Dear friends,

In Spring, my two worlds in Italy and California burst into bloom. Regal irises preen in Florence; azaleas beam on the Spanish Steps; wisteria drips from every terrace. On the Sonoma coast, wildflowers—blazing blues, sun-shiny yellows, incandescent reds—riot over hills, meadows and dunes. Across the miles in between, the air tingles with the thrill of new beginnings.

Once again, the truism that everything sounds better in Italian proves itself—including Spring (primavera), when flowers blossom (sbocciare) and trees turn green again (rinverdire). As further testimony, consider these lyrical lines from Italian verses:

• "La fioritura incanta i campi, e il vento sussurra segreti tra i boccioli."
  (The bloom enchants the fields, and the wind whispers secrets among the buds.)
• "I germogli si schiudono piano, salutando il sole con timida speranza."
  (The buds open slowly, greeting the sun with timid hope.)
• "Nel risveglio della terra, ogni foglia sussurra una nuova storia."
  (In the awakening of the earth, every leaf whispers a new story.)
• "La natura si veste di rinascita, e ogni fiore è un sorriso del sole."
  (Nature dresses in rebirth, and every flower is a smile from the sun.)

My Italian books also have sprouted a new bloom: a Chinese edition from Zhejiang University Press, which previously translated and published Mona Lisa: A Life Discovered. I admire the handsome cover and elegant calligraphy, but the only words I can recognize are La Bella Lingua: My Love Affair with the World’s Most Enchanting Language and my name.

My other books have been translated into Italian, French, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean, Dutch, German, Polish and Swedish. When I flip through pages of incomprehensible text, I’m reminded that books—like many of our creations—scatter like blossoms to touch unknown people in unknown ways. As authors, we can only wish them “Buon viaggio!”

Meanwhile, I continue chronicling my Wondering on a Blue Frontier adventures. In the last few months, I’ve ziplined through a redwood forest, cleared beach trash for a microplastics research project, waded into seagrass beds to explore this underappreciated habitat and got close enough to a whale to smell its (foul) breath. But this season I can’t resist writing about Spring’s floral finery. Here’s a recent post, “A Rainbow of Wildflowers,” and an archived favorite, “The Wantonness of Wildflowers."  I invite you to explore with me by signing up for biweekly dispatches.

As we shed the grays of winter, I pass along this timeless advice from Ralph Waldo Emerson:

“Live in the sunshine.
Swim in the sea.
Drink the wild air!”

Buona primavera!

Dianne