It’s rare to have a string of rainy days in Rome, but that is what was in the forecast this weekend. Because it is my father’s birthday on Monday we decided to do what we did last year and go to mass at the church where my parents got married in 1960, San Giovanni a Porta Latina. We easily parked outside the church and sat in the same place we did before, and the children’s choir was just as sweet as we remembered. I even took the same panoramic view of the interior with my mother sitting to the left as I had last time.
Our moods lifted by the beauty of the church and the familiar mass and music, we drove to the nearby neighborhood of Ostiense to have brunch at our beloved Marigold (I previously wrote about our first lunch at this wonderful new restaurant run by a husband and wife team). We got there just in time to score a spot at the long central table on the end. We got to chat again with both Sofie and Domenico, even though it got very busy, and had our brunch favorites,
eggs benedict and avocado toast, while enjoying the pleasurable vibe of the international clientele. We bought some chocolate chip cookies, seeded rye bread, and granola to take home in a new blue Marigold tote bag.
The rain let up as we made our way back to the car, and driving along the Tiber we admired the green sycamore trees and the familiar buildings as we drove back north towards home. Then my mother wondered if our florist might be open, so we turned right at the piazza and sure enough his stand was full of buckets of pink peonies and potted hydrangeas.
Then we napped. Some days it is the simple pleasures that bring the most profound feelings of gratitude.
