napoli from a balcony

I saw all of Napoli from a balcony, with the volcanoes in the distance and the sea beckoning beyond, and it was like the chaos of unfinished feast unwrapped on a golden picnic cloth — all the red rooftops and apricot colored walls and overabundance of sunlight. the city felt almost calm from here. almost manageable. but I was so overwhelmed by the violence of the transition from my Japanese life that I had to paint it — all of it — this feeling inside me, spilling out on a page in my notebook, dried in five layers in this Mediterranean sun, this July heat.