On time

January has quietly slipped by with me taking little notice except to mark a few important days. I find myself constantly amazed at the rate at which time glides by. At one point a single day was the entirety of my existence and since that point it has been infinitely dividing into smaller portions. It seems now that there barely exists enough time in a single day to wake and fall asleep, and there are days when precious little happens between these two obligatory acts. What must if feel like to be 50 or 90. A day will pass in the time you can blink, constitution practically nothing of your life.
At the end of each month that passes I find myself taking a quick count of how many more months until I set eyes on green Ohio, till I'm held in familiar arms, and until I'm forced to confront at least a piece of my past. Four months until I board that long flight and four months since I left. Seven months of living in Europe and seven more to go. Surely those seven months will flash by like the last seven.
The other day something brought to mind, I can't remember what exactly now, a conversation I had with my father the summer before my senior year at Denison. We were sitting outside of Victoria's having breakfast with Kathy in Granville, discussing my life after Denison. I remember, a bit absent-mindedly telling them that I was going to live in Europe for a year or so after I graduated. I don't know that I understood the possibilities contained in that statement, the potential realities that existed therein. I wonder what else I have said in passing without understanding what the suggestion really implies...

Being missed

I think it is a privilege to allow oneself to be missed. I suppose at no point can we control when another thinks about us or what that memory conjures up, but we seem to have the power to decide when we interject our actual presence into the lives from our past. And whether we want to admit it or not that rate at which we interject that presence has a profound effect on the memory.
I'm finding that those who refuse to attempt some effort to force the recollection of memories being to slip away. Each of them consciously or not pushing memories further and further into the abyss of my mind. And like the abyss of the sea there are moments when it seems to spontaneously spring to life with a mysterious light that has no apparent source. It is an effort to cause oneself to be missed, to find a way to call forth an image and longing for yourself, frequently and nostalgically. Oh what a power that exerts, what an influence in the life of another. A power I wish some would make greater use of and others I wish would stop trying, as there effort does little good combined with my effort to forget their attachment to this life.

A list

I haven't made a list like this in a while, so I think I'm in need of one.

Things I love at the moment

1. my personal size teapot
2. tea and biscotti
3. being called "stellina" at least once a day
4. the moment when the sun perches atop the mountain outside my window and finds its way in even through the curtains
5. Beautiful films in bed
6. handwritten letters
7. the sounds of pen against paper
8. the start that replaces the sun at night
9. being coy in Italian
10. being one of the guys
11. being desired
12. teaching some one soemthing
13. finding some one who can teach me something
14. being strong
15. surprise visitors
    

I'm looking forward to one day in the future when I don't shovel snow, when every part of my body doesn't ache. There are moments when I like that my body feels lived in, that the ache reminds me I live inside here, but there are also days when the aches is annoying and I am unable to forget it. I was content with the soreness from skiing, but today I spent the latter part of the morning and the afternoon shoveling snow from the roof. The snow was like rocks after weeks of melting during the day and refreezing during the night and the effort of throwign it away from the house was exhausting. Instead of feeling better, like my muscles are streched and reposed there are just more sore muscles, different muscles than yesterday which effectively makes my entire body hurt. This constant dull ache has become part of my everday existance here, I think the day I wake without some pain in my body I won't know quite what to do. I think this quote from Memoirs of Hadrian sums it up rather well...
"This morning it occured to me for the first time that my body, my faithful companion and friend, truer and better known to me than my own sould, maybe after all only a sly beast who will end by devouring his master"

I've discovered, or perhaps I've known and I'm just now putting into words, that a women needs a few things to live in this place...Strong legs, a strong will, an unnatural lack of fear, and open heart that she is willing to have broken when she leaves here, and the ability to become ambiguously gendered.

On writing

There are moments when I 'm absolutely certain that the only reason I write is to feel the pen against the page, to create something, to see words become manifest. Now I don't know that I have much to say, or anything to say for that matter, but the gentle scratching of my pen against the paper is comforting to my soul. I like to see the page filling up, feel the little bit of resistance as the ink bleeds into the paper. It feels good, feels like home, there is something in the ounce of resistance in that melody of scratching that is the action of my soul. There is always a bit of resistance: to routine, a bit of resistance to change, a bit of resistance to comfort, and a bit to discomfort. But once I've committed I gently bleed into everything and I can no longer imagine myself having not pushed into something. The same way I can no longer imagine the page blank after it has been filled with words. I can always cross them out, I can always change the words, but the page can never go back to being blank.

Siamo in tutti

Adesso siamo intutti. Victoria arrived yesterday and now I live in a house of women, a house of strong capable women. And for the first time I'm okay with that. Those petty figths and jealousy that seem to characterize many of the women I know in the States don't seem to exist in our house. I don't want to chalk it up to cultural differnce, but to that fact that to live successfully in this place those characteristics are less than useful.
Victoria reminds me much of a young Auntie Robin, with a frantic need to move and her hand rolled cigarettes, it makes me miss my favorite hippy. I love now that there are more languages filling our house, it's the essence of this place, difference existing together in a conscious effort, all under one roof. That doesn't mean it's always easy or harmoneous, but thus far it's been working.
I can't imagine how strange it will be to live alone after this. I know I have my own room here, but I haven't been alone in the house since I arrived and I'm okay with that. I like living this life of necessity, but there are moments when I find myself struggling against the mentality of want. Living here helps.

casa nostra

Casa nostra e una casa di abastanza, non troppo, non di bisogno, di abastanza. I spent the eveing eating Uruguan food, listening to French music, smoking shi-sha, and speaking Italian. My life is beautiful and I live with the whole world in one house.
Smoking hookah together took me back ot my final visit to Madison before returning to Europe. To smoking a little blue hookah on His pation, to ultimate relaxation slipping through my veins, and finding its way into all of my limbs and finally to my head. To crawling lazily into His bed and shhing each others laughter as we giggled at the thought of waking the neighbors. I feel such nostalgia for those nights, for the mornings after when He would brush my hair out of my face, kiss my forehead, and leave me slumber as he slipped off to work or to make me pancakes with fresh blueberries...and I wonder about my return.

Always aching

Always this body of mine aches, shoveling snow, skiing, dancing until the wee hours, hunger from the work, or standing all day at the bar. Perhaps it sounds like I'm complaining, but I'm not. It's these aches that make me aware of living inside a body, let me know I'm not just head and heart, but muscle and sinew as well. Some how all of these pieces fit together to make this being. It's good to be reminded of these individual parts, of the way they work together. Although I ache, I have relief unlike a good portion of the world. I have a bed to rest these bones and food to fill the rumble in my stomach. Those things that could be complaints are in reality a reminder of the gifts I've been given.
This week has had a few moments when I needed to remind myself that this life is good. Theoretically I know it is, but I've been missing the familiar a bit lately. It's in these moments I find myself needing to adjust my concept of what is familiar. If feels a bit strange now to have a conversation only in English and I find Italian words slipping in when I stop paying attention. I know in a few short months my phone calls will suddenly mean mess and speck and brei sandwiches won't always be a few steps away. In a few months my life will suddenly be consumed with the activities of being a somewhat conventional adult. And maybe in these moments I'll yearn for the familiarity of waking up to a mountain view, of pasta at nearly every meal, and a house filled with the rest of the world.

Ero la altra donna...lo ha sentita impossible, pero e vero. No lo capito e pui importante no la voglio. Abbiamo finito.