There is a photograph of myself in flight.

I was six years old when it was taken.

In Italy, with my parents on vacation.

We’d driven in a day from Rome to Viterbo.

There we ate pizza margherita.

Walked hand in hand in hand – a chain of flowers, una catena dei fiori – down the cobblestone streets.

Slept in an inn with stucco walls and gatos everywhere.

I wore a tourist t shirt.

SPERANZA it said in blocky yellow letters set over a print of the moonlit city streets.

In the morning we bought long loaves of bread, jars of olives, blocks of cheese, and drove into the hills.

Roads of tightly packed dirt wound past vineyards, open fields, olive groves.

We ate under an umbrella tree and afterwards walked slowly up a hill, hoping to summit and see the valley view.

Daddy took pictures, Mommy and I struck Cleopatra poses and laughed.

We were three strangers in a strange land and I felt safer there than ever.

Safe enough to climb ahead.

To leap and not land, but hover, suspended while Daddy snapped a picture.

That night, over gnocchi, I told the waiter that I flew.

He kissed my cheek and said si bella.

Years later, after separation, sadness, I tried to fly again and fell. Hit the ground in a tangle of arms, legs and hopes and arose, confused from the rubble, wondering what gravity existed now that hadn’t before.

Some weight, I decided and punished myself for it, ending up more landlocked than ever.

But I am writing now. Hovering again over words and hopes and hoof beats.

And I think I may be ready to wear my wings again.