew east. However, it wasn’t the ‘unforgiving winter wind’ you hear about in books about the tundra of siberia and places like that. It was more like there was a ceiling fan in the sky. I use ceiling fan (while it is not the most beautiful of analogies) because I was at home: in the living room. “Salone,” they call it. I felt like I’d been standing there, on that rooftop,  1001 times, 1001 times I’d stood about 4 feet to the left of the man with a spear whose name escapes me. I felt like mother nature was whispering to me, “Welcome home Maxx. We missed you,” and gesturing to the city and all its citizens, kissing me on both cheeks. I felt like I could hurl myself from the wonderful beauty that I stood on and land in a bed of roses...because I was living in one. Nothing could ever go wrong again; Not as long as I had this moment; this moment and this little tan neck under my arm.

I was living in that bed of roses with the person who’s little tan neck was tucked under my arm; the person I could not care any more about, or any less; the person I had not seen in 7 months; the person who would love me until the day I died and long after; the person that (up until this point in my life) had been the only one to instill in me enough joy to force tears out of my sky blue eyes. I was living on a bed of roses with her in that beautiful moment.

I looked out into the city and reflected on how gorgeous it all was (not that it mattered in the least what landscape I was looking at.) Peaks and valleys were created by each set of buildings. Each square was a graceful hive of activity, and each tower surrounding the square a majestic mountain peak. The city was natural and picturesque in its beauty, but the entire scene wasn’t dominated with human-architecture. The city as a whole rose just ever so slightly up to a hilltop blanketed with green- the Palatino- where romans had gathered from 50 BC to 700 AD to battle, feast, act, and convene congress. Not even the densely structured areas were devoid of wildlife. It seemed as if a magnificent artist had constructed this view in his imagination without factoring in people, and thus figured a lack of vibrant life after all the great museums and restaurants and parliamentary establishments were painted and, as a result, spattered in gardens, trees, shrubberies, and windowsills full of blooming tulips as an afterthought. When the humans entered the painting, the view I had was packed with color and life and all the wonders of the world. There was no square inch of the canvas one could look at for less than 5 minutes and not discover something new.

The true beauty of this scene though, was at the end of that little tan neck tucked under my right arm. The head that lay on my chest at that moment was the one I’d kiss 247 times later that day. And not even those 247 kisses were enough. This head and the adorable face that came with it deserved 1,247 kisses per hour. It deserved so much love not only because its’ curved greek nose was in perfect unison with the smile lines that made an adorable semi-spiral from the edges of the mouth to the base of the nostrils, or because its’ cheeks could be equated to a baby kittens in appeal, or even that the eyes of the face could very well be the most precious thing one can steal a glance of in all of Roma. The tan head with the eyes and the nose and the smile lines deserved 1,247 kisses...because the body to which the head was connected to was fully devoted to loving me. When I would become old and grey, no longer able to take care of myself, she would be there to help me eat oatmeal. She would be there to help me into bed, and then lay next to me and fall asleep with an arm around me whether she was tired or not. Of these things I was certain. It couldn’t have been a more beautiful moment.

And this was it. I know doesn't look like this is one of the greatest moments of my life, but I assure you, before I tried to mold my face into what the people on magazines' faces look like, there was a real smile on my face. 
And hers. 
It was beautiful.