Bologna: pretty, but not worth the time.
Venice: Disney, but beautiful. Four days in a very colorful dream.
Bolzano: First impression, amazing. Toto, we are definitely not in Italy anymore. German is the default.. I think I could buy a bike and then spend a year here, pouring beers, making macciatos, and hiking. That would be enough.

Travel is addicting, and I am becoming more familiar with the inside of my head.

I keep pushing that button, you know, the one that skips this song and goes on to the next. The "what the hell is this and why is it still in my iTunes library?" button. Funny how that happens, some days every song that comes up is perfect, and others, well, not so much.

I am trying to keep myself busy today because I am feeling twinges of being homesick from twines of being anxious. But I can't wait! My parents are here in fifteen days, Kerry and Alex soon after. I am going to Venice next weekend....it really doesn't get much better than this. I went for a run/walk (all dogs on leashes and no public peeing, I am happy to say) because I getting stir crazy. I can't pack until I do laundry, which I am saving for the last few days so that I can maximize my clean clothes. Laundry this summer is going to be interesting.

It's all rough plans, a place to sleep, and the rest comes as it comes. Mostly, I just want to wander with my ten days alone. Bologna, Venice, Bolzano. Apparently they rent bikes for almost nothing in Bolzano so it is my plan to get my hands on one and just go. No one to be accountable to, nowhere to be. A friend of mine wants to come, and she might meet me there, but I kind of want these ten days to myself. She called me adventurous for traveling alone, said she couldn't do it. Am I adventurous, really? Or am I just independent? I don't know. I do know that I had a dream the other night about wandering around Venice, and I will tell you that in that dream, it's awesome. I over Rome and Florence for now, will go back to show them off, to see it through someone else's eyes only. (And I haven't been to St. Peter's yet, so that has to get done). I am ready for new pieces of Italy.

I was running through cobblestone streets, up the staircases and down the alleyways, and I reminded myself to look again. To look hard, because my period of belonging to this place is coming to an end. I can't say whether or not I have made the best of my time here. There are certain things that I never did, and when I compare my experience to the people around me, I wonder if maybe I missed something. But this is useless thinking, the comparing mind will always find fault and regrets are not worth the mental energy. Besides, this is my trip, my life, and I get to go about it as I choose. Unlike most of them, I am only just over halfway through. It's funny in a way, that everyone is ready to go home, and I am just starting the craziest part.

So here is a brainstorm for the summer, keeping in mind that all are distinct possibilities!

Climbing Mt. Etna, lots of cave/volcano stuff to see
Accademia in Venice
Venetian glass
Dolomites
hot springs in Tuscany
paragliding
Ischia
Greek ruins in Sicily
Remote islands off of Sicily
scooter?
biking
the Alhambra
The Prado
Slavador Dali Musuem
Peggy Guggenheim Collection
Pompei
Vesuvius
Gardening
yoga on the farm
speaking lots of italian
remembering spanish
tapas
cinque terre and hiking
beaches
overnight hut hikes in Abruzzi and Tuscany
Ceri festival in Gubbio
Hiking Mt. Subasio in Assisi
Drinking beer and eating Kebabs on the steps
Parents!
Kerry and Alex!
Meeting people in hostels
Lots of train time (ick!)
being self-sufficient
Gaudi architecture
southern spain
lots and lots and lots of coffe and wine!

Who are these people in the world who don't travel? And do they have any idea what they are missing?

I read the first few pages of a couple of books in Spanish in the foreign language section of Feltrinelli yesterday and I was very reassured. I can still read the language even if it takes me a very long time and lots of hard thought to produce it. I told Peter Fischer in complete honesty that what I learned here is that I want to be able to speak another language. I can't tell you how wonderful it feels to speak and communicate in another tongue. I held an entire phone conversation in Italian yesterday, it made me so happy and proud. But not Italian. It's beautiful and romantic, yes, but....

I am in love with the desert, with New Mexico from afar. I love the green hills, the olive groves and grape vines. However, part of my can't wait to stand on the cliff in the Petroglyphs behind my parents' house and survey that beautiful landscape. And so part of what I am learning afar is to love my home and to understand what it means to feel like a place is home. It's not Colorado, strangely enough. I feel that I would much rather prefer to call New Mexico my home than Colorado. Even though I don't really live there, Albuquerque pulls on me more so than Boulder. So in a way, the future takes a shape, the idea that I would actually like to settle there, yes the summer will eat me, but I don't care.

Read any and everything by Barbara Kingsolver and you will begin to understand this love affair.

I read somewhere that traveling makes you want to travel more, we find ourselves in the midst of a current trip planning the next. It's completely true. Next on my list though is Glacier National Park, and another two or three road tours of the Southwest (Bryce, Zion, Escalante, the Grand Canyon, Taos, Carlsbad again, Arches again). We used to go each spring break when I was a kid, pack the car and go south where it would be warm enough to camp in March. Yet I feel as if I haven't seen half of it. Too bad I don't have a car and gas costs so much!

I ramble at this point, but that is how I am feeling this week. It's limbo again, between living and packing, waiting for finals, waiting to leave, for Metra to call for lunch....It makes me feel so scattered!

Enough of this.

Pace,

Monica

I found that mid-March wall, apparently it exists over here in Italy as well. Yuck. I just feel frustrated because my brain is running in so many different directions that I can't sort them out, I don't know which is right or even which is most important.

I am knee deep in writing papers plus finally figuring out what the hell I am doing for my research internship. I am interested in the topics and excited to get into writing but I can't seem to average more than a half a page per sitting. (I am learning what it feels like to really have writer's bock). All the ideas are there, all the words are ready, but I can't seem to make the sentences come. I have it all outlined and ready and yet....so frustrating.

Then it is time to start planning registration and housing for next year. And so my mind is being pulled even further back home. I think about home so much, but not in a homesick kind of way. But coming back from spring break, I am getting there again and it doesn't help that I have to figure all this stuff out.

And then of course, my mind being unable to exist satisfactorily in the present moment, goes on to try to figure out my summer plans at the most inopportune moments. I have no idea what I want to do. I had a really good time at the farm last week and I want to go back, but I also feel A) guilty and irresponsible for being an aimless nomad for three months, B) worried that it is going to be way too long of a time and I am going to hate traveling alone for that long, C) worried that I am just going to want to get on the plane with Kerry and Alex in May and go home with them, and D) generally frustrated and worried about how much it is going to cost me and what I am going to be doing.

All anxieties translated into other anxieties and I am sick of it. I am always telling myself in moments of calm that I am working on that ability to live in the present, to not worry so much. That I am going to do yoga and be zen and spontaneous. But it never quite works out that way. Then when I get all nervous and like this, I can't even see that I am doing many of those things and so I tell myself lots of mean things that I know are not true.

Goddamnit!

I wrote a scholarship essay for the art department today and I have decided that I can't wait for the day that I never have  to do another one of those. But then I realized that applying for jobs is a very similar thing and so it will never end. It's all about telling people about yourself in order for them to give you money. Grrrr.

And the application made me start thinking that I do maybe actually want to go into art no matter how much I have been thinking and telling other people that maybe I don't. And I realize that either I have just not hit on the right answer yet or I am discovering that my life is an inability to commit. And it is not because I am afraid exactly, just that I am worried of committing to the wrong thing and then not being able to get out of it when I realize the mistake. And it isn't like this is entirely rational. It's not. But I am worried that I will end up burning bridges, like not setting myself up at all into get into grad school when I decide that I am ready to go.

It makes me want to stand on my head, run around, stay in bed, write a novel, and throw water balloons all at the same time. On top of it, I am not ready to be homesick, and I am not ready to feel like coming home earlier than I was planning, but that is what my mind wants today.

I really want to call my mother because she has a way of laying some rational common sense over me when I am going crazy. But I can't because it costs too much and it's too early in the morning. I could write her and email, but I am so tired of writing. Papers, journal entries, blogs, scholarships, class notes, emails and emails and emails.

I also want the sun to come out. That would make everything better.

Signing emails with 'regards'

A long-haired black cat.

Old Italian men playing cards drinking caffe corretti.

Cold hands and Coldplay.

The solidification of a dream.

A kind of meditation.

Three glasses of wine before 1pm.

A video about physics and art history?

Penne with ricotta, herbs, and lemon zest.

It has definitely been snowing for over twenty four hours, I think the weather gods are making up for our sixty degree November. I don't mind too much today though. I slept in past ten, really, quite a record for me. Today has definitely been a day for catching up a little, but also for finishing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (I read it a little slower this time around) and just hanging around.

I am antsy, can't decide whether I want the semester to be over or for it to last forever. It's a push-pull kind of thing. I will be in Italy in less than a month, but today it isn't real. It will be, soon enough, I am sure. More likely when I am back in NM and trying to pack and decide what is going to get me through seven months in Europe. God, that's a really long time. But, I am all set and there is nothing more for me to be anxious about right now, it is all either taken care of or completely out of my control at this time. The consulate got my visa back to me within a week, I was very impressed.

My room is really sad looking, I took all the stuff down the other day in a fit of restlessness.

I feel like I had more to say, but I don't really. I haven't updated in a long time and I don't even know who really reads this anymore. But for those of you that do, I wanted to let you know that for the duration of my time abroad I have a different blog set up.  We'll see how I do about keeping it updated, but there you have it.

So yes, Christmas, snow, Harry Potter, German sixteenth century art, white walls, and messy hair, that is me today.

Particularly, on the physical act of getting from one place to another......I feel it somewhere deep inside. Like a Mack truck. Flying makes me feel like I have the flu. The minute that I step down the jetway, that smell, the stale air hits me and I get nauseaus and my head starts to spin. This whole sensation series seems to have amplified in the past few years. As a kid, I loved planes. I made my mother give me the window seats so that I could watch the wings extend for landing. It was game. Now, my peeks out the window are selective to keep my head from spinning again. Buses do the same thing I am afraid.

But at the same time, I love it. It is a suspension of reality. I am at the same time grounded in a seat and floating above the world. Somewhere and nowhere at the same time. My mind attaches to that temporary cessation of real time and space. I seem to think lots of profound thoughts when I sit there trying to drink water and keep the stomach churning down. It might the break in natural routines, the exposure to all these strangers, or just the extended time spent inside my own head. Or the great books I seem to find when I travel.

Or, maybe the thoughts just seem more profound or weighty from 30 000 feet high than they do when my feet are planted firmly on the ground.

It makes me scared to fly all the way to Italy. But it is more the getting up and getting down. A good night's sleep is usually enough to make it stop.

And I thought again this weekend about that scenario of two people in an enclosed space traveling from one place to another. I can't remember who I had the conversation with originally.

Example: elevators, car rides with your mother, nice guys you meet on the plane on the way to visit your parents....

You end up making small talk with that person in the elevator, having that conversation your mother has been meaning to initiate for a long time, or talking about your childhood,s futures, and lives with a complete stranger.

It was very out of character for me, talking for over an hour with the random person sitting next to me. I honestly was surprised at myself. It made the time go faster and gave me something to think about as my stomach turned over and over.

PS. Sometimes, I think people should never shoulder me with responsibility, never mind even consider letting me live in Europe alone for six months. I can't even get myself to New Mexico with incident. Some mistakes, let's just say, some mistakes are the kind that you only make once.

Showers at noon. Yoga classes. Lattes. Rainstorms. Wasabi straws. Garden State soundtrack.

    I ran into Jeanette at yoga today. I had hoped that she would be there and this was my other motivation for going today. Additionally, Wednesdays are better days for yoga classes than Saturdays. I am not sure why, but for some reason it just feels better. We went to Vic's and talked for a long time. It was really nice to reconnect. She is really busy with her life and her two kids, but she is like that mom or aunt figure and today was a good day for coffee in the sun. She always is very supportive and caring and though she lives close and I don't see her often, I know that when I need something, she and Brad would always be there for me. Also, talking to her and telling her about what I have been doing did something magic that gave me back that excited-for-summer feeling that I lost last week.

    Wendy's classes are always really good for that also. It is a very personal thing, yoga. I mean, you can do it at a variety of levels, but I like to do more than just go through the poses. I mean, there is a very important attention that you learn. It is a way of turning your mind's eye inward and reconnecting with yourself. It is as much mental as it is physical and I think that is part of what I like about it so much. Because I need that moment of peace where I can center my focus and leave everything else off of the mat. And you learn a great deal about yourself in the process, how your body moves and bends, what works and what doesn't. It isn't about making the pose look right. She once told us that books and magazines have ruined yoga in a sense because what is most important is not what it looks like, but how the deep musculature structure is aligned. Her approach forces you to examine that depth and I learn something new everyday. You can approach motion through non-duality and it is amazing how you can twist and extend at the same time and the subtlties of the position you can play with.

    It is a form of experimentation as well as a way of getting to know yourself. (An ongoing sort of project of mine recently) It's an adventure, that is for sure.

    Anyway, Kristie leaves for France next week and I am a little jealous. I hope she has a great time and learns a lot. I don't know how she couldn't, I mean, Paris is amazing. I would love to go back and see it with adult eyes. Maybe next summer on my European adventure I will make it back there. We'll see.

   

The sun in New Mexico is so much brighter that you have to squint behing your sunglasses almost all the time. I got my first sunburn of the year at the ABQ Botanic Gardens while I was trying to draw a duck. Mom wanted the sketch so she could identify it. She kept telling me how I was doing it wrong and it was making my crazy. I don't draw and I wasn't in the place. So she left and I sketched this goose sitting on an island in the middle of a fake lake in the gardens. It doesn't look very good, but that wasn't really the point of the exercise.

The thing about the sun in New Mexico is that you can't get away from it. The sand and the buildings keep reflecting it back to you as a constant reminder. The skies change so fast, clouds rolling in out of nowhere, forming dramatic displays, leaving just as quickly. The sky is bluer too.

Mom says that there is something about New Mexico that makes it good for the soul. I don't  know what that thing is, but it exists. I wouldn't want to stay there forever, I would miss the green. But there is a different kind of rugged beauty in the rise and fall of the mesas and the plains, in the daily struggle for survival that permeate the land. The flora doens't flower that long, but when it does, man is it beautiful. Like a reminder that yes, they do still exist, the trees burst into magenta blossoms and you see a new flower on your daily walk through the petroglyphs ann notice it. There is that juxtaposition there, between the ancient figures scrathed in the volcanic rock above and the tiny white flower below.

It is the land of enchantment, a land of stark beauty and magic. Yes, also of dollar stores and tacky mexican take out restaurants, but when I am there I try to pretend those don't exist. It isn't reality for me so I can live out that fantasy.

It almost works.

katie says that patrick suezy'z back is sexy in this movie. I tend to agree with her there. so another night in a not so sketchy days inn off I-70. check.

day one: MA, CT, NY, NJ, PA, WV, OH
day two: OH, IN, IL, MO

pick up the Dayton drive, past Troy IL, where Daria said "Note to self, there are not Trojan bunnies in Troy, IL". I remember.

A lot of thinking today. A lot of reading and absentmindedly keeping my dad awake at the wheel, then keeping myself awake there too. I have never hurt from driving before, but now I do. But i don't mind.

I seem to think that there was more to say. But not right now.

Now is for patrick's sexy back.

Why the best idea seems to be to lean into the wind on the beach because you know it is strong enough to hold you there. Why you lay there knowing someone else is there but not there, wrapped in the perfect amount of comforter for the moment. Why sometimes mothers are the perfect ones to call. Why suddenly you feel so far away and she says to you that she doesn't want to make any strong ties here. Why you realize, well, that means you too. Why grilled cheese is amazing on a Monday afternoon. Why the best thing right now is a good night's rest, something elusive and just beyond the reach of this week. Why tomorrow you will wear earings made of Guyanese seed pods with a green edge and clean clam shells to hold them after you take them out. Why Pierre runs away when you call to him and all you want to do is allow your lungs to continually draw on the perfume of burning red cedar wood. Why you wish the shingles on your house would age with salt water to that perfect grey-blue-gray colour. Why you lay back down tonight to realize that this bed is too small and that smile to elusive as well. Why you sit and stare at the same painting, only an eight by ten Rembrandt, for almost an hour. Why each time you stand up to look closer you see something new. Why suddenly it inspires you to do something. Why you wish you knew what that was. Why things happen that we can't understand and we are too far away to gives hugs to those who need them. Why you sit on trains and buses and planes. Why you search. Why someday you might find. Why today it is back again and you wish that it were not or that you were not here to meet it. Why you forget that when she calls it rings an electric version of Canon and you don't think that it could possibly be your phone. Why loneliness sets in again. Why you just want to keep walking and you just want the sand to keep collecting in your shoes and in your hair. Why today it is unsettling and not enough to just be you. Why you reach that point where you are tired of interacting. Why all you want is for someone to silently hold your hand and for that to be enough for everyone. Why your head overflows and you need to re-organzie yet again before things start falling out and you can't stop the avalanche. Why they only sounds are keys on a keyboard and muffled voices from someone's phone conversation on the other side of the door. Why you found yourself sucked happily into the pages again, interested and back in the action.

People reading, people sleeping, people on phones, people like me, on laptops, thier own worlds. This guy screws the cap onto his sprite botter. Who drinks sprite these days anyway? Not me. I am sitting next two a squished ham and cheese sandwich. The thought of eating that makes my stomach turn this morning. Trash bits scattered on the floor and we went to get him his tatoo yesterday. Don't tell Grandma why we went all the way to Northampton on a wenesday afternoon. Beth wouldn't let him get hepatitis. he's twenty-one. But I am not. Fuck. I want to go home. At least there are those giant seats in first class. The ones with the leather covers, four to a row instead of six. Now boarding our first class and american advantage preferred customers. That's me today. The Bradley security people were so nice. He smiled and the guy leaving wished me a Merry Christmas. I said, to you too. Because tomorrow is Christmas Eve and mom set cleaned the hair out of my bathroom and set me out fresh towels. She can't wait, I can tell. but she hides it and talks through things like making up my bed and cleaning my bathroom. fuck, I feel like crying. maybe because I wanted to fall asleep making a mitten yesterday but couldn't. Red and tan and navy, stripes and don't even fit my hand. I couldn't sleep for all the images. They wouldn't stop...I dreamed aboud Danae last night, I could feel her there when I hugged her. I could feel all of them. and we talked, i don't know what about. But they were sad and I had missed so much. why aren't we happy it's Christmas? Overjoyed and fucking out of our fucking minds happy? I am. I am just so tired and tired of waiting for it. i am too tired to be depressed today. too tired to think so hard. I guess that I am making too big of a deal of being afraid. way too big of a deal. what if it doesn't match? More sleepers, more magazine readers and headphone listeners, breakfast eaters, and there is a group of card players to my rear left. can I drive all over town tonight? Just get in and go. Stop when it feels right. that sounds perfect. So close. Einstein's thoery of special relativity results in two basic precepts: number one is lenth contraction. number two: time dialation. Well, time is fucking dialated, let me tell you. Please excuse the language, just out of pure frustration that I am still sitting in an airport and then i guess some remnants of last night's late night saga of images. Or something. I almost forgot my ring on the kitchen window sill. I did the dishes last night and took it off. got to go soon, me thinks. i see someone at the counter and i get to board first. See you in a few hours.

MO