GOING BACK HOME…
I have recently gone to visit Naples (Italy, that is). I used to live there and this was my second visit since we left this beautiful and noisy place. The first one happened last year after five year’s absence and I couldn’t have been more shocked.
Not quite at the many changes that took place in and around the city proper (I didn’t expect it to be frozen in time, after all) but more at my own reaction to it. Seeing Naples after so long a time was like coming home… Even though it has changed dramatically and many more shopping centers have been erected since, somehow it was still my town. My home… Although it isn’t quite my home, now is it? I haven’t been born in la bella Napoli (actually quite far away from it; as if another country) nor have I grew up there but somehow it felt like home…
The emotions flooded me nearly as soon as I stepped off the plane but they hit me when I reached the little town fifteen minutes outside of Naples proper where my husband and I used to live. I could barely keep the tears from coming out. How stupid of me to start crying and get all sentimental over seeing my old neighborhood, I thought. But somehow it was all very emotional and I didn’t quite understand the reason behind it. It could be the hormones, now. After all, I am over thirty and they are all but steady.
However, my second visit to Naples was only slightly better. No, there were no choking tears but it still felt like coming home and I couldn’t contain my excitement. So why does it feel like I’m home?- I wondered… Perhaps, it was all because this is where I got married to this wonderful man I call my husband and where we had our first home. And sentimental fool that I am, it will forever mean something special in my dictionary…
Here are some pictures from la bella Napoli:
