Mea packed comfortable boots, her favourite scarf and a dress that swayed a little when she walked. Before leaving, she had still been practising how to stand in it. In Italy, she gradually forgot. There was too much water, colour, too many steps and painted ceilings, all drawing her attention away from herself. Those turned out to be the moments she liked best.
An imagined story with Mea Zen, inspired by original Travel2City photographs. Venice, Florence, Rome and the Vatican form a montage of separate stops. The action, character and lighting are artistic interpretations of the source images.
On a little bridge in Venice, Mea leaned over the parapet. Her scarf broke into golden patches on the water, and her hair looked even more unruly than it had that morning. She tucked a lock behind her ear. The reflection immediately moved it somewhere else. “All right. Your way,” she told the canal. A boat shifted beside the bank, and the little mirror rippled all over. Mea laughed. At last, a hairdresser who didn't pretend to know how things ought to look.
Outside Florence's cathedral, Mea lifted the end of her scarf and compared it with the colours before her. Pale stone, green bands, the warm dome. She looked down at her dress, then up again. “We've coordinated rather well today.” She said it quietly, to spare the city any blushes. The breeze pulled the scarf from her hand and settled it into a perfectly ordinary knot. She liked it anyway. A few steps later, she noticed she had stopped checking her reflection in shop windows.
Below the Spanish Steps, there was far too much movement to hold a pose for long. Mea made room for a pushchair, skirted a group of people and set off across the square. Her dress followed, and her bag tapped gently against her hip. Suddenly she realised this was exactly how she had hoped to feel while practising in front of the mirror before the trip. Only now she wasn't trying at all. She lifted her chin, caught the scent of coffee and walked on. No photographer in sight. That was quite enough.
In the long Vatican gallery, Mea slowed down. Paintings continued overhead, beyond the piers and into a distance where she could no longer make out the details. Her hand went automatically to her scarf, then fell loosely to her side. Nothing needed adjusting here. For a while she stood looking up, wearing a small smile she probably couldn't have recreated in a mirror. Later, she wrote just one line in her notebook: “The city suits me.” And underneath, in smaller letters: “When I don't have to pose.”
“When I don't have to pose.”
From notebook to book
The Map with No Last Page
The world of Travel2City continues between the covers of a book. Discover The Map with No Last Page and more illustrated journeys.
