An Eden in Florence

From the outside, the Basilica of San Lorenzo has the appearance of a large stone warehouse. The outside was never completed due to a disagreement between the Medici family and Michelangelo. The church which is in the middle of a tourist market is surrounded by boisterous venders who have set up shop and obnoxious crowds of tourists from across the globe. The atmosphere of clashing voices and languages makes it difficult to appreciate the church’s serenity and spirit, but travel through a heavy wooden door on the and down a stone path to find a quiet sanctuary.
The cloisters of San Lorenzo are filled in lush, stylized greenery. A courtyard of parchment colored arches and stone accented wooden doors surround a garden of stoutly trimmed hedges and blankets of grass stems. The only sound here is the scrape, scrape, scrape as a gardener reorganizes a gravel footpath and sweeps away fallen leaves. In the center of the garden is shaggy orange tree that ascends majestically into the dawning grey sky. The fruit on the tree is plump and the flecks of color add spice to the mostly neutral ocean of jade, wood, and parchment. I am in awe of this orange tree as a breeze catches a couple of the leaves making them waltz before falling back into place.
Out of the corner of my eye, I catch sight of a leathered nun purely clad in a white habit. She reminds me of a sage angel who has donated her life to assisting man kind. The nun rounds a corner and enters one of the heavy doors as another zephyr takes the hand of the orange tree. I imagine I have found a small piece of Eden in this fruit tree. This, I think, is the world Adam and Eve once cherished. God makes his presence known through the dancing leaves of a simple, worldly orange tree.