She continued along the valley looking up admiring those wonders but also keeping an eye out for the dogs that were running wild in this part of the garden. She approached a particularly curved specimen with a large slit in its trunk and looking at its gnarled branches reminded her of that 'Sensei' who a few years earlier had given a special Aikido lesson at his dojo. Two hours immersed in silence with only the rustle of the hakama, his words light, breathing wisdom.  
Of course now she was a little sorry that Jan was not there that day, they would have reminisced together. The anger was already fading as always, but this time she was more determined to hold on, she would not give in so easily that day.

She continued along the valley, where she also passed some black walnut trees and horse chestnuts with a certain lift, only to be astonished again by a majestic specimen of hackberry tree with its fluttering leaves that were gradually leaving the branches and its broad, almost perfectly round crown. He, too, reminded her of someone. The art teacher at her high school, round and always smiling, who had taken her under his wing and had not only taught her how to draw but also some philosophies of life that she still used in difficult times. Beautiful person, who knows what had happened to her.

She climbed the small hill to reach the small lake of Villa Borghese. A small pool of water embraced by a variety of remarkable trees. It was in 1766 when Prince Marcantonio IV Borghese, a descendant of Scipione, decided to expand the family park by creating the Giardino del Lago with a temple dedicated to the god of medicine Aesculapius. Like all the Borghesi, he too devoted himself, thanks to his huge family fortune and, it must be said in this case, especially that of his wife Princess Anna Maria Salviati, to the pleasures of the Roman aristocratic life, patronising new artists and works, thus enriching the family collection previously squandered by his father. It was he who had a poster put up in the park that read 'Whoever you are, O stranger, provided you are a free man, fear not here the fetters of laws. Walk where you will, seize what you desire, retire when it pleases you. Everything here is arranged for the enjoyment of the foreigner before the owner'. Indeed, the park, although private, had always been the scene of festivities and balls and was often open to citizens from all walks of life. He began the work of embellishing the park of the villa and his son Camillo, known perhaps more for his marriage to Pauline Bonaparte, finished the work.

Of course, who knows what the pond must have been like in those days; gossiping ladies strolling under clear parasols, poets extolling their prose, lovers in the throes of love gushing their hot tears into the lake, or artists in the shade of oak trees portraying the beautiful panorama of the 'Villa delle Delizie'. In the meantime, she was enjoying that beautiful autumn landscape of tall pines, some bald cypresses already in warm tones, and that majestic cedar of Lebanon, all making themselves beautiful by reflecting in the lake. Even the little temple had that something. On one side there was also a centuries-old Quecia ilex that stood out for its height and broad foliage. She had never liked holm oaks, she found them sad and gloomy, like Christoffer, her lifelong melancholic and gloomy classmate, who had unnerved her with his grey aura for years. But certainly this was a spectacular specimen that perhaps made her reconsider.  
She also noticed an elderly lady giving bread to the ducks. She could never get over the unquestioning fascination of feeding animals, nor could she understand how Jan had not been able to remind his boss this morning that he was on holiday. It had taken them months to organise this Roman period, she was going to take a sabbatical, he was going to take his back leave and they were going to go to Rome for the autumn to discover the Eternal City, a dream in both their drawers, but in the end, he had left her alone again today, pass the other days, but not today!