Duomo

I bought a Time magazine a couple of years ago about the man-made wonders of the world. It was a noteworthy purchase not only for its content but for the mere fact I saw it at Winco and had cash to pay for it. (I don’t carry cash. Ever. You hear that, attackers? Pounce on someone else! All you’ll get from my purse is two size 4 diapers, 16 lipsticks, and an old-fashioned checkbook.)

One of the things I learned from my $13.99 purchase was the Taj Mahal, despite its architectural ranking on the list of things sublime, wasn’t much of a building challenge. Yes, the emperor of India built a whole town to house the twenty thousand men needed to build his wife’s tomb, but the construction was a no-brainer.

By the time the Taj Mahal was completed in the 1640s, the principles for fashioning a dome were well understood. Two centuries earlier, however, when the terra-cotta topper of Florence’s iconic landmark was under way, dome building was a giant question mark.

The dome of Santa Maria del Fiore, simply referred to as il Duomo, was the crowning achievement of a cathedral begun in 1296. Construction spanned the Black Death of 1348. By the time 1418 rolled around, an architectural design competition announced THERE ARE NO STUPID IDEAS because no one knew how to build a dome on top of a functioning church. Brunelleschi solved the riddle and became the hero of all Florence. He used no flying buttresses or freestanding scaffolding, and left no notes, sketches, or journals. A goldsmith by trade, he was somehow equal to the task of an architect ahead of his time. He was inspired. To this day, experts can’t fathom how he did what he did without laser levels, modern mathematics, or elite software. His dome, finished in 1469, was “the creative explosion that ignited the Renaissance” as one writer put it. It remains the largest masonry dome in the world. He paved the way for all the other domes waiting to be built on earth.

In other words, the Taj Mahal is because of the Duomo.

They have much in common: both required insane amounts of manual labor, sacrifice, white marble, and time. They both still stand.

There was a full Corn Moon last night, extra yellow as it rose through the smoke of the Weber Canyon fires. I looked at it from the deck of our new house, which we call "The Chateau" but it’s a Taj Mahal of sorts. Oh, this house. This grand feat. It is beautiful by day and by night. I love my hex tile. I love an entire drawer dedicated to Tupperware. I love the wallpaper. But it hasn’t solved any equations yet. It hasn’t endeared itself to me like my Duomo did.

My Duomo on 680 West. That starter structure sat with a hole to the sky for years, all the while God whispered a dome was possible. We worked relentlessly with protractors and hammers. I measured the stars and Greg learned to trowel. Eventually RE earned credits in Construction 101 with her own prayers and fasting. God promised us there would be a dome, and while the math and the hoisting almost killed us we came out on top. Together we learned what God wanted us to know; we built a dome on that house. It became a holy place. It belongs on postcards and in history books. That house triumphed doubt and stands as a witness of endurance, completion, and the validity of godly promises. RE, my cathedral. Archer, my dome. Everett, my courtyard, gift shop, and extra parking lot.

Today we signed the Duomo over to a new family. In my former living room we handed over keys, garage door openers, knowhow, and tidbits. I told them to make sure they crack the window open in spring so the creek's burbling runoff can lull them to sleep. A few months later the scent of Russian olives will soothe them to slumber. I told them to fold laundry upstairs on the bed so they could watch their kids swinging under the tree house down below. I told them to slide on the frozen pond, to love the ward, and to make the house their own (starting with repainting my pumpkin orange half bath). I hoped the house would be as good to them as it was to us. Above all, I promised them it was a House of Miracles.

I looked out the kitchen window at my pear tree and bid the reveries of hand washing farewell; I’ll have to come up with my great ideas someplace else. I also spied the Moroccan birdfeeder RE gave me for Mother’s Day; I hurried and borrowed the Draney’s ladder to rescue it.

RE and I attempted one last bike adventure but her bike had a flat and a loose brake cable. Plan B was a drive to Smart Cookie. We binged on triple chocolate fudge while we sat on the curb listening to the movie theater’s fountain. I still wasn’t ready to call it quits, so we drove back to our house while I decided what I wanted to do for my last act of living on 680 West. I knew. We ran across the street and knocked on Frenchie’s door to give her one last hug. Fitting, since Frenchie in a beret (with toddler Abby, infant Hannah, and tall Matt) delivering Christmas cheer at my doorstep is one of my first neighbor memories of 680 West. How I’ll miss walking up the hill to her black door and black rails. She painted the rails at midnight in her pajamas many years ago. I know because I was on a midnight stroll and saw her do it. That’s when I knew we were kindred spirits.

I talked for too long and walked away. I couldn’t look back. After reversing my car out of the driveway, I took a last look at my house numbers and shifted gears. My plum tree got smaller and smaller in the rear view mirror. I pressed forward up the serpentine roads until I reached my yard-less, gleaming, still-so-new Taj Mahal.

Inside my sanctuary I checked on my jewels; the precious Duomo acquisitions I wrapped, cradled, and transplanted here. One was sleeping in the crib with his diaper bum in the air, one was being a ninja, and one was laughing at the counter with her beautiful smile and cracked iPhone. This house is built like the old. More of the same stunning marble, just a different shape in a different land.

I am thankful for the difficult and rewarding “dome building” epoch in my life. It taught me that I can build anything with God, even if I’m just a goldsmith with no formal training. I am nothing on my own, but I eventually learned embracing the adversity under your own roof and seeking solutions through heavenly collaboration is how masterpieces, monuments, and even world wonders are brought to pass.

The Duomo and the Taj Mahal both feature herringbone brick. I am, and always have been, gaga for herringbone brick. So cottage! So fairy tale! So welcoming! The Chateau’s original plans had a herringbone brick walkway up to the front door. Then a builder told us it would cause death by slipping, so Greg was the murderer of love and killed my dream. The week before our wood floors were nailed down, Brooke White showed an Instagram video of her…wait for it…herringbone brick tile kitchen floor. SHAZAM! We bought less wood and had a herringbone brick tile floor laid in the entry way. A nod to my past and my present in my favorite pattern.

Photo of a postcard my Firenze-loving aunt mailed from one of her gilding classes. Acquarello di M. Fasciano.

Photo lyric from the song “Betty Crocker” by Melody Federer. (Wendy, I owe you many donuts for this gift. It will forever be the theme song for our move. I'm glad you get to be in both of my dreams.)

p.s.s.s. Frenchie's husband told me Florence is his favorite city in the world. Maybe I should tell him he's staring at it from his living room window.