This body is growing hard and stale

rotting from the inside out

stinking of the fish

I've had to fill it with

Wanting desperately to be fished

out of the gaping river

swelling mountains.

This body has become the river

and the fish

and the slime and rotten wood

that sink to the bottom.

It is the rocks that the damned tourists

use to cross.

It's the ice

slapped on the top

keeping the muck from

stinking up the village.

The water is in my eyeballs

and always in my bladder

I can't seem to get rid of it

constantly pushing its way out

yearning, smashing against the banks

against the outside of this corspe

A swollen bloated body

with a putrid stentch

stinking up my river

my body

How do I fish a body

out of my body?

How can I rid it of stagnent

waters and force the spring?

A few things

Since living in Italy I've started marking my books with old dollar bills, ones that had stowed away on this trip in pants and jacket pockets unnoticed. Maybe I'm doing it to remind myself that gobbling down these books is worth something, maybe not at this moment, just like this dollar is worthless in this moment. But at some point I'll go back to the US, maybe not for good, but at some point I'll go back. So maybe all these English words aren't doing me much good at the moment but sometime (maybe in the near future) they'll serve me.

Also I've recently become aware of how many Italian men are inviting themselves to my bed. I know I often complain that American boys are too shy, but this seems to be crossing some sort of line. Maybe it wouldn't seem so strange if they were inviting me to sleep in their beds, but I've never had someone invite themself to my bed. Is this some sort of cultural characteristic I'm not aware of? It doesn't seem to matter that I live in a house with 7 other people and privacy is practically nonexistant. Maybe that is part of the draw, maybe I'm attracting an unusual amount of exhibitionists...Oh the Italians, what's a girl to do except take several lovers and learn how to desire and be desired and equally important be fulfilled in all that desire.

exhaustion

Absolute exhaustion, my hand can barely hold the pen, it aches with every other part of my body. The cycle in Prali continues -- shovel snow all day, eat whatever you can, drink Genipi. Right now I think I"m too tired tto complete the last two parts. I shoveled snow all day and the thought of finding food or making it to the village to drink Genipi is even more exhausting. I'm almost to tired to sleep. I tried to lay down this afternoon for a bit and could only manage and hour or so of fitfull sleep filled with dreams that wouldn't let me rest.

A list

A list we compiled last night at the pub...

Things most discussed in Prali (winter)

1. Food
2. Genipi
3. Snow
4. Avalanche
5. Trees inside of an avalanche
6. Wolves

Things most discussed in Prali (summer)

1. Food
2. Genipi
3. The effects of Genipi
4. Snow from last winter
5. Snow for next winter
6. Wolves

I'm quite sure that the drinkin of Genipi led to the construction of this list but it's true nonetheless.

I feel like all I can write about is the snow. It's relentless and beautiful. The rumble of avalanches fills the valley...all night, throughout the afternoon. The roads are closed, school cancelled, there is no hope of anyone comeing into or leaving the village before Wed and even that looks doubtful. Fra, Jaouad, and Corinne are stranded in various places, which leaves me, Davide, J, and Marianna (the new resident from Uruguay). All goes on as usual. This morning it took the entirety of the morning to clear a sliver of a path from here to the center. The snow is up to my shoulders. This afternoon Davide and J were jumping from the ballcony of the belltower into the ocean of snow below. Fortunately it isn't too cold, on -1 or 2. We're warm and cozy in the house, fireplace crackling, cat napping on the couch...
I remember I time I complained at the thought of moving to Madison because the weather was so foul. Now it seems like a short winter of only 5 months. But despite the incredible about of snow life is still rather pleasant. No intense wind, no bitter cold (at least for now) and fortunately I don't have to make a commute to work. I suppose there are some advantages to living and working in the same place.
Oh how easily we forget the summer. The heat of the sun quickly turns into the heat from the fire. Long nights of parties and dancing simply slip into long dark nights. Summer romances turn into winter cuddle buddies. And when June rolls around these things will once again merge into each other and we will forget the worries of winter, of snow and shovels, the laugher of sled riding in the stree and live fully into the sun and the ability to wear only one pair of clothes. How this life slips one season into the next without anyone noticing until we are in the middle of the next. I suppose the seasons of life and of the year are on in the same...

I sleep under a palm

in a forest of pines

and I know that time will teach me

all I need to know,

let me be possessed

as I pine

While I dress for an expedition

in my bed

under a flock of geese

and a coop of chickens

On Being Known

"Mostly what people want is to feel known" -- Nicole Krauss A Man Walks Into a Room

Do I want a love that is the merging of two souls into one, the same way two bodies glide together in the cover of night. Do I want my soul to gently absorb that of another at the some moment mine is being raptured into a secondary existance? Or do I simply want to be known, known intensely and fully, but known nonetheless...

A little off subject

I know that this blog is generally a bit more poetic than the one I keep for my family, filled with private thoughts, and shared with only a few. But, I just can't resist sharing this. So a few weeks ago my father asked me what I would like to have in my Christmas package and seeing as we'd be having temps around -13 the only things I could think of were long under wear and base layer type clothing to try to keep some heat in this body of mine. The next logical question of my father's was "what size" I thought "hmmm I'm tall, let's say a large just to be sure they're long enough." Well earler this week my Christmas package arrived and since it was absolutely freezing and everything inside the box has to be written on the customs form I thought I would go ahead and open it. Inside among a number of useful things I found a pair of old school waffle style long underwear. Needless to say I was pretty pumped about this. However I thought it a bit strange that there was a picture of a man on the front of the package. Upon turning it over I realized that my father thought it a good idea to purchase me a pair of MENS large long underwear. Now I know that I gained a few pounds while living here for the first few months but never in my life have I been in need of a pair of pants that would fit a 38-42 waist.

But I thought "hey they're elastic right, they might be able to fit" That was until I noticed the enormous pouch in the front of these pants.

My friend Francesca suggested we run to the grocery to buy a bunch of bananas to fill it with, but reason got the better of us and we decided against it. However I would like to know at what point my father thought I was a rather large man with a huge package and that this would be an appropriate gift...

Real life

I am having a difficult time defining this place and time as real life. I don't know how to live outside the conventional constraints most people have in their lives. Theoretically I know they don't apply to me in this moment, but I don't know how to operate outside of them. I have no model for behavior in what i recently learned was the "alternative" lifestyle I'm living. I suppose the beauty of it is that I get to make my own rules, be me own guide, and that is wonderful and beautiful and absolutely terrifying. How does one live fully into all possibilities when you can't even conceive of all the possibilies that lay before you. I don't fully grasp the beauty of living without judgement, and when judgement isn't present possibilities seem endless, they are endless. I just don't know how to being to imagine living into all of them. I'm constantly having to remind myself this isn't just a go-between, this strange period between graduation and starting "real life". This moment too is my real life, I'm living through real events, building real relationships, having real emotions...
I need to learn how to embrace these moments and not let myself hide behind the fact that because I'm scheduled to leave in a year. I have the responsibility to myself to take in everything and give all of myself to this place, time, and people. What am I saving it for? It's not as if I live fully and with all of my being that there won't be any left for the rest of my life. There will always be more of me, my soul is not an expendable resource.
It seems a bit of a crime if I don't figure out how to let it out to roam freely, to explore, find desire, fulfill it, and grow richer for the experience. I'm not actually protecting myself from anything if I refuse to define this as real life, I'm depriving myself of the ever more incredible beauty that could fill myself.

My bed is barely cold and I ache just a bit for someone to fill the space beside me. I am intoxicated with the thought of his desire for me. I want to press the tips of my fingers into his joints as he tells me the stories of the paintings on his body. I want to leave my print there, want him to feel my presence the next time he absent mindedly runs his fingers across his skin. I want him to be drunk with the memory of me, overcome with the need for our skin to touch, for him to draw in my presence with every breath.

And I feel no guilt for this, I think about Him, but feel not guilt for these moments which are honey for my soul. I'm sad that He is more in love with work than me, that He loves the idea of me more than the actual person that I have become. But, I have not ounce of regret for these moments, I want more of them. I'm ready to share my bed with this human being I've found a way to lay open my soul to. I want to continue to let him open me in places that have been locked. I want him to understand how he has created a space for the expansion of my being. I hope he feels the way not just my body relaxes in his presence but the whole of my being is some what at ease. I have no explanation for the comfort, perhaps the lack of judging eyes, perhaps I think he understands me in a way that no one has yet to because he has to gain entry without sight. He has no idea whether or not I'm beautiful, but he feels the lengths of my skin and interprets a beauty that is understood only by him. He hears my raspy voice in the evening and holds it in his ears where others would disregard it. I feel like he guards every ounce of knowledge of me as a treasure he is privledged to possess. He asks about my rings as he remembers the fingers they wrap around, runs his fingers across my collar bone and pulls the image of my pendant through his skin.
I feel like I must feverishly write these things before they escape me.
I am yearning for more.

The Gypsy and the Hippy.

The prince of his world and me the peasant of mine. I perfume my body as I remember the night, trying to smell the way he sees me. Layer upon layer of incense for the temple of my body. Patchouli for my face, ginger for my body, sandalwood oils for the places where my blood sits dangerously close to the surface of my skin. I want to understand the intoxication that these scents, mixed with whatever it is that is the essence of me, have for him. Feel in my being how when he nestles his face into the crook of my neck he drinks in all of me.

He respectfly worships at the alter of this foreign temple. Hymns of love play in the back and the name of Yaweh hangs near the heart of this place. And maybe he isn't a convert yet, but he decides he'd like to visit this place again.

I smile at his pleasure of the sacredness I have created in myself, that the temple which guards my piece of the divine is held in high regard. He has no desire to break down the doors and pillage this place, but rather walk in carefully, cautiously, and respectfully. The manner of a worshipper and pilgrim. One who wants to find the holiest of places through his own exploration, through understanding, through a comprehension of the peace that frequently dwells here and the love and care that is put into the mainanance of the shelter of the divine.

Ho una sacra fuoco. Mi corpo e una posta sacra, sacra e sensuale con perfuma particulare. Perfuma de zenzero e legno sandalo. This perfumed skin of mine rises to meet his hands, hands of the prince, principio de suo vita. I tell him not to fall in love with me as my body is understood to be a guitar, not like that of Italian women. And I muster every ounce of self control and restraint to put a limit on the evening. Io dito "sono una persona multo privato" and he understands, he doesn't push the limit, and I'm content. Content in my borrowed bed, on borrowed time, with a borrowed man. And I don't know how to explain this comfort, the comfort I feel in having una anima nuda. He only knows me this way: as a soul laid open for the viewing, except he can't view it at all. And as we talk about the first time we met I press my fingers into his tattoos, I want to see them the way he does. As our bodies excite at the touch of our skin he tells me of his desire for me when we first met. I let him in on the secret that if he had only seen my pleading eyes I would have let him proceed. I would have let him know the outline of my eyes, the way I sigh as he runs his fingers across my collar bone, I would have let him learn the first chords of this body. But rather than that night we have this night, where the instrument of my body is played after we have made music in front of the fire we've built, and shared this music, our laughter and smiles with those whom we were privledged enough to have in our company. And after this music our music becomes gentle sighs, words hanging delicately in the tiny space between us as we press each other's palms into old wounds. We make our pact "Il futuro non esiste, il passato non esiste, solo questo momento. Speriamo por piu, pero viviamo en solo questo memento." I pretend he's asking alot of me when he tells me to think about this night just a little tomorrow and I drink in his words when he says he will spend the day relishing these moments...
E adesso comincia una bella historia di noi.

Today she would be 54...6 years and I still don't forget for a moment that she isn't here.

He'll never know

Last night I met Mario...
He will never know the way my eyes drunk in the orange of his apartment. He will never understand the knowing glances Francesca and I exchanged over our glasses of wine. But he will know the way our skin feels together as I hand him a piece of bread. He won't know the way my body looks as my hips turn to liquid as we dance to the left over reggae music, but we will remember how he could feel my jeans slide down to rest low on those liquid hips. He can't know that my eyes turn the green of a stormy sea when I get overwhelmed with emotion, but he knows the way I smell when my sandalwood oil mixes with the heat of my body. He doesn't know the way my cheeks flush, but he understands the feel of my damp skin under a thin cotton shirt. He will never know that the red of my shirt matched my cheeks that night or the green of the favorite scarf I was wearing, but he knows how they rest against my exhausted body. He doesn't know how my hair grows more golden with each day in the mountains but he knows how it feels between his fingers and how my head, heavy with sleep, feels upon his shoulder. He didn't see me look at him with the eyes that give him permission to proceed, but he would have felt the shudder in my body and the simultaneous tensing and relaxing of the whole of me. I'm intrigued by this lack of knowledge and the intimacy of the things he does know. I may give him a chance to know more....

Disgust

Today I found a spider crawling on my leg
I looked at it in digust
Tried to quickly brush it off
I wondered if this is what the world thinks of humanity...

On sleeping

My body aches as I curl up under colored cars
In the fetal position
trying to get warm
This body of mine is a black hole
Vacuous
always trying to get smaller
Devouring everything within reach
Super 8 cameras
volleyballs
Jeni's ice creams
and an old friend
All under these cars
my cars

Parlando

Speaking more Italian everyday, it's good to feel these words in my mouth, in my body. I feel different when I speak this language: my voice changes and my inflection is that of some one else. My lips wrap gently around the words and I try to hold them in my mouth just a little longer than I normally would. I'm trying to hold each one carefully and preserve some part of it in the memory of my lips, my tongue, my body. My voice grows just a little bit deeper as the pacing of my words begins to resemble that of a snail with vertigo. I speak slowly trying to think ahead and trying to wrap my body around the water drop of a word in my mouth. Learning this language involves the whole of my being, because I learn it through a life well lived. With each word I use I see a flashing memory of the moment I learned it: who was with me, where we were. Was it a night a PaPaGui, an afternoon on the lawn, was I sharing a cup of coffee with Sofia, was I fighting sleep with Giovanni, was I watching films with Francesca, was I in bed with J? All of these people float through my sentences, all of my time in this place is present in each conversation. My acquisition of this language is not like that of my first or second. Although I'm sure I learned English in this way the memories live in a place I can't recall. My Spanish came to me from a text book and I barely remember in what order I learned the language. But Italian...Italian is so intertwined with my life, with my memories of this place and these people. The language is becoming my memory. The language and the memory, the two are one, and the one is remembered in my body.

A little less lonely

Feeling a little better about the whole boy situation. Finally talk to Him for a little bit last night. It's ridiculous how speaking to him has put me in such a good mood. That doesn't mean I don't want to know why he hasn't answered e-mails and was so nasty when I called the other night, I just want to chalk it up to the election and him trying to finish several papers for conferences. I need to hear his voice once in a while, just to keep me sane.

These are the days that are difficult for me. Last night every one's significant other was at the house. Everyone is so sweet and cozy, and I'm alone. Those are the times I struggle with the thoughts of finding someone to keep me company. I suppose my prospects are quite limited in the village, perhaps a friend of Agape. This may be the most difficult part of the year. If I choose to have a relationship here how do I go into it knowing it'll only be for a year. I don't want to hurt myself or anyone else. I don't want to accidently fall in love. I have no intention of staying in Europe for a boy. My time here is purely for me. I have enough men back in the States, I don't need anyone trying to convince me to stay here.

For now I guess I just stay alone, count my blessings in my friends, and try to find some comfort about all of this in looking at the amazing life that I have in this place.

A couple things I just found written in my moleskin from London:

While looking at “The Snail” by Matisse

Thinking this is the favorite painter of a good friend – Haven’t seen him in a while, maybe years. He probably likes the idea of this painting as much as he likes the idea of me. In reality I don’t think he cares much for either.

On Francis Bacon paintings

“as if a human being has passed between them, like a snail, leaving a trail of the human presence and the memory trace of past events.”

Tangible

I’ve been too busy reading other people’s stories to remember to write my own. I’ve been trying to distance myself from the feelings I know will come pouring out when I put pen to paper. But I guess its inevitable, they’re rattling around in there whether or not they make it to the paper so I might as well put them down…here it is.
I sleep with the green shirt I stole from him years ago in hopes of pulling off the last bit of his scent – I know there isn’t any left. Some how the soft worn in cotton still feels good against my skin, it feels bitter-sweet. Reminding me of all the times I tried to sleep next to Him in it, but the gentle comfort of it on my skin was always replaced by the warmth of his rough hands – a welcome exchange, although I often put up a bit of a struggle, just for the sake of it. It’s the one piece of him I know I truly have with me. I don’t’ know if I can still occupy a corner of his heart or if he still thinks about me as he comes home to an empty apartment. But I do know that I have this one tangible piece of us, and I hold onto it for dear life. I no longer wear the ring He gave me, I don’t define myself in relation to Him, but I hold onto the old holey green shirt I stole from him when we were both at Denison, it seems like an eternity ago. I still hold tight. I think that if maybe I hold tight enough he’ll feel it, maybe if I wish these memories into him he’ll start to miss me…just a little.
It’s a last ditch effort to figure out how to have this love and this chosen exile. It’s hard and in all honesty I’m sure this winter will be harder. I’m a little afraid I’ll be living in some weird version of last year. I’d love to meet the woman who immerged directly after that but under no circumstances want to relive the events who brought her about. I don’t need another winter of sadness, another few months of not eating; another Christmas spent wishing he’d call. I don’t need any of that. I’m ready for the happiness that was the preceding 4 years. I’m in need of that rock. I want to come home to some one when I return. I want to be loved.

I woke up this morning and the fog was so thick I couldn’t make out even one mountain. It feels like the very thing that defines my existence here has silently stolen away in the night. And now this morning I feel like perhaps I’ve never left, that there are some things that may never change. Tried to call Him last night…too busy getting an article ready for the NY Times. 2 weeks of silence. There are moments when I fear my fierce independence will lead me to a fierce lonliness. But I suppose that there would be little different about the situation if I had stayed in the States. I wish I didn’t love so deeply, so fiercely, so wholly – if only for my own protection; to keep this vulnerability at bay. “Distance makes the heart grow fonder” maybe for us distance forces you to take back the pieces you’d once so happily given to some one else. Maybe this distance doesn’t allow such feelings to grow, maybe this distance is too much and forces you to withdrawal into yourself – just for sanity’s sake, to keep you from going crazy because you know it’ll be too long before your yearning will be satisfied. Maybe we aren’t meant to live in such anticipation. This is the moment to work on being responsible for my own happiness, even though there are moments when I miss Him so intensely that my body aches for Him, that I cling to my green scrap of him and try to drink in the faint perfume that is left of him.

What a face

I’ve been looking at some photos from a few months ago and realized I barely recognize myself. My face looks totally different. Not like there is some internal change that has decided to reflect itself on my face, although that may be true as well, but I physically look like a different person. I was told that time and time again when I went back to the States but thought perhaps it was because no one had seen me in a few months. But now I realize perhaps it was because I actually look different. It’s as if I’ve aged a few years, not in a way that simply makes me look older, but I look as if I’ve finally come into the whole of my being, like suddenly my body reflects the comfort I feel in my soul. A face that I know have to glance twice at in the mirror sometimes because I’m not sure I recognize myself. It’s a strange feeling not to anticipate the person who looks back at you. I’ve notice I’ve taken to generally only examining my body in the mirror as the face that looks back is some strange and beautiful being that I haven’t quite been able to comprehend, this person is now a part of myself. But this is me now and I think it’s a purer representation of me, somehow. My inside matches my outside for the first time in a long time, maybe ever.

“This forest eats itself and lives forever” – Barbara Kingsolver The Poisonwood Bible
I’m not quite sure what I think this means in the greater context yet but I think somehow I might like it to apply to my life.

Borrowed

Sleeping in a borrowed bed, in a borrowed room, in a house that will never belong to anyone. This is what it feels like to live on borrowed time, to know there is an end, a definitive end, one I can point to on a calendar and know that under all circumstances that is the end. Despite the knowledge of such impermanence I am completely possess by this place. Perhaps it is because of the recognition of the fleeting nature of Agape that I am so content and fulfilled with my simple work. Perhaps it is because of this temporality I am happy simply being in the presence of those around me. I suppose those who clearly see death within their sights tend to live more fully and deeply into their lives, but rather than death clearly in view I think of this as another birth. It isn’t often that life presents us with an absolutely clean slate and I’ve been given that gift. It’s a disservice to the Universe, to Yahweh, to the forces of life not to paint it beautifully, not to cover every square inch with color, to wash mistakes with tears and begin anew.
I’ll cover this new slate in the lace that hangs delicately around the mountains. A lace that is beautiful every moment but constantly reforming, reweaving itself. A gentle blow from the creator, the master artist, is always rearranging and creating a new pattern just outside my window. This dynamic lace floats lightly over a patchwork quilt of golds and reds, and the ever greens of my wolrd. This quilt wraps tightly around the children of the valley, holding us tightly, sheltering us from the outside world, the protection of a great mother; rising from every possible place to hold onto her children, to cradle them in the crook of her great arms, telling of her love for us despite our rebellion, despite our disinterest in her welfare.

casa dulce casa

Finally back “home”. If home is where the heart is I am most certainly here. Sitting in a warm soft bed, a gift from a friend I didn’t know I was missing from my life until this summer. My beautiful room lovingly prepared by my friends, perhaps my Italian family. Staring out of my window at a view that people pay thousands of dollars a night to see and I blessedly call it home. The trees bravely climbing the rocky cliffs have turned themselves into a sea of yellows and warm reds all swaying gently in a breeze as if to wave a welcome home to me. I feel content, easy, as if my whole existence is wrapped warmly in blankets and placed by a crackling fireplace.
I’m spending today getting settled in, putting together a puzzle with Jacob in the afternoon, trying to make some order of my room and getting mentally prepared for what lies ahead. I know the year ahead of me will be difficult and there very well maybe moments when I want to go back to my “real home” but I think the struggle will be worth it. I’ll be the better for it: better for having struggled and triumphed, better for the hard work, and better for the friendships. I’ll have crossed at least 2 things off my life list – living abroad for a year and visiting Whittington castle and hopefully working on becoming proficient in Spanish when the women from Uruguay arrive. If nothing else accomplishing 3 life goals in one year should make me feel good.

Reluctant Traveler

Most of the time I call myself a reluctant American, but at this moment I am a reluctant traveler. I don’t want to leave my alpine village; I don’t want to speak English all day! As fantastic as London sounds it’s tarnished by the goodbyes I’ve had to say today, it’s jaded by the difficult month ahead of me in the States. Parting is such sweet sorrow…I don’t think that’s true, there is nothing sweet in the sorrow I feel leaving these people. This place I know I’ll return to and I know when I’ll return but I don’t know when I’ll see many of these faces again. This morning was such a whirlwind: all of the campisti leaving, 4 campolovoro leaving, everyone crying, bus schedules to read, trying to find out who was going where, I’m glad it’s over and I’m quietly sitting in the airport. Now just to traverse the English train system and I can attempt to enjoy London. It will be so exciting to see Nic again, fill each other in on all of the events in each other’s lives, what’s happened at Agape, and just as importantly eat some good Indian food.

Washed clean

My body is washed in the cleansing fire of the sun and wiped dry by an alpine wind as I am both Left and Leaving. And for the first time I am alone in a group of people and it feels good. It feels good to sit quietly…no one saying a word to each other but each of our heads filled with a multitude of thoughts and voices. Mine is filled with the voices of Mayan women from Chiapas, the questions of Kenyan acrobats, the lilting song of the Brits, and searching English words for my horde of Italian friends. I can never find those words, I’m beginning to forget bits of the language I’ve spoken for 22 years and replacing it with words I’ve known for only 2 months. My soul aches as I think of how to explain this life to the one I led before.
How do I build such a bridge? One sturdy enough to span oceans, to hold tumbling acrobats, a bundle of immigrants, one that can carry mountains, one that trees can walk across, a bridge that can unite the past and the future while still passing through the moment I’m living in. How do I build a bridge between bouncing children, war veterans who share homemade cheese with me, and foggy nights filled with the warmth of bonfires? I want to dance across such a bridge doing the traditional dances of Piedmonte while Marcolino plays the accordion. I want to dance this exhausted body across that bridge into the loving arms of my family who will gladly listen to my lifetime of bizarre stories that have happened in only 3 months time.
I want to dance into your bed. I want you to stroke my meters of golden hair while I explain to you how I became an American only after I left the country. I want to cook a big Italian dinner for you and the Jews while we swap travel stories over fresh espresso. Most of all I want to tell you these stories without explanation. I want them to seem as normal as they feel, I want some one to understand. I hope that person is you.

Waiting

Still trying to mentally prepare for heading back to the States. I hate the waiting; it’s making it difficult to enjoy my last few days here since I’m constantly thinking about what needs to be done. I still can’t get used to the idea that this is my life. Yesterday I spent the evening cooking with 3 Kenyan acrobats after I met a man from Brooklyn who had befriended them while couch-surfing with them in Nairobi. I’m still trying to make sense of how I’ll explain things like this to everyone back home. I don’t think that going back should be this hard, but maybe there is some truth to the saying “you can’t go home again”. It’s not that I’m not looking forward to seeing everyone it’s that I don’t understand how I’ll merge this new life with my life back in the States. I don’t know how to create a bridge between these two worlds so it doesn’t seem like I’ve just fallen off the face of the planet for 3 months and then suddenly reappeared. And not just reappeared but reappeared profoundly changed. I’m more sure of who I am: a reluctant American, a Jew, open and non judgmental, content, and wanting to experience more. More certain of what I want: a year abroad, to be the crazy auntie in the family, a future with Him, to live communally, to live wholly and completely, however I need to achieve that. I want to be filled with more “when I was picking coffee beans in Guatemala” stories, and I’ve had an excellent start, but it’s going to be difficult to integrate those things into my life in rural Ohio. I suppose each experience strengthens me in a different way and my time back will simply be a coffee bean story for when I’m living in Italy.

Fate

“Fate is encounter only by him that actualizes freedom. That I discovered the deed that intends me, that, this movement of my freedom, reveals the mystery to me.” Martin Buber…perhaps I believe in this kind of fate.

On sowing

Today while chatting with Rachel: "we are always sowing the seeds, we just don't know what will grow"

My soles and my soul

This sole has tread on the holy ground of Krishna’s youth, and this sole has danced a dance with Mayan women to thank her mother Earth for the life giving water. This sole has followed the foot steps of brave Waldensians escaping the inquisition. This sole has carried me to the tops of mountains and through deserts painted red. It has forced me forward when I wanted to stop. This sole has danced salsa barefoot and linked me to generations before me dancing the traditional dances of Piedmonte. This sole has led me into dangerous places. It has brought me into oceans and through crowded city streets. These soles have turned inward in prayer to the deity and outward in the most artificial stance of dance. This sole has carried me through races and anchored me to the earth in the most tranquil of yoga poses. This sole has been dirtied by the blood of the earth and washed clean by the tears of the sky. This sole has guided me home in dark nights and carried others to safety in moments of chaos. This sole has held me safely in place and has been a cursed anchor as I urged to fly. This sole has been wrapped in the brown gold of the Earth. Perhaps most importantly these soles have carried this soul around the world and finally to a place of happiness and tranquility.

Io sono una teiera

Io sono una teiera: there are moments when I am filled with the warmth and comfort of a cup of tea.
There are times when the liquid inside of me is cold and refreshes those who drink of it.
And sometimes I boil and those who take from me thinking they will be satisfied are burned at the first taste.
Io sono una teiera: I am made from porcelain and can easily be broken when people are careless with me.
I am made of tin and steel and aluminum. I can stand the test of time and am strong enough to live for generations.
Io sono una teiera: most of the world gathers around me at meals. Political discussions arise because of my presence and are sometimes settled if I just last long enough. I am unique to each place and time, with the Indians I am spicy and old, with the British creamy and sweet, with the Americans – well they don’t quite know what to do with me.
Io sono una teiera: I am sometimes put up on a shelf and forgotten about and on special occasions I am proudly displayed like some type of masterpiece.
Io sono una teiera: I am sometimes polished and decorated with fineries, but most frequently I am common. I am dented and plain and those who appreciate my beauty do so only through the memories of unity and happiness I have been a part of.
Io sono una teiera.

You can do anything you put your mind to

There is a Brazilian man cutting the grass on the hill of my little utopia as I try not to look too put together with my new jade earings from my excursion to the city; it would seem out of place here. The smell of fresh cut grass reminds me of summers in rural Ohio where bikini's were the only acceptable wordrobe and I think of a well polished woman who used to don her bathing suit, stained green shoes, and spend hours mowing our grass. I used to call her mom. I hope she's proud of the choices I've made and the loves of my life. This moment is one of the few where I think nostagically about that time but not sadly. I hope my choices make her life mission complete and successful. I relish the memories this scent calls forward.
Those memories of fishing in bathing suits and the scent of grass remind me of bailing season, of sun burnt boys and men exhausted from days of hard labor, and I remember I'm not supposed to be here. I'm not supposed to have left that town in Eastern Ohio, I'm not supposed to draw maps of my country for Indian men and Italian women, I'm not supposed to compliment some one's English as I struggle to construct a sentence in Italian. I'M NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE. I should be going to school at the local branch of Kent State, taking 6 years to finish my degree, I should be looking for houses with the neighbor boy who finally decided to put a little diamond on my finger, I should be content with summer vacations to the beach. But instead I've chosen rebellion. I've chosen a complete happiness -- I've experienced the world, and the whole world, and chosen my happiness; not from the choices presented before me but from the struggle and strife of making the whole world available to me. I've chosen a complete happiness because I know I can choose anything. I was the child it was dangerous to tell "you can do anything you want if you put your mind to it". They didn't know that to me it meant teaching children in Mexico at 14, or roaming around India at 19, or running off to Guatemala when I felt like my life was crashing in around me. They didn't know it meant a year in Italy after I finished with Latin honors at a university I "couldn't go to". They didn't know that my mind was so curious, devoid of the fear that keeps people tied to one place. No one knew what they were getting into. Doing anything I wanted to has led me around the world, taught me self reliance (or perhaps at least the ability to feign it convincingly), taught me to be open to those around me, to pick coffee beans, to dig foundations of houses, to learn new languages, trust in the kindness of strangers, and to truly decide what I want because for me anything is possible if I put my mind to it. What a dangerous phrase for children like me, but some part of me knows my mother is smiling if she knows any of this. She recused me from what the world would assume to be a life of impossibility and gave me life, a life so I could life it. Never telling me anything was off limits but simply telling me that if I truly want something I have to do everything in my power to get it. So here I am -- 22 university graduate, world traveler, journaler, want to be barissta, hiker, lover, translator, and most importantly content.

Two worlds collide

There are moments in this place where the world I live in and the world I aspire to come dangerously close to mingling in the hazy low hanging clouds of the Alps. I relish the sliver of a limbo I’m now living in. I sit with my wet hair in a damp and dreary world that feels as if the mountains are gently wrapping a lacey blanket around my golden body. I listen to a song that takes me to several places all in the same instant: back to late night drives home, back to long flights to the farm, back to café lunches of alligators and discussions of why vegetarians can eat ducks. Despite the fact that I live in worn out jeans, bare feet, and without make-up I feel more beautiful than I have in the entirety of my existence. I know that what others see are not my clothes or well done make-up but my soul shining through my whole body. My heart isn’t visible only on my sleeve but in my eyes and on my lips, I wear it as patches on my ripped jeans and as shoes on my bare feet. I am wholly myself at every moment, and there are times when I have to remember to breathe, remind myself that this life is real, and that the hazy fog that surrounds me at this moment isn’t the rousing of a dreamer whose sleepy world defines my existence. Remind myself that the fairy tale around me is a result of my choices, my struggle, my tears, and my world, which makes it all the more sweet. This world is mine because of love and choice. I’ve chosen to leave those I love to find out what and in some cases who I really love. I’ve chosen this struggle of language, of solitude in the midst of a crowd, of distance, of self reliance, rather that the struggle of obligation, apartment searching, and moving trucks. And these moments where I’m alone but not lonely, sitting safely wrapped in the blankets of clouds, happily looking like some type of street urchin are my reward. Moment of peace I’ve only felt while seated quietly on my Taize cushion while the scent of incense slowly fills my soul now become a common afternoon occurrence.
I no longer feel like I’m struggling against myself: that the distance I’ve put between myself and the entirety of my life to this point has enabled my soul to expand to full capacity, to grow into what it has been attempting for the past several years but was confined to the size of my body. In this moment I feel not as if my soul inhabits my body but rather like my body inhabits my soul.

None of the Above

None of the Above has suddenly become my theme song and I think of those cold winter drives past the Mason Dixon, and I long to head north to an all night restaurant in North Caldonon while I watch you trace my outline in spilled sugar. I remember those nights when we thought it was impossible for us to live without each other and perhaps in that moment it was true. And now? And now you’ve sent me to pick coffee beans in Guatemala and learn to make patatas a la importancia in Spain and maybe you’ve started to trace my outline while drinking coffee that tastes like soap. I try to replace the cold space in my borrowed bed with a perfectly pressed Milanese man, but I felt nothing. My body is warm and tired but my soul is cold. And now matter how much I want not to want you I realize now that maybe I need you. I hope you’re eating dinner with a bunch of the Jews and impress them with the Yiddish I’ve taught you, but are silently weeping inside as you tell the story of how you became a boy with no last name. I hope you pick up a loaf of Challah on Shabbat and think that this loaf could never send a woman into labor. I hope you miss me. Despite my actions to fill your space I hope you haven’t done the same. As selfish as it is I want to know that even in the moments I didn’t miss you, you were drinking an espresso and thinking about the one I was making at that moment. And as much as I hate the thought of a month back in the states I can’t wait to see you again, kiss you at the airport like no one is watching and spend an entire Saturday in bed while Carla Bruni runs on repeat. I want my parallel lives to easily coexist and perhaps one day in the not too distant future they’ll happily merge into one complete existence.

And I live

This sluggish and dry body which has been called by my name is slowly creeping back into life, nursed by rivers of water and a small stream of tea and whisky. I’m once again beginning to inhabit this place not surrounded by the fog of sleep or the need of sleep. The sun has some how roused this life within me and coupled with my new found knowledge of my emotional self I feel content coming to life again in this place. My new home where trees walk, clowns cook with me in the kitchen, and although I spend hours each day trying to explain what I’ve said I feel like I’m perfectly understood. With bruised arms from wrestling with brothers who have been born to mothers thousands of miles from mine, I dance the night away – all of us dressed in togas as we simultaneously mourn the leaving of a friend and celebrate his time with us in this unusual place. Each of us dances abandoning pretence and allowing our souls to mingle together as life swells inside each of our bodies and begins to leak out of our pores. Mosca and mucca flit about in this thin mountain air and quietly mix with the late night laughter expelled with a hint of alcohol on all of our breaths. And with all these bodies the cold night air is suddenly warmed by the love that each of us is filled with for whoever happens to be seated next to you. I can’t wait to share this new existence with the loves of my previous life, show them that my wandering may have been selfish but it is not in vain, let them meet my kindred souls from the world over and smile to myself as I know they try to make sense of my desire to live with the whole world in one house guarded by a gentle French woman, a consistently angry Italian man, and giants who kindly hold us all in the palms of their cracked and rocky hands. Show them the maps I’ve drawn of the life I used to live, let them see that even the darkest night here is filled with the incredibly light of the worlds I pray are even better than the one I now am privileged to live in.

New month...new decisions

August! When did that happen? I feel simultaneously like I’ve been here forever and I’ve only just arrived. I think I’ve officially become a hippie – I now own a pair of Birkenstocks, but only wear them when absolutely necessary, I go a week without wearing make-up, shave only when I can’t stand myself, and sing around a bonfire at least once a week. I must admit it’s quite perfect.
The past few days I’ve been missing Him terribly so last night I decided I was in desperate need of hearing his voice. It may have been the best phone call since I’ve been away. It was so comforting to hear his voice, to tell him about my new life, and hear all of the wonderful things he’s been doing since I’ve left. I asked him to come to Italy in December and he sounded pleased at my request. I wanted to take this trip and say I could choose him or anyone else I wanted and that any relationship I had was a matter choice but now I think perhaps it isn’t a matter of choice but of need. I’ve had other boys since I’ve been here, and shared a bed with one on several occasions, but the reality of the situation was that even in that moment I felt nothing for that man. Perhaps I didn’t miss Him, and maybe I was trying to fulfill some need I thought I had for physical comfort but no one has yet to stir any emotion inside of me. I slept in another man’s bed but could have been sleeping alone, not to say that it didn’t feel good to be wanted and I didn’t enjoy huddling close to another body when I was cold in the evening, but all of it was devoid of emotion. I think in realizing that I need or want Him, whatever the situation may be. I’ve liberated myself emotionally. I’m not longer fighting something or searching for the emotional of physical comfort of another man. I can relax into myself and even though I’m living for a moment months away with a man a world away I feel content. It’s good for me to know that although it’ll be months before I see Him at least the moments I spend with Him will be filled with emotional satisfaction, that I’ll feel something when he touches me other than the warmth of his body slipping into mine. My soul will be warmed in that moment as well. I’ll no longer fight against myself to give of myself to some one who means nothing more to me than anyone else I live with. Although this moment seems light years away it gives me reason to wait knowing that the moment will be worth it. That once again I’ll get to be one of those couples who run to embrace each other at the airport and kiss with a crowd around them like they are alone in the world. I wanted so badly to walk away and say I don’t need any of that but it simply isn’t true. I suppose the answers we find when we are truly looking are not always the ones we expect to find but perhaps this one is one of the most honest – it wasn’t what I was looking for or what I wanted to find, but some how the truth managed to find a way to seep in even in the midst of my desire for something else. Love has certainly found a roundabout way of getting to me, but nonetheless it has found me and its presence is one of the things I am most thankful for in this strange existence I’m proud to call my life.

A year in one place

I’ve been invited to be a resident at Agape for a year…I’ve decided to accept.

On mountain climbing

Yesterday was one of the most beautiful days since I’ve been in Europe. Marcolino, J, Mischa, Guilia, Lucia, and I spent the day hiking in the mountains around Prali. We hiked to the 13 lakes – unfortunately we only made it to the first 5 or 6, but nothing about making it to less than half was disappointing. We stopped at the 2nd lake and ate Panini and fruit. After we stopped for pranzo we climbed around some old building from WWI. I’ve been to Gettysburg, visited war memorials in DC, but this is the first time that I felt connected to anything of the sort. It wasn’t artifice or simulacrum of war, it wasn’t meant to remind you of those who fought and died, it simply was. Left, maybe not forgotten, but no longer there to serve any purpose, just left to the valleys to crumble at will, to have floor that turn to fields, window that were once looked through in fear now serve no purpose other than to let in a view of the border with France. Writings on the walls are now lost to time meaning little to the few who stumble on the buildings other than to remind them that at one point real men huddled together in that place hoping to make it through the day. Now only adventurous hikers set eyes on those ruins and remember the men who once feigned sleep and bravery in that place. After we felt content to leave the memories and barracks to the mountains we climbed further up and spend hours walking along the crest of the mountain. It’s amazing how you can feel so big and so small all in the same moment. You stand on the top of your world at that moment and marvel at the petite existence below you, and in looking out you see the rest of the Alps and recognize your own place in the petite existence. I have conquered the world and shrunk into an insect all in the same moment. On our descent back to the valley we found a great cliff for rock climbing so we all harnessed up and Marcolino gave me my first lesson in rock climbing. How many people can say they learned to rock climb in the Italian Alps?
This moment in my life is so amazing. I’m living in such a strange place – where parties of men dressed in drag and children building hot air balloons all seem part of a normal day, where practicality reigns, and attempting 3 or 4 languages each day is simply par for the course. I think what amazes me most is not the occurrence of such events but the fact that I feel so normal participating in them. That living with people from all over the world, that my dinner table each evening is filled with at least 4 languages, and I live with a Hungarian woman is all so normal…I will never be able to explain this to someone who has yet to experience Agape. Communal living and this strange world I now inhabit. What beauty, what peculiarity, what perfection now surrounds me?

Andiamo o aspeto

Quivering nights and rooftop sunrises. Cold bodies huddled together keeping warm with liters of red wine. Damp days, dry skin, dry eyes, and we don’t kiss good bye as I climb the mountain to my house in the morning. Tonight I learned that my bed is devoid of a soul and surely doesn’t miss me when I leave it alone for nights on end. Tomorrow I speak Spanish with a Moroccan man and feign a Mexican competence with a woman from Spain. I hang wet sheets in the afternoon and think about crawling into his later in the night. And they all know I haven’t slept in the house for days, and quietly whisper questions as to why I know my way around his. No one bothers to ask what’s happened. No one asks questions but everyone already seems to have the answers. I discover the inadequacy of the English language to describe the world around me, and we all make plans to dance naked around the fire as some one plays the drums the next time the sun refuses to shine. We gather up withered bodies as the world around us begins to glow and the moon skulks behind mountain tops, quietly slipping through open windows as 80 useless men sleep below us.
This world is strange and beautiful and I’m happy that it’s mine. I say I don’t believe in fate but sometimes I wonder if I’m telling a lie. Random chance has flung me to the far corners of the earth with people who make me feel more at home, more my self, and more free than the “home” I’ve know my entire life. Random chance has brought us all to this alpine village to take more than we could ever give to each other, but letting each of us leave feeling that if we were anymore full our bodies would no longer be able to contain our souls. Random chance has brought us all here to participate in the creation of God in our service to one another, to celebrate love in every capacity, and to live fully into the freedom that this God has given us. I say I believe only in love and choice but I marvel at the same love and choice that has led me to spending months in Prali with Koreans, Slovaks, Brits, Japanese, French, and other reluctant Americans. I wonder at this love and entertain the idea that maybe this love is larger than just my soul, larger than all the souls around me who have made the same choice. I am in awe of the love that has brough me away from all that I “love” to serve other people. Not to serve “the needy” not to serve “the poor” but serve humanity. To serve it blindly in recognition that each of us should serve another and deserve to be served by those around us, that rich and poor can serve one another and be equally valued in the moment of divine manifestation. My service is no more valuable than another’s and my participation in divine reality is no more impressive than anyone else’s. I believe in love and choice, and weary souls who gladly restore themselves by giving pieces of themselves to the sacred humanity that surrounds them.

Sometimes you get what you want

It’s mid-July and my skin is a sun-kissed gold, my hair has grown longer and it too is changed by the sun. At night when my skin is still damp from nights filled with reggae I let him touch this body which scarcely resembles my own. I let him kiss me, and it feels good, but I never look into his face. Maybe because he’s more afraid of letting someone in than I am. Suddenly I find the scent of cigarettes, campfire, and alcohol more than appealing. I have an urge to be close enough that in the morning my new found golden hair smells of the night before. I want to be let in, but in the same moment let someone in. In this moment we both need each other. I need warm hands on my hip bones in the middle of the night and he needs me to ask “why the distance?”
And at that moment I think about love. I know that I will never love this man. And I know that 3,000 miles away there is a man who pines for me, who spends long afternoons looking at baristas in small artsy glasses and big scarves while thinking about me. At the same moment I’m serving a morning macchiato to the man I sometimes share a bed with – while I wear my small artsy glasses and think about my favorite scarves packed away in boxes just begging to be let out. I try not to think about that boy. I wish I was wearing my favorite green, silk, scarf from Delhi, and I hope that the afternoon will be filled with sun for lazy cat naps. I concentrate on all the Italian words around me and try to will the courage into him to speak to me before he’s had his third pint. I finally have a warm body next to me but sometimes it comes at the price of silence. I decide that maybe the warm body isn’t enough. Perhaps I need a warm heart too – even if I have no intention of loving it any more than I do the rest of this sacred humanity.
I want to cure fear rather than inspire it. I want warm arms around me at this moment, dark eyes peering over my shoulder as I write these lines, and a Milanese accent asking why he can’t read what I’ve written about him. Maybe I would let him see. Maybe he would find courage in these words, find some assurance in my desire to understand another’s humanity, for both of us to find something of ourselves in another person, and know that maybe the gain of allowing someone to glimpse a piece of your soul outweighs the risk of getting hurt. And maybe in trying to teach this lesson I’d be able to learn it myself.
I know I will never love this man, not because he is unworthy of being loved but because he is incapable of being loved. And even with this knowledge I still want him to lead me in a dance to an old Rat Pack song, to invite me back to his bed that is thousands of degrees warmer than mine will ever be, to kiss my stomach as the notes of a smoky jazz singer fill the unavoidable silence. I want him to quietly rouse me as he heads out in the morning. I see only his body in bed next to me and a soul behind looked doors of steel, below the head I lay on his chest. I realize at this moment I’ve gotten exactly what I asked for, but maybe it wasn’t what I needed.

Walk of shame

Well the truth of it seems that I suck at leaving complicated relationships behind me. Spent last night in J’s bed trying to explain that I don’t believe in sex without love. He asked me what I was doing there then. I don’t know…maybe it feels good to be next to somebody, maybe I just like feeling desired, maybe I like having the power to say “No”. I know that I can’t detach emotion from my physical being. I need to be careful about having this fling. I don’t want to end up hurting myself or some one else. I don’t know what I was doing there…Looking for something I don’t know I can find. I thought perhaps I would be able to validate my humanity through some one else. – but I don’t think that’s possible when the connection is only physical. So this morning I got up and made my “walk of shame,” ashamed only of the truths I didn’t tell and the false hope I keep giving that something more may come of this when I know the reality of it is that it won’t.

Some things I'm enjoying at the moment

1. living communally
2. German boys
3. Italian boys
4. dancing at least 3 nights a week
5. foosball
6. morning cappuccinos
7. lovely French girls
8. late afternoon naps
9. being suntanned
10. being barefoot
11. old ripped jeans
12. bread and oil at every meal
13. climbing into bed exhausted at 4am
14. “looking at the stars”
15. scalp massages
16. Pausa
17. Hanging sheets
18. Friday and Saturday night
19. not worrying about tomorrow
20. Reggae music
21. The excitement of people back home when I call
22. Playing gin
23. journaling in the sun
24. working in the kitchen
25. hip bones
26. feeling like I’m normal
27. my ipod
28 being warm
29. fitting in
30. How things happen when you stop trying
31. feeling desired
32. new friends
33. long afternoon breaks in the sun
34. waking up in the mountains
35. living without judgment
36 slumber parties in my room
37 working at the bar
38. conversations where everyone speaks their own language but everyone understands.

MERDE!

No one next to me has turned into too many people trying to be next to me at the same time.

News from home

Finally go to check my e-mail last night. It was wonderful to read all my messages from home…good to know that no one has forgotten me just yet. Got a message from Him. Now I feel like all those things I’d written about not missing Him and being fine here on my own weren’t the whole truth. His message was filled with lovely new from home – Corey’s wedding, how beautiful it was, how much I would have enjoyed it, and how it was like something he would like to have. How much he hates coming home to an empty apartment and how he would rather come home to me instead. I don’t know if it made me miss Him but it certainly shocked me. I need to stop thinking about which warm body I want to entice to be next to me and start thinking more about long term decisions. Do I want Him to come home to me? I don’t know how good of an idea it is for me to come back from a year abroad, having not seen him for months and months, and trying to get really serious in this relationship right away. I’m sure the moment I start to really focus my attention on these big decisions will be the moment when I suddenly have more boys that I know what to do with, that seems to be the story of my life.

On a lighter note I got to talk to Idge last night. It was so good to hear her voice, hear about her summer, E’s baseball, and to tell her about my little alpine village. Unfortunately she sounded so sad as we were getting off the phone. I felt so awful – a little selfish for taking this trip for myself and leaving my baby sister back in the States. I’m sure that these months will fly past and we’ll be sitting together at home before I know it. But right now it doesn’t feel like that at all.

I am

I AM
An artist,
Adventurous,
Barefoot,
Insatiably curious,
A daughter 3 times over, an orphan twice,
Brave,
Independent,
Difficult,
A traveler,
A secret keeper,
Want to be life changer,
Sister,
Observer,
Hungry for more,
A lover without a lover,
Student of life,
Wandering but not lost,
Hopeful,
A believer in the sacredness of humanity,
Alive but also living,
quasi-bohemian,
reluctantly American,
citizen of the world,
alone but not lonely,
warm hearted,
big souled,
often confused,
an idealist,
trying to be better than I am,
always changing,
lover of broken things,
hiker,
singer,
cat napper,
impulsive,
over analyzer,
full of contradictions,
a river,
constantly finding parts of me that I didn’t know existed,
unfortunately often intimidating,
sun worshiper,
daughter of the universe,
lover of worn out jeans,
author,
living for the future,
trying to be present,
caught up in the clouds,

Meag

Cold nights

Still no warm body next to me at night and I've started to do some serious thinking about Him...no conclusions yet. If I can leave for this long and not really miss Him maybe that should tell me a few things. I do feel bad about not having checked my e-mail in a couple weeks to see if He's written, but more because I don't want to hurt Him rather than the fact that I really miss Him. I suppose I've only been gone for 3 weeks so all of this could change in time. I think that right now I miss the physical comfort of that relationship. I miss the idea of having some one at home waiting for me, but I think that that also would change if I started a bit of a summer fling with some one here. I feel like a bit of a school girl trying to hedge my bets...who knows. I want to be more self sufficient when it comes to things like this, not to need someone to comfort or validate me. I don't want to go home and make things permanent with Him because I need to be in close proximity to another human body. I want to do it because I love Him, but at this moment I think that any relationship I have will be based on my need for a warm body and not genuine emotions. Knowing that makes it difficult to treat some one as an ends in themself and not just a means to an ends.

I want to feel like that incredibly self assured woman I was in Guatemala, but it's proving much more difficult than I had imagined when I left. I thought I would leave home, come to Europe, and easily grow into that woman. But I just don't feel like that's happening at all. Instead I'm feeling more and more awkward in my skin and finding it difficult to express myself or generate conversation with some people. Perhaps it's because I'm not sure I'll come across as the woman I want to be. I'm afraid that instead of the intriguing, wandering soul I'll come across as merely average and trying to be something that I'm not. Since The Kate has written me that lovely e-mail about really revealing myself to some one I've been trying quite hard to attempt to let people in, but instead I think my consiousness has made it nearly impossible for me to show people the public or private version of myself. I find myself caught in a strange limbo where nothing that I show anyone seems true, this distorted public image, that is quite differient from the one I usually display, and I can't seem to let anyone into the core of my being either. Such an inability make me very unsure of what that core really consists of. I suppose only more time will tell. I think part of what I'm lacking is I've yet to have a meaningful converation with anyone, the kind that start when you're the only two people left at the bonfire or the ones that start right before you plan to go to bed but instead spend another 3 hours solving the problems of the world. I think one of those conversations would do some good for my soul, hopefully in the near future one of those will happen. I suppose until then I'll keep tring to find the space I fit into, not at Agape, but rather on the whole. How I can have enough faith in humanity to let people into my soul without worrying about the possibility of pain or rejection, just letting the world see me for me and let the consequences fall where they will. So much work to do on myself, I feel like I'm going backwards instead of forwards but I suppose self recognition is the first step in understanding myself and becoming who I want to be.

Some things I've learned

A list of things I've learned thus far

1. How to make patatas a la importancia
2. A glass or two or three or four of wine with dinner is a good thing
3. Giddy does not mean a happy young girl in Spain...not something I want to be
4. Friendship comes from some of the most unexpected places
5. The kindness and good will of humanity never ceases to surprise me
6. pomadore = tomato
7. framagio = cheese
8. I still hate wearing shoes
9. a whole new meaning for pinocchio
10. I still have an intense desire to be wanted
11. I still love a good chase
12. Fooseball is an invaluable skill I have yet to master
13. How to abandon pretense
14. No matter how far away I am from those I love there is no substitute for exploration of the world and yourself
15. I need a human body next to me
16. How to make polenta
17. Being open to letting people redeem themselves usually yeilds good results
18. There is no substitute for a life well lived
19. What it feels like to be utterly alone
20. How good it feels to know that no matter what happens I'll be able to make a home for myself.

On wholeness

"Pleasure is the absense of suffering"

I have an intense desire to be wholly in this place -- disconnected from friends and family. The ability to drift into a lifestyle where ever I am frightens me a bit. Everything I "truly love" is thousands of miles away and I sit happily in my tiny alpine village - just me, the mountains and a desire to sort out my soul. I just want to live...simply live. I have this magnificant education and I'm happier working in a kitchen and spending lazy afternoons surrounded by the giants of the earth than I ever was working on any research or project. I want to discuss lofty ideas, muse about love, and choice, and freedon, but live away from the majority of the world. I know this year was supposed to be an experiment in simply living, finding out what I truly need and I find myself looking around trying to find some one to share it with. I hate feeling like I'm no good on my own. I like to have a warm body against mine and I hate the fact that at this moment I have little regard for whose body it is. I need the touch of another human being to validate my own humanity in some way. Maybe the lesson I need to learn this year is not about simple living but more about a new type of self reliance. That no matter how much I desire another body the validation of my humanity and choices have to come from myself. I just hope that sometime in the near future I start to feel that way, rather than simply saying it. Soon, soon...I will settle into my own skin and this silly desire for a warm body will either be satisfied or disappear.

Only present

"Maybe this...the man hunched over the motorcycle can focus only on the present instant of his flight; he is caught in a fragment of time cut off from both the past and futures; he is stretched from the continuity of time; in other words he is in a state of ecstasy...he has no fear, because the source of fear is in the future, and a person freed of time has nothing to fear" -- Milan Kundera Slowness

This is my life at this moment, I know I'm at Agape for the next 2 months, I'm taken care of in all my physical needs and I have no worries about the future. It's not quite as life altering as picking coffee beans in Guatemala yet, but that's okay, it has potential. It's good practice for living in the moment, because at this moment I have no future -- tomorrow means no more than today or yesterday. The following days will be the same as today, and in alot of ways that's okay. It keeps me concerned about things other than the crazy boys at home, whether or not I'll take the job with Lance, and if I should be going to grad school.
It's good practice to focus on letting people into the core of who I am -- and deciding who that will be. It seems a little silly to be thinking about deciding who my true self will be. One would think that if it was truly the essense of who I am it would just emerge without a decision. I suppose I need to just sit quietly and be, and what falls away falls away, and whatever is left will stay. Now if I can just manage to sit and be quiet.

Words of wisdom

"People like it when you tell them things, in suitable portions, in a modest, intimate tone, and they think they know you, but they do not, they know about you, for what they are let in on are facts, not feelings, not what your opinion is about anything at all, not how what has happened to you and how all the decisions you have made have turned you into who you are. What they do is they fill in with their own feelings and opinions and assumptions, and they compose a new life which has precious little to do with yours, and that lets you off the hook. No-one can touch you unless you yourself want them to. You only have to be polite and smile and keep paranoid thoughts at bay, because they will talk about you no matter how much you squirm, it is inevitable, and you would do the same thing yourself."

Words of wisdom come from some of the most unlikely places. Last night I got an e-mail from The Kate that was the most kind and beautiful way of forcing me to face a difficult reality about myself. She told me she'd been doing some reading and realized that although the political science widows chat about all the aspects of our lives and we've spent alot of time together she realized she doesn't feel as if she knows me at all. She knows the public image of me, who I want the world to see me as, the things I have done and decisions I have made but not all of the emotions or contradictions and internal conflicts that have led me to the life I now lead...and it's true.

I have a carefully crafted idea of how I want people to perceive me, I want to be the thoughtful, open woman who has waters that run so deep everyone is intrigued but few people are willing to explore the abyss; that I am different than the woman the world expects a 22 year old American girl to be. But at this moment I don't know if I'm truly that woman. I suppose the question is not whether or not I am that woman but rather why I want to keep most people standing on the edge of the ocean instead of inviting them into the water. Getting hurt is possible, I suppose, but I wonder what it feels like to really let some on in. How do you feel when you can be absolutely bare with some one. When will I be able to strip away the pieces of that publice image for some one? This isn't to say that no one really knows me. Sure there are friends who have known me my entire life but there are still pieces of me that are hidden away, all of my intense pain or desires that may not fit into the strong woman image I want people to see. Hopefully somewhere along this trip I'll begin to be able to let a person into the core of my being. A life long work that will have to begin here.

Finally leaving

All of those months of prep work, a month at home living like today would never come, and part of me is wishing I could forever live in that beautiful limbo. But finally I am here, just me and me: one girl, one bag, one year and endless possibilites. Leaving is always so hard. This is by far the most diffiuclt it has ever been. No person waiting joyfully for me at the other end of my journey, no one putting months into showing me their world. Just me, a world full of people back home who miss me intensley and a heart and head full of questions that I hope this time will answer. I just have to keep telling myself that all the sadness I caused at leaving will be drowned out on my return and that I will be the better for having taken this trip. I know I will be forever changed and that this is a journey my soul needs to take -- my body just has to come along for the ride. I keep faith that as my pack grows lighter with the casting off of worn out clothes and old shampoo bottles so will my soul as it throws away unnecessary burdens and decisions become clearer, more concise. I'll be casting off emotional burdens I've been carting around for far too long. This trip will be a course in taking my own advice: that no person should be given the power to take my joy, that life is better lived learning from mistakes rather than living in regreats, and that at the end of the day my life is about the choices I make. My soul will be renewed, my body beaten and tired, but at the end of the day it will be mine and I will be happy to live in it.