Stardust (words for the people I have met)

Anything I say will barely hold a candle to the light that has glowed upon me during my travels. I must try, though, so here is the shard of mirror that I hold up to their lamps (thanks to M.H. Abrams for the metaphor)

Writing this post poses dilemmas, since I feel bound to protect the identities of all of these people just as much as I do my own. Additionally, I have not asked anyone if I can write about them, so rather than composing detailed profiles, I am going to follow the metaphor of stardust and scatter glimmers instead.

Hopefully this honors all of them in some, small way.

I fall a little bit in love, everywhere that I go, or “A, you ignorant slut!*”: dirty, orchaostral Roma, Part II 6/12 to 6/17

[note - title originally read 6/17 to 6/22, I corrected this to 6/12 to 6/17]

*credit to Saturday Night Live, USA TV show, for the modified quote

I fall a little bit in love, everywhere that I go. It has happened on this trip, on past trips, on trips to the grocery store, on trips down the hall from an office to a photocopy machine, probably even while I was tripping over my own feet (love has that catastrophic quality to it). I have loved so many people that I may be the Wilt Chamberlain of platonic love.

This certainly does not mean that I love people in a strictly platonic way. Oh, no, no, no. And I should not be embarrassed by what I feel, or by what I do, in any of its forms (with the one caveat that I wish to be compassionate and respectful, never careless or hurtful of others, as I love). I should not be embarrassed, apologetic, or defensive about this. It is good and natural to love.

Dusty feet, dirty streets, redolent heaps of interstellar life: orchaostral Roma, Part I (dates fixed - 6/12 to 6/17)

[note - title originally read 6/22 to 6/27, I corrected this to 6/12 to 6/17]

When I arrived to my short-term home, I was greeted by a shout. Looking up, I spied my smiling host, peeking out of a first [second] story window and raising a hand to greet me. Gestured directions took me around a corner to the entrance, where I waited while her quick, muffled footsteps descended unseen stairs. The large, wooden door before me opened, she appeared in that dark, cool portal out of the bubbling soup of a summer afternoon, and she welcomed me in. My Roma host showed me the basics of her home and asked if I needed a shower. I did, and when I emerged, she invited me to join her for dinner and conversation.

I have encountered so many irrepressible, generous people in Italy. If behavior and body language tell the true story, then they love life, they move eagerly to find and fulfill themselves, they embrace the gift of presence and company that other people may provide. Those whom I have been blessed to meet are relentlessly curious beings, gleaming with facets and always carving new ones - they pursue wisdom about people, language, art, science, travel, and so many other things. Finally and significantly, they love to share - not just materially, but of their time, beliefs and physical space.

Backtracking to Firenze - Museo Galileo, Uffizi, the Arno

Firenze has art, science, and the same sort of mind-blowing churches that every major city in Italy boasts. Firenze also has the Arno river, and amazing sunsets.

I already talked a bit about what I did not like about Firenze, so I want to balance that out, starting with the Museo Galileo.

Wonder, investigation, invention. Fortitude and sacrilege, purity of purpose and commercial cynicism. Artistry and calculation.

The world we inhabit contains world after world - some which we discover, some which we create, some into which we step intentionally and some which can only be accessed by tripping and falling on our faces into a fragrant flowerbed of discovery. All of the worlds pollinate one another. Science is one such world (which of course contains yet more worlds), toiling in the fields to reap knowledge of those connective tendrils - or scattering careless seeds from which future fruit may grow and be discovered.

Can I, or May I? The Grammar of Desire, What is Taken for Granted, and the Self as Site of Discipline and Terror

The child asks, “Can I go to the bathroom?”

The adult responds, “I don’t know, can you?”

When I was young, I and almost everyone I knew was confronted by this challenge. We had already learned the lesson about gatekeeping: that in many cases, one did not simply address a need. Instead, one sought the blessing of whomever, at the moment, possessed control of our bodies and who decided whether it was permissible to address that need.

Now, we were surprised by a higher-order puzzle. We sensed, even in our unsophisticated state, that this was a cheap shot, but that didn’t matter. Our duty had compounded: where before we had to run our needs up a chain of command, and not-infrequently actively suppress those needs, we now had to solve riddles. What response would satisfy the Sphinx who guarded the holy gate to the toilet?

Blog To-Do List, in honor of reaching the one-month mark - edit 2017/07/05 - to-do list done!

Edit 2017/07/05 - all done!

Much more has happened than has been written about. Here, then, is my short list of things I plan to expand upon here:

1. Write a little bit about Firenze, because I did enjoy its stunning sunsets and some of the art I found in the Uffizi. I also want to post a few cool pictures from Museo Galileo.
2. Extol the many virtues of Roma (as well as the virtues of its neighbor, Tivoli) at length, and chronicle my long-overdue victory over restaurant food. For now: wow.
3. Praise Napoli, which is one of my favorite cities I have visited so far. I had an idea about calling Roma dirty in order to rescue, to redeem the notion of dirty, but Napoli has Roma pretty well beaten when it comes to making a mess. I will have to rethink that idea. Maybe I can still call Roma dirty (remember, I mean this as a good thing - a great thing) if I focus my Napoli writing around its subterranean qualities.
4. Deliver another semi-philosophical, semi-psychological essay, which has been stewing for about a week and which I will cross of this list first.
5. Write some anonymous or composite profiles of people whom I have met, which I have been wanting to do since the first week.

By the way: holy cow, I have been traveling for a month.

Hey, what happened to the virtual tours?

Tonight I reread some of my older posts, and realized that I started this blog with fairly detailed descriptions of cities and locations, and in the last week or so have shifted almost completely to impressionistic psychoanalysis, or something like it.

I hope this doesn’t too badly disappoint anyone who wanted a written travel show. I have the ability, from time to time, to deliver that sort of experience, but it seems my energy lies in another direction.

Cinque Terre has some stuff to say

So I will let it speak for itself [editor's note: this hike was split between two days].

On trail from Levanto to Monterosso - view north of Levanto

Travel Thought Tesserae

Tile One

I keep having to remind myself (or on blessed occasions serendipity reminds me, sparing me the chore): I am in Italy. Down into the dungeon anxiety, a nebulous sense of duty, fears about money and diet and the mechanics of life drag me. When I am swallowed by earth and stone and complaining flesh, out of the light, I know nothing, I sense nothing, I am reduced to calculations. How much? How soon? How, period?

Beneath the earth, I am nowhere. There is only one place and it is terrible - fluster-feathered, oily, damp-fattened ledgers, gangrenous page upon page of tallies, delinquencies, bills and remittances.

I loathe these books' red, subterranean spines and the creeping tendrils they send coiling up into the light to grip and crease and twist everything I am above. May I sever the vines of necessity? Math and chemistry, physics and biology, allergies and language barriers and finances - disciplines which may delight and divert but which also fascinate, transfix, entrap. How can I turn these instruments to my own devices, instead of always being their device?

In praise of Milano, profound serendipity, and beautiful souls

Close readers will notice that the other day, I mentioned that there were “a couple” bad reasons that I hadn’t blogged for a week, but I only spoke about one.

The other reason my heart hasn’t been in blogging (although I have sustained my private, meatspace journal) has been a bit of - what do they call it again - homesickness? Now here is a feeling that I don’t encounter very often.

Going back to when I boarded my flight to Milano, I remember my body panicking just a little bit. “You’re going the wrong way,” it whispered as it tugged on my sleeve. “Didn’t we do enough?” now tugging on both sleeves, “I’m exhausted! Take me home!” just about yanking my shirt off.

Home? How strange - for years and years I have looked for home, and now, after two weeks in a foreign country, some part of me wants to return to what is familiar. I suppose in a sense that this is all it takes to make a home: familiarity, routine. But there is more: I want to see the town where I live again (however much its inhabitants irritate me). I want to see my friends again. I want to present a richer feast of experiences for them to dine on.

Initial Thoughts on Italy

I am surprised by the fact that I saw more of the Romans in Spain than I have so far in Italy. Then again, I have only been here 6 days, and at the 6 day mark in Spain I had only visited Madrid, where I visited exclusively Spanish and Moorish locations. Also, I had more time to plan for Spain, and now I am flying a little more completely by the seat of my pants. I attempt, with a level of success that is probably (and helpfully) impossible to measure, to plan as I go, picking destinations on gut impulse from a guide and from the armfuls of recommendations that always-helpful, always-informed hosts provide.

I'm still here (and there)! But...where am I, and am I connected to you?

Have I mentioned how difficult it has proven to regularly chronicle my journey here? Reasons have varied. Here is my favorite: my ratio of living to reflecting biases itself heavily toward living lately, and I do not regret that this eats into my navel-gazing time (I had this thought on 5/30).


Here are a couple of other, less-favored reasons for my dearth of posts in the last week

Last night in Spain

I'm slowly processing the fact that this is my last night in España! I am already thinking about how to make another visit in the future (also, deseo a aprender mas Español to make my next visit more enriching...my grammar is probably off with the verbs, there).

For the last three days I have been in Barcelona. After cities like Sevilla, Córdoba, y Granada, this has definitely been a sensory shift. Barcelona is very modern, very urban. It seems a little...busier? More no-nonsense? Definitely much noisier. It is nice in its own way, but I think my affection is stronger for the other cities I visited.

Tomorrow, I depart for Milan and begin the next phase of my adventure. Here, I really go out on a limb because I know exactly two words of Italian (ciao and grazi). The language barrier is about to get a bit thicker. However, I am eager to learn and discover.

Milan, Italy's center of business and fashion, does not particularly interest me in its own right. I mean, it does host Da Vinci's The Last Supper, but it appears to cost 25-30 Euro to look at for 20 minutes. No, my main interest in Milan is its proximity to the Lakes, and in particular Lago Maggiore and Lago Como (I think I am more drawn to Maggiore because my guidebook doesn't shut up about how much George Clooney likes Lago Como. I mean, I like George Clooney but heaven help me if I visit a place just because actors like it).

As I bid España farewell for now, I reflect on all the lovely people who have hosted me. I will need to make time to do some anonymized personal profiles, because these intimate meetings have been a very special part of the experience so far.

For now, I bid you all good night (or, well, happy afternoon, maybe).