03 Jun I Had To.
463 steps.
I get winded just going up my apartment stairs. But I knew I had to do it.
A friend of mine said, “Climb the Duomo. You have to.”
After teetering between “yes, I have to” and “no, that’s crazy” during my stay in Florence, I knew my answer. I had to. I saw the Duomo every day in Florence. I wondered what it was like at the top, what it was like to be one of the tiny people walking around the cupola.
I’ve taken an elevator to the top of Rockefeller Center twice. This time, to see the world from the sky, I had to work for it.
I had to do it. For my mother, who has MS. Who will probably never travel to Italy, who may lose the ability to walk someday, who gets exhausted just doing day-to-day activities. She will never climb 463 steps in a row. For my grandmother who never saw where her husband’s family came from. For my father who only traveled internationally once. For my brother who wants to travel. I had to do it for them.
463 steps. One spiral staircase. Other steep staircases. One puff of an inhaler, two Aleves popped. A group to follow. I could do it, couldn’t I?
The entirety of the climb was claustrophobia central. I grasped stone walls for stability, and looked at my feet to ensure each step was carefully executed. It was almost dizzying. Before I knew it, the group I was with had ascended in circles for twenty minutes. Little windows along the way offered snapshots of Florence that almost didn’t look real. Then the straight shot of stair mazes came. The steepest stairs I’ve ever seen, almost ladder-like. I climbed and I climbed and I climbed. I just kept thinking, Brunelleschi was here. This building took centuries to build. I’m inside. I’m going to see something incredible.
Dirt and dust fell as people descended from the deck on the top of the dome. Then it was our turn to climb to the sky.
It was not the top of Rockefeller Center, that’s for sure. Terracotta roofs as far as I could see greeted my exploring eyes. Florence in all its beauty. My mom would never see this kind of view without an elevator. She would never see Florence from the sky. I took it in for her. I took it in for all of my family. And then I took it in for myself.
463 steps. All of Florence, below my feet.
“Climb the Duomo. You have to.”
