I Get A Sense

I was in Florence, Italy on the inaugural day of creative writing class, the summer after my sophomoric year of college. Together with eleven classmates gathered from every corner of the North American map, I sat wide-eyed in our mall marble-laid room overlooking the San Lorenzo square. I was nineteen years old and, alone in a foreign land, and overwhelmed.

"Let's take a walk," Lily, our instructor suggested. "Grab your notebooks and pens. Follow me."

And so we descended into the streets to snake through the outdoor/indoor market below, taking down notes of the sights, the smells, the tastes, the sounds as we walked.

From the left and right, I heard: "Hey there, American girl. You are beautiful," amidst the murmur of negotiation and friendly banter.

Before my eyes were strewn leathers of every color, soft and buttery to my touch.

I took in the aroma of fresh produce, of cold slabs of meat, so fresh that they still stared at passerbys.

Talk about sensory overload.

I was enveloped in the vibrancy of life happening around me. I was not a part of it, just a spectator to it. It buzzed and hummed around me as I stood still to look and listen, smell and touch. At one point, I was lost from the rest of my class, so distracted by the activity around me that I lost track of everything else. Remember that feeling of being separated by your mom in a grocery store when you were younger? It was akin to that, but better, because I reveled in where I was. I was swimming in a sea of colors and sounds.

I want to go back there.

Not to Florence, necessarily (though if someone were to fund my trip, I'd be happy to oblige). I'd much like, however, to return to the feeling of FEELING. Recent weeks, months, years have left me feeling cold to my surroundings and circumstances. I've plowed through, not allowing for the time or space to experience life the way I did that day.

I love the idea of Jesus, in Mark 7, restoring one man's senses. Placing his fingers in his ears, touching his tongue, Jesus spoke over him: "Ephphatha," or "Be opened."

That is my prayer today, as I rest unhurriedly for the first morning in weeks. Life is colorful, noisy, messy. I want to be opened to experience, to bathe myself in the sensation of living it.