The letter from Milan stayed on my desk for three days before I even tried to answer it. I kept it beside the Kyoto sketchbook, where the pages still held faint traces of dye at the corners. Every morning when I sat down with my coffee, it was there, the embossed seal catching the morning light, waiting. Every evening, when I closed the sketchbook, the letter stayed in place, unread for a fourth or fifth time.

It was not uncertainty about whether I would go. I knew I would. The moment I opened ...