A Story of My Heart

I finally managed to get myself to enter the shiny new Case Center building today to see the new location of the RISDworks store and see if I couldn't find myself some cool new Fred products. What I found instead was a book by David Macaulay called "Rome Antics." Now I know that Macaulay was an EHP'er himself during his time here at RISD, so I was interested to see how his own experiences in EHP would play out in the book. Following a homing pigeon flying through Rome to deliver a message, It book is full of the usual suspects of sites and scenes from famous landmarks around Rome, plus a few lesser-known, more intimate Roman sites. Now where would this homing pigeon's final destination be for the author/illustrator? Why it was unmistakably the beloved Cenci, of course. It was neither named nor labelled, but I know the place like the back of my hand from the door to the rooftops, and for me, as for David Macaulay, it is the place where my "inner homing pigeon" will fly. The final scene of the book is where the pigeon finally reaches his recipient, the author himself working at his studio in the top floor of the Cenci, who opens the message which simply, and aptly reads "yes." You should have seen how my smile just spread across my face and my eyes neary brimming with tears of joy as I felt the final connection with Macaulay and the true meaning behind this story like very few people in this world can. For me it was more than just a childrens book about a bird, or a book about places around Rome, but rather it was the story of my own heart, going back to the place that I will forever call home.