Tidbit No. 1

I just love traveling. I mean, the actual act of traveling. The back and forth part. The airports and train stations and their counterparts: planes and trains. Buying tickets and searching for your flight or train on the information screens, too. I guess it’s also about knowing what I’m doing. I like that I know how to do all of that stuff. I could help someone. I can do it without help from others.

I also love the arrival part. The part in which you find what you’re looking for. That feels really good. And when what you find welcomes you home each and every day; when what you find says ‘Thank You for being here;’ when what you find offers you a home, even if for only a short time, you say ‘Okay. Yeah. That would be nice,’ as you walk into the light.

So, if I were an actor invited to James Lipton’s Actors Studio and he asked me what I would like to hear God say if there is a heaven and I get to go there, that’s what I would want to hear when I arrive at the Pearly Gates: “Thank You for being here.”

My reply? “No, Thank You.”

The Humble Abode

My humble abode. It’s beautiful. There’s barely anything humble about it, in my own humble opinion, that is. Eline calls this my “penthouse.”

Here are some pics:






I live with Angelo, as noted in a previous post. Angelo seriously does it all. Here is the most updated (and ever growing) list of activities/work:

~Apartment Proprietor
~Jam/Confections Factory Owner/Manager
~Product testing Agency (Making sure that Olive oil and other products are legal for vending)
~Emergency Mountain Rescue Volunteer (he’s the guy they float down from a line attached to the helicopter that leads into some deep, dark, crevice)
~Map Maker
~Night Class Teacher (Courses in Map Making, Mountaineering, etc.)
~Mountain Skiing/Climbing Instructor & Fanatic
~President of the Perugia Mountain Activities Club (700+members)
~Farmer (grows most of the fruits & vegetables for making the jams and such)
~Helicopter Builder/Pilot
~Footpath/Hiking Trail Maker

And these are things that he does on a daily/ weekly basis. I am amazed and in awe that he still has time to eat, go for a run in the middle of the day, and on the weekends go ice climbing/hiking/camping with his own friends. He rarely stops. Some days, I sense a serious meltdown coming our way.

I, on the other hand, take care of the cats. They are a real riot. I also help with the apartment that he rents to 7 or 8 female students just below ours. The occupants move on a monthly/quarterly/yearly basis, so there’s often cleaning or purging to be done in one room or another.

Angelo is the perfect roommate. He’s funny, enjoys a good conversation, is home just often enough, doesn’t ask too many questions, and he cooks. What more could an American girl want?

Another thing: He’s always up for a good dinner party. I love this! I am always a little overwhelmed by this, but the outcome is a belly full of superb food, and a head floating in a warm sea of delicious wine. Sometimes we have just one guest, whereas, other nights we may have a full house of 10-15 guests plus ourselves. And this is never planned in advance. He may not invite anyone over before 6 pm for an 8pm dinner the very same night. And by 8pm, without fail, appetizers are making the rounds, wine is being poured, and the first of three courses is heading to the table. I put Bobby McFerrin on to set the mood. I seriously love this.

In other news, I make dinner sometimes. This is a delicious broccoli pesto & spinach pasta dish that I made the other night!

La Sagra della Cipolle

That’s right, I said The Festival of the Onion. Aoi’s boyfriend, Michele, is the owner and head chef of a fantastic restaurant in Perugia. It’s sad that I only know of it, called Alter Ego, now instead of the previous six months I was here; he would have made a killing off of me!

Well, Michele is always looking for a twist on a familiar recipe or even a new dish to serve his customers, hence our little adventure to this festival a mere town or two away (kilometers continue to baffle me). We parked and walked about ¾ of a mile (1.2 km) to the center of this town and joined the crowd in wandering the streets, hanging a left or a right, following the scent of these onions.

I’ll stop here to tell you that I was hesitant about these onions. Everyone had assured me that these were special onions, really particular to Italy and grown with care and love and I came to understand that I should consider myself lucky to be allowed to participate in such an event. Well, still, we were heading to a dinner where we would be ordering 3 different plates a piece, and each plate was showcasing this onion and I was not looking forward to the head and stomach pain that were sure to follow. Of course, I didn’t say anything about that.

In the town there were stands of all different types of vendors: Artists of every variety, trinket tables, antique booths, clothing, balloons, and, lest we forget the cheeses, sausages and this celebrated onion! After struggling our way through a couple of bustling piazzas, we rounded a corner and headed into a square designated for a restaurant being showcased during the festival. La Cipolleria (The Onionery) or something like that. We ate whole grilled onions, onion pate, onion soup, codfish sautéed with onion, spaghetti with diced onion and olive oil, and even dessert pastries and cookies, made with a sweet onion, that were quite tasty indeed!

Walking was a bit tricky after all of that food and wine (did I fail to mention the wine?), but we did make it back to our cars and back to Perugia before 1am. When Aoi and I asked Michele when the next sagra was happening, he informed us that this was the last one of the season. I gave him that “awww, shucks!” look on my face as my stomach settled with a gurgle of relief.

I’m doing what? My brow is furrowed and my eyes are wide. I’m in Perugia. I walked into this apartment and was swept into dinner with Angelo and his friends. There was fine pasta, pineapple, beer, even conversation regarding art and its subjectivity. What a fine welcome back to Italy! I have missed it.

I took three planes, a train, a bus, and made a tiny hike with my luggage. Pietro, a rock-climbing pal of Angelo’s, met me to carry a bag upstairs. I walked into Angelo’s sanctuary and wanted to bend over in relief. What a dream.

He, Angelo, is a conscientious adult in the habit of separating all of his garbage: organics, papers, plastics and metals. He made me dinner in his bathrobe. He has a microwave! It’s a beautiful kitchen--one made to envy. He fetches his herbs from the pots lining the stairwell. He studied agriculture at university and he loves nothing more than to spend hours riding in his tractor (sound familiar?).

There are cherry wood floors throughout the top floor apartment. The sun beams in through the windows each day, and along with it, on occasion, a welcome breeze. The patio, just behind our bedrooms, holds a stone and iron table seating 8 and overhead are grape vines and a Japanese apple tree bearing fruit. I’m dazzled.

Aoi (ooowww-eee, remember?) tells me that Angelo only began preparing my room last week, as in, the room was empty and now there’s a bed and side table, writing desk, and completely finished bathroom with sink, toilet, and shower. He promises me a mirror every tomorrow, but for the time being I am content to use his.

There are two cats (gatto): Prepri, 18 years of age with fluffy grey fur that floats around the apartment throughout the day. He’s hard of hearing, has a bad back, and is seriously lacking teeth. That is to say that he has none! Oh, but he’s so sweet. The other, Margherita, is some breed of cat from Africa. She’s lean and hyperactive with an equilibrium issue. She had surgery to remove part of her inner ear this week, but Angelo didn’t seem to think it was going to go so well. I hope, for his sake, that it did. He sincerely loves his cats.

Ummm, well, I'm fresh out of inspiration for writing at the moment. So I hope this is enough for you to chew on until the rainy cold weather clears up out here and I can post some pictures of this place for you to see...Italian internet would be fussy, don't you know.

Ciao, ciao and ciao, for now.

A dopo (Later!)

Leaving is hard.

The coming reality of heading home is the warmest feeling I have ever experienced.

Honestly, without shame, I just want to hug my mom. It is my personal opinion that people from other countries don’t engage in enough friendly touch each day. In e-mails and text messages, Italians write things like: “Ti abbraccio,” or “ Un abbraccio,” which translates into, “I embrace you,” or “A hug,” but the written word has proven to be a lame substitute for the real thing. So, now, after six months living outside of America’s warm embrace, I am seriously lacking in the nourishment of a good, long, hug. Lucky for me, my momma’s picking me up at the airport!

So, back to “leaving is hard.”

There are people and places and activities that I am leaving. People like my friends Eline and Aoi. People like my teachers Barbara, Sara, and Giuliano. People in our community like baristas, fruit vendors, waiters and waitresses, and the acquaintances you make over six months of frequenting the same locales. Places like the park at the top of the city. Places like pizzerias and bars and friend’s houses where you shared a meal or drink with someone special. Places like the stairs and escalators that are particular to this very tall city. Activities like daily language class, afternoon tea with your best friends, going to concerts in a “Sala”, “English Language Movie Mondays,” Italian language movies, making a daily passegiata (stroll). (I never said my life here was “hard,” just “real.”)

And, then there’s coming to terms with what I have done: It’s what I said I would do. I said, more than a year and a half ago, “I want to go back to Italy and finish learning the language.” I did it. I have learned all of the grammar. I have practiced speaking. That is to say that, so long as the person sitting across from me speaks slowly and without dialect, I can hold a conversation on all sorts of topics using conjunctive phrases and the like without having to raise my left eyebrow or shrug my shoulders too often.

It has passed. I have finished it. I can’t do it again.

There’s a fear that is setting in as that last statement rings in my ears. I was talking to my brother on the phone last night and I was just babbling to his very kind and listening ear, in a way only his baby sister could. And at some point I heard myself saying, “I came here with this staggering fear, and now there’s just not any. It’s way cool,” but, I kind of lied, to tell you the truth. There is a fear.

Real Life Part 2

Maybe it’s just that some days hurt more than others. Take, for instance, Mondays. Today was a Monday and in it was a classic sequence of events that gives Mondays their fame.
1. Locked self out of apartment
2. Arrived late to class
3. Cell phone rang during lecture
4. Lesson was dismal
5. Vented loudly to a friend in public
6. Desired internet sites out of service
And thoughts begin to pile on the pain. All of the things I have ever been sad or angry about, come to the surface. My eyebrows join in great furor, my upper lip begins to snarl, and everyone seems to be staring and thinking: “Geez, what’s with her?” And, if they actually asked me, I would tell them. Oh, would I ever tell them! Problem is, they never ask. They stare, they think, some joke, but they don’t dare to ask. And I am left to deal with my personal case of the Mondays alone. That’s right, now I have realized how very alone I am. Not just today, but every day. Every single day…

Are you beginning to understand how the sorrow escalates throughout the day, until even the most adrenaline pumped competitor would have to sit down, find a friend’s shoulder, and have a good cry?

Well, so that’s also very real. We may call those feelings “exaggerated,” but they are real. I call them exaggerated, because those are feelings we are led to by a chain of events that are triggered by a solitary happening. For example: Had I not left my keys in my apartment behind my automatically locking door, I would not have been so self-deprecating as to call myself stupid all morning. However, in the circumstance that I had been thoughtful enough to check for my keys before closing the door, like I do every other morning, I would have been raving to myself, in my thoughts, as I walked to class as to how silky soft my hair felt that day. In fact, all day I would have been smiling with glee over my triumphant hair day (it’s a personal fetish), rather than lamenting my sorry existence! So, just as my exaggerated lamentations are “real” enough to induce tears of great sorrow in need of an entire roll of toilet paper for clean-up duty, so was my exaggerated joy in the simple victory of correct shampoo and product combination. So, sometimes life can be "real" happy, and at other times "real" sad, and the potential for extremities can occur by way of peculiar events. Thing is, however spectacular or crummy a moment may be, it's always real.

Note: These entries are not challenges as to what wisdom has been offered me in the past, they are simply my efforts at creating something during a period of my life when I am without my “sword,” as my brother once put it, when my mother wanted to put my cello in her car, as opposed to mine, on my first move to college. We all need an emotional outlet, I’m taking a stab at articulating my thoughts in a manner that differs from stream of consciousness.

What is real life? That is, when is it gonna hit me? Is this real life? This living in Italy, learning another language thing, is that the real life that mom’s, dad’s, professor’s, mentor’s and the like have been telling me about all my life? Or is their yet another link?

What separates the “real” moments from those that are “unreal?” If I were to hear about the life that I have been living for the last 5 months from another person I might conclude, in exclamation, that this very “real” experience sounds quite “unreal.” Out of this world, in fact. So, what’s the definition?

In response to my own question, I have the following thoughts:

Suggested “Real Life” Moments:
• Death
• Exam Week
• Pop Quizzes
• Faulty Alarm Clock Mornings
• Interviews
• Diagnoses
• Performances
Feel free to include and suggest other moments of sheer panic, stress, sadness, or anger to this list as you feel inclined.

Why is “real life” named the culprit of all of the tough stuff? Each of those previously mentioned moments was a moment in which I can remember my head spinning, therefore inducing a feeling quite “unreal.” Not drunken, or drugged (You are in control of what you put into your body; therefore, manipulating substances to create a desired feeling is considerably “real.”), but more like my head was growing to a size beyond capacity for the world. Literally. That’s pretty “unreal,” right?

So, here’s my latest example of the real unreal: I found myself riding in the back of Giuliano, my teacher’s, car. I was looking out of the window over the Umbrian countryside as he navigated the winding roads of the mountain necessary to scale and descend in order to meet our friends at their home. The Italian sky (literally translated into “heavens”) is clearer, bluer, and more seemingly tangible than any I have ever seen, something that I am marveled by with every coming day. The clouds are of a density that gets me surmising a plan for how I could take a seat up there, allowing me to take in the view of those going for a drive on this lazy Sunday. We were discussing educational theories. We were talking in Italian.

Aoi was giving directions from the front passenger seat: “Gira sinistra. Qui. Si, si, qui. Davanti al bar. Si, si, sono sicura.” As Giuliano parked and we tumbled out of his tiny car, I found myself standing between an olive grove to my right, a vineyard straight ahead, a panorama of the countryside below to my left, and the heavens above. Our friends appeared with smiles on their faces, taking our shoulders in their hands and kissing our cheeks, welcoming us into their home in classic Italian form. It’s only their physical and audible features that keep them from hiding their Irish-Scotch heritage.

My impressions of today continue in much the same fashion until, 7 hours later, familiar signs of my city began to appear beyond the windshield of my teacher’s car. And, even now, a few hours later, sitting on my bed, refining my thoughts to a mere few words, my conclusive feeling is one of awe. A feeling often induced by things deemed to be rather “unreal.” Yet every bit of it was as real as you and I to the touch, but not a bit of it was tough.