THE ARRIVAL
I didn’t know a city could look at me before I learned how to see it.
Before I understood how to love it, Florence was already reading my soul.
I arrived with my soul wrapped in silence,
with words I didn’t yet know how to say to myself.
I didn’t come to find anything.
I came, perhaps, to lose myself.
And in that losing…
I began to recognize myself.
And I ended up finding parts of me I didn’t know were waiting to be seen.
CHAPTER 1 – Lettertothe Love ofBeauty
Florence first spoke to me with light.
A crack, a cornice, a shadow dancing on the walls.
It taught me that beauty does not shout.
It waits.
It blooms when you look at it without hurry.
“To you, beauty, I found you in the cracks of the walls and in the perfection of polished marble...
In every church that welcomed me with silence, in every sunset I could never fully capture…
You taught me to be still, to watch, to touch nothing but with open eyes and a willing soul.”
CHAPTER 2 – Lettertothe Love of Art
Here, art does not hang, it breathes.
The statues are not stone: they are memory, petrified desire.
The paintings opened my ribs,
and with every brushstroke,
someone was also painting me.
“To you, eternal art… I found you in marbles that breathe and in paintings that bleed beauty.
You were not only a museum, you were an open wound and a sacred embrace. Every brushstroke seemed to remind me that the human can also be divine.
To contemplate you was to learn to be left without words, and yet to feel complete.”
CHAPTER 3 – Lettertothe Love ofMoments
I began to live without a clock.
To listen to footsteps, to glasses trembling, to the wind saying things without sense.
I discovered that the instant does not need a story,
only presence.
And I learned to be.
“To you, moment that passed without warning… I remember you in a sip of espresso, in a ray of sun that touched my shoulder, in the laughter that burst out without reason.
You were a breath, a pause in eternity. You taught me that the sacred does not always need witnesses… only presence.
Thank you for making me more aware, lighter, more alive.”
CHAPTER 4 – Lettertothe Love ofLovers
I saw them crossing the city as if it too fell in love when it saw them.
The lovers, with their smallest gestures,
told me that love does not always arrive,
but it never completely leaves.
Sometimes it simply is, in others.
And that is enough.
“To you, lovers who filled the streets with gentle gestures and shared silences…
You were a mirror. You reminded me how simple love can be when there is truth.
I saw you holding hands as if nothing else mattered, and for a moment, I too loved with you.
Thank you for showing me that love still exists, even if I was only a spectator—I felt you, I feel you, and I will feel you forever, for the pillar of my existence lies in the emotion of loving deeply.”
CHAPTER 5 – Lettertothe Love I Found in Others
The other… was a bridge, a mirror, a home.
We spoke the same language and understood each other with our eyes.
We shared ourselves as those who are not afraid to stay.
“To you, nameless love… I saw you in smiles that offered me a home without asking, in borrowed embraces, in shared tables.
In laughter without translation, in dances under colored lights, in toasts that ended in confessions…
With you, I discovered how easy it is to love when you live with eyes wide open.”
To know you was to find ourselves,
like rivers finally crossing,
each with its own current,
its lights, its doubts.
To share was to breathe together,
the same afternoon, the same sun,
a laugh woven among many,
a story turned into song.
The landscapes were new,
the walking was different,
but in every step of yours
something in me already wanted to stay.
We touched each other with words,
with anger, with truth,
with silences that accompanied
and gazes that gave peace.
Every instant was a seed
that sprouted in the soul,
and even if time scatters us,
none of us are who we were when we arrived.
You became part of us,
like the air and like the sea,
and in the echo of the days
we carry you as we walk.
You go with me, and I with you,
in everything we were, in everything we will be.
CHAPTER 6 – LettertoSelf-Love
And in the end, I found myself.
Not in mirrors, but in the days when I didn’t want to leave.
I spoke to myself with tenderness. I embraced myself without excuse.
I asked myself for no explanations.
I told myself: you are fine.
And it was enough.
“And to you… to you whom I forgot so many times…
I found you one morning as I walked without destination, in a tear I did not hide, in a note I wrote only for myself.
I learned not to judge myself when I doubted, not to demand too much, to hold myself tight even if no one was watching.
Florence reminded me who I am when I am not trying to be anyone else.”
CLOSING – FAREWELL
“Now that I leave, I don’t take only memories.
Every place took something of me.
Every meal, every word, every street… wrote me into its story.
And I carry them all with me. Transformed. More mine. More alive.
Thank you, … for teaching me to love without reason and to look without haste.”
FINAL CLOSING – Transformation
And today I do not leave… I transform.
Florence is no longer just a place on the map.
It is a part of me that has bloomed.
It was a secret language my soul already knew,
but until now, had not dared to pronounce.
Here I did not find answers.
I found questions that ache beautifully.
And the certainty that one never truly finishes knowing oneself…
until one sees oneself in the light of what one loves.
I left behind versions of me that weighed me down,
and I carry others with me…
lighter, newer, imperfect…
mine.
Because I learned to love without possessing,
to look without capturing,
to live without repeating.
Because love is not always about having,
nor about staying.
Sometimes, the greatest act of love is to look without possessing,
and to say: “This too was mine, even if I don’t take it with me.”
And so I remained in streets, in cafés,
in laughter I don’t know how to repeat.
And so too, they remained in me.
And you… who listen to me, who see me…
Where did you last let yourself be seen?
What part of you is still waiting for you to look at it with more love?
If you dare to live with an open soul…
you will see that love is not something to be searched for. It is recognized.
And often…
it is already waiting for you where you least expected.
In you.
— Mariel Villanueva, 2025
VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsKL8JZxeq4
