A love letter to Italy

Dear Italy,

Not a day goes by that I don’t wish I had my toes curled and buried in the soft sand of your beaches; that I don’t wish to inhale the wild jasmine and citrus thriving along your ancient streets, to taste the freshest cream from your noble dairy cows, to hear the sweet singing of your mother tongue, or to feel the warm Mediterranean breeze on my fair skin.

You are the land of my father and the fathers before him. You magnetically draw me in like I have nowhere else to be. You have given me half of my genetic makeup but you fill my heart completely. Within your peninsular boundaries is every terrain a person can experience, from the sky scraping Alps where the air feels like new, to the center of Rome where water sublimely gushes at every street corner to quench the thirst of anyone, to the Calabrian coast where roaring volcanos give us dramatically black sand beaches that seem to swallow the tides.

For now, it must suffice that I traverse the ocean from time to time to fill my lungs with your air and to absorb the Mediterranean sun on my cheeks. I long to be wrapped in your red, white, and green. I promise you, alluring Italy, that I will not be content until my home is within your bounds. Until then, my compass unendingly points east.

Yours forever,

Megan