lemons

Hello again from this tiny corner of my world. I just felt like I had to write again, and so here I am. I was thinking last night, drifting in and out of sleep, listening to the slow creak of the fan, about lemons. How this time last year, I was in Italy of all places and how when we were in Rome, and it was just as, if not more hot, and we crept into a supermarket for the aircon, and came out with lemons and yogurt.

They were really beautiful lemons. Skin the colour of pale butter, about the size of a pair of loosely clasped hands, a bit spotty as citrus fruit are, but so fragrant. And we carried them back to our airbnb in this thin translucent plastic bag that looked like it was going to tear at the handles, so we took turns carrying them in our arms, like they were precious or something. Like in those statues you see of Ceres cradling her basket of fruits.

It was really tiring, because it was hot, and also because we'd wandered a fair bit and it took us 40 minutes to walk back and the sun was falling, and I was the tiniest bit nervous about being outside on dim streets in a foreign country. But it was also so wonderful because there are so many churches in Rome, and every once in a while you'd walk past something called like the Church of St Sebastian, and it's name would just be so familiar just because *Catholic* and a ton of old buildings all around. The sense of history is freaking palpable. You can feel it, it's crazy.

And then suddenly, you have to stop because just across the traffic light is this amazing obelisk towering at least 40 metres above you and your brain is just so surprised at this stone tower in front of you. You just like die inside a little from the excitement and pfft. You're so near you can see the Latin inscription, and on the obelisk itself hieroglyphics like freaking real Egyptian Hieroglyphics that were carved there like a few millennia ago and now it's in front of you and your brain just stammers at the impossibility and the absurdity and you're here! You're alive in a foreign country looking at an ancient obelisk that the Romans stole from Egypt --> they had to freaking create a fleet of special ships that could carry the heavy stone pillar (its weight is in tonnes) and float it all the way down to Italy and then they plonked it in their city where it's stood for centuries and you're here and it's here!!!

So you take a picture. You make your friend take a picture with the obelisk. And then the both of you laugh too hard because in the picture she's still carrying the lemons.