A Painting, a Whale, Spillage of Water

Three souvenirs from Italy: some salmon shorts, a pizza magnet, and a little painting from a street vendor in Florence. I have been very troubled in the past couple weeks because the painting is missing. I have no clue where it went. It was wrapped in brown paper. I am fairly certain I took it home from Europe, but then I schlepped things across the country, around the midwest, made trash piles, etc. I kept thinking the painting would pop up in some box, but now I've gone through everything in the apartment, and it's not here. I think it's a goner.

The painting was 20ish euros, which isn't a huge sum, but also isn't money I feel good about throwing away. I don't remember what the image was--just that I really loved it (enough to say "let me hang this in my new home!"). I'm not sure why this is making me so sad. Sometimes I go through my shoe boxes one more time in a frenzy. Eventually I make some kind of reasonable speech to myself about how I have a lot of lovely art in my home, and I really didn't NEED that painting. The pizza magnet is on the fridge. Am I being serious right now? I went to Italy, and I mourn some tiny art that is of basically no value to anyone else.

I'm sure you (whoever you are) can't really commiserate with me. There are far worse problems. More importantly, there are far better, more wonderful things to think about. I'm a person who tries to keep my possessions limited, and I still have a lot of things. Things I love a lot. Things I would be sad to lose. Although, eventually I will lose them all because you can't take it with you. Just as energy is transferred at lower and lower rates from grains to cows to humans, so is sentimentality. I could give that painting away, but it will never mean half as much to that soul as it did to me. So actually I'm just cutting to the chase. Nothing you can own is ever that important. The less stuff that is running your emotions, the better. I know this. I know this.

I am reminded of a small purple polka-dotted whale I lost as a child. I had brought it down to a hotel swimming pool on some trip. I left it by the edge of the water. The next morning I went to retrieve it, and it was gone. I really liked that whale, and I think I cried about losing it. I had earned it with tickets at Chuckie Cheese's. I missed Jelly (his name) for days. My mom told me she heard some people in the hotel were staying there because their house had been in a fire. Maybe the children who ended up with my whale had recently lost their toys. This didn't really comfort me because I still considered grabbing an abandoned whale theft. If someone had stolen the whale from my hands, I doubt the experience would have stuck with me. It is the burden of guilt that stays so permanent in my mind. If I had just taken better care of what I care for, it could be with me now. This painting experience smacks of the same melancholy.

I told Bisque this morning I hate that stupid painting for ever even entering my life. He thoughtfully pulled up a photo of us from Florence. That was comforting. Even if the photos were destroyed, nothing could erase my memory of those tan roofs.

The spring musical my freshman year of college opened right around my birthday. The cast celebrated by all wishing me a happy day during mic checks. One of my new pals secretly had the entire cast sign a card for me. 40 names and messages in that card! I was so touched. That night I knocked the vase holding flowers off my desk. The card was drenched. I was crushed. And then! The friend who had been with me when I ruined my gift called every person in the cast individually and got them to resign a new card. It is still one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me, and it wouldn't have happened if I hadn't been so clumsy.

Some days I really think I could get rid of everything. I really think so. Others days I am not so sure.

Italy: Part Four Point Five

The amount of time you have in a place is usually the amount of time you need. Over our final dinner in Rome, which, by the way, could not get more Italian (see photo), we reflected on what we might change.

Checkered tablecloth, vino, red sauce, bottled water.

Because earlier that afternoon we had made our way off the beaten track to find a pizza place only locals went to and enjoyed the feel of real city--not tourist explosion--I wished we had done something similar in Florence. On our way back into the city hub we passed Romans buying shoes off sidewalk tables, and I ate a rose gelato.

The best mushroom pizza ever.

My other regrets were a contemporary art museum in Venice (I had plumb forgot on our one short day) and not noticing our hotel in Rome was adjacent to an excellent-looking bakery until we were walking to dinner and it was closed. Three minor regrets? Overall, we killed it.

Hotel breakfast.

The Vatican was expensive, but now I've seen the Sistine Chapel. It looks like the pictures though. Not sure if that makes it more or less important to see. We also accidentally planned our visit for Wednesday morning mass. No wonder there were so many people milling around the piazza! I've now seen the pope.

Pope, yo.

Borghese Gallery was the best way to spend our last afternoon. If you don't know, the Borghese is all about making connections from various aesthetics and time periods to conformed ideas. While Renaissance art isn't necessarily my jam, the nectar of inference is. Fitting for a big trip. When we return to where we're from, our biggest baggage are the connections we carry.

Me as an extra in a Wes Anderson film set in Borghese Gardens.

We woke up at 6 to offer plenty of time for an 11 AM flight, but once we were ready we were alerted via email the flight had been bumped two hours later. "You know what this means," said Bisque. And of course he meant that regret bakery would be open! We bought a tiny apple pastry, a napoleon, and a ricotta fluff. Coupled with the light Italian breakfast we always had at hotels and the copious orange juice I drank on the plane, it was a sugary trip back to Arizona. I was ready.

Ciao, Italia!

It's easier to be Puff, but it's harder to be Sean.

Italy: Part Four

The coolest thing about Rome is also what makes it one of the hardest places to travel: there's just cool ancient junk everywhere. It's exciting at first like, "Oh my. What is that huge marble thing! Let us take photographs and reference the guidebook!" But after half a day you're like, "Yeah, yeah, I know. Some important dirt clods." It's tiring really. There's a disease I began to catch called "over-taking-things-in."

That said, I enjoyed eating sweet bread in the shade a stone's throw away from where Cesar's house once stood. "He walked this road," Bisque said. "He probably ate his lunch here once or twice." It was exciting and the smallest bit heart-breaking to see directly into the Coliseum ground level. All those scared little gladiators. We made a lot of Russel Crowe jokes.

The catacombs were cold and creepy. The best was getting out into the country. The greens and the white flowers that bloomed everywhere. The same petals that fell in my childhood backyard. I hadn't smelled them since, and I pressed my face to the plants as we walked to bus stops.

Gelatos, The Spanish Steps. Allegedly romantic but bunkered with annoying peddlers. A good view. A good view. Goodnight, Rome.

Italian Birthday

Hoisted our duffels and made our way (regretfully) trainward ho. Goodbye, Cinque. I stopped in the teeny market for a little block of Parmesan and some native sweet bread. Four hour trip to Rome requires snacks.

We had a two hour delay in a quaint station with nothing but a trashy gift shop and a McDonalds. We decided to enjoy a couple lattes and were delighted by the assortment of pastries McDs had. I ate a super flaky, dusted with powdered sugar, ricotta cheese poof. Quite honestly it was the best breakfast I had all trip. If a year ago you would have told me my birthday breakfast would be from Ronald himself I would have probably assumed my life somehow unraveled to disastrous shambles and not that I would actually be very satisfied.

The weather was perfect. Creamy clouds and faint smells of countryside. On the train I planned to read more of A Room with a View, but we ended up in the most serendipitous of cars! Six little seats filled by three couples in their twenties from the US, Austrailia, and India. We spent the entire time asking each other questions about our cultures, comparing, contrasting, commenting on what we'd seen of Italy so far. I still can't get over this really. It seemed almost planned, but it was just the luck of the 19 Mag!

We decided to cab to our hotel in Rome to avoid pickpockets and a transportation headache after a longish trip. It was cheaper than we expected and much appreciated. I opened my window as the new city air whipped in.

For dinner we found a little checked-tablecloths and all pizza place. My main request was to have two gelato for dessert. The night was young. We visited The Pantheon, people watched for hours with gelato number one (chocolate orange) in hand.

We watched a street clown for a bit and headed to Trevi Fountain. Stayed on a bench from early dusk until it was completely lit watching couples kissing and large groups tossing coins behind them.

I chose a delightful lemon gelato two, Bisque made good on his promise for a backrub and we planned our very busy marrow. I reflected on the year as I drifted to sleep.

Italy: Part Three Point Five

Donned my new polka-dot suit. AM ferry to village four. Onion foccasia. Bisque saw the boat from afar, said, "We will be on the top level." As in, "We will fight anyone to the death if they try to take the unadulterated sunshine and ship breeze from us."

At Monterossa we had panna cotta cones and shuffled to the beach. We set a fifteen minute timer for Bisque's lily white skin, but he still came out pink.

The ocean was very cold. We waffled about how far we'd wade in, but finally I dunked  and never looked back. Every time I've gone to the ocean I waffle and then dunk and never regret it.

"My brain's a raisin," my lobster guy said re: the tired conversations we were having. Sunsleepy. We had dinner at the same little place. A cheese plate and followed it with real ciocollatta and cream. I ate a dang biscotti, which I had been clamoring about since arriving in Venice.

Italy: Part Three

This was the Italy I imagined. The vines of tiny green grapes wrapping up the hillside. The dark swimming hole. Cemetary perch.

We had our "Big Nice Meal" in the nicest spot our guidebook recommended. Reservations are "a must" we read. Our little host greeted us with vigor and shots of lemonchello. We asked about dining tonight at the top of the hill. He was on the phone in a flash. "9 PM balcony? He is my friend." I wore my new cream dress.

We were seated just after sunset, when the ocean glowed pink. Bread and cuttlefish ink pasta and fresh anchovies, mozzarella prawn, calamari, sweet onion tuna--all in tiny boats, bite-sized and increasingly divine. I drank a vanilla tea and we shared a tiramisu. Bisque left for the bathroom, and I sat, as I now often do with no cell service, quietly enjoying my loneliness.

When he came back he asked me what time I thought it was. I didn't know. But, my, was it dark. "Eleven," he said. I asked for a second dessert--a chocolate almond cake--and we made it home close to midnight.

Just Rosy

More updates to come, but for now, this snap of a moment on the vineyard trail of Manorola.

Italy: Part Two

Uffizzi was probably a couple of the worst hours of my life. Menstural cramps hit hard and I was like "Venus? That's cool, but I think I might scream and/or rip out my own womb and fling it onto this Michaelangelo real quick." I felt bad for hustling Bisque through, but later we discovered he doesn't enjoy lingering in galleries anyway. Actually, the whole ovary explosion was probably a benefit for him as I would usually have been diddling around the plaques and leaving him bored at the end of every hall.

I spent most of the day crying or trying not to cry because I was emotional about basically everything from the street violinist playing Cats (interestingly enough I was not moved by "Memory" but more enraged that people internationally still love Cats when it's really just fine.) to extreme sadness that we had little slabs of only mediocre pizza for dinner and never took a bus anywhere and I saw a hurt pigeon outside the Museum of Modern Art and why didn't Bisque hold my hand through that crowded sidewalk?

David was impressive, sure. We saw some neat crypts. Churches that are so incredible you start to walk into rooms with only one phenomenal piece of stained glass and think, "Pfft. People are supposed to pray in this dungbox?"

Florence was good to me in that it stayed cloudy while we walked everywhere and I had this surprise fantastic Parmesan gnocchi for lunch. But, sigh, you can take the girl out of the Midwestern May, but you can't take a Midwestern May out of the girl. Mainly I was ready for Friday to end.

Luckily it did. And when I awoke our breakfast in bed of coffee and croissant included a small berry muffin. We had one item on our itinerary before the train. We climbed the Duomo. The sun burst in through the patches of concrete in the steep steps. The top was real Italy like you see in books. I felt my smile pump back into my face.

It was a joyful day of transit thanks to Bisque's navigational skills and the vending machine milk bars.

I listened to Light in the Piatzza while he slept. We arrived in Cinque Terre, literally breathtaking. Welcome to Leg Three.

Italy: Part One

This gull sat on top if St. Mark's square like it owned the place. It doesn't even know who St. Mark was. (Neither do I.)

Nevertheless, on an evening stroll in this same square, we heard a gorgeous orchestra version of "My Heart Will Go On." That morning we tried to have coffee in the first cafe it was sold in Italy. It was a 12 euro fee to sit. I ate a small flower-shaped cookie on the sidewalk and we had lattes around the corner. We caught a boat to the cemetery island to see Stravinsky's grave. Men with roses shove them aggressively at you. I tried very hard to learn the phrase for "I would like" but it escapes me always, so "please" has to do.