Out of Body Experience

This afternoon it came to me.

For quite some time I had been trying to remember her name. I knew her first name – remembered it fortunately as we met coincidentally at Starbucks some months ago – but I couldn’t call to mind her last name. Clearly, I’ve had other concerns since the time I saw her grabbing coffee in the epicenter of our small town last summer, and so recalling her title was continually pushed back to make way for more pressing life issues. But sitting in my room today (in a spot that seems to be suited well for revelations) it came to me.

I looked her up on Facebook. 24 mutual friends, that’s gotta be her, right? I remembered her mentioning CMU and I saw FHS class of 08, so I clicked the “request friend” button and awaited my confirmation. Upon returning home from dinner, I found an email in my inbox notifying me I had been accepted as a non-preditor, and from there I did what any self-respecting non-preditorial individual would do – I stalked her from a respectful distance.

I read through her activities, interests, and other vitals first. As she cited writing and scrapbooking, and embraced a healthy love for Sex and the City, I found myself smiling. I remembered, I thought, that she was the president of the Student Council, and her mega-watt smile staring back at me seemed to silently confirm. Undying devotion to her darling rebel – her sweetheart with a healthy dose of defiance – seeped out of the page from wall posts and her relationship status.

I recall her most vividly as a Freshman, and from the moment I met her, I adored her. She sparkled with a natural energy, and her mind was as quick and sharp as her smile was charming. She wore a lot of black then as she was tying up the loose ends of a pubescent punk stage, but unlike the other punks she embraced the Stu-Co (student council, yes we thought we were that cool) culture of clean-cut WASPy fun. Still, unlike some of our fair-skinned friends, you could see the depth of her still waters shining brighter than any Tiffany that may have adorned her neck.

I decided then to flip through the photos of her, and as I did I found myself experiencing the strangest feelings of surrealism. She was sandwiched in between groups of girls, or holding signs displaying undying High School pride, or making funny faces in all the local restaurants. The one that really got me was of her in Charlie’s basement. He was a friend of mine – through my own darling rebel – and I would recognize those maroon walls anywhere. His sister, whose elfin figure was a constant source of teasing in my day, was in the picture (playing host) and four other fresh-faced girls held pool cues and were captioned by the words “Its weird to think about what your life would be like if you never met the people who changed it.”

There she was, with her bumper-stickers about love and girls standing on their tiptoes, hair straigh and make-up thick, smile shining with such a beautiful innocence. I’d always liked her partially because I saw so much potential in her youthful self and partially because I saw so much of myself there too. It became even more poignant today as I felt as though I was looking at my former self in pictures of her. Remembering that girl who loved a boy with everything she had because she had everything to give. The girl whose smile sparkled with childish innocence and lit up a room with genuine energy. Whose eyes were bright and hair was blonde and figure was slim and clothes were smart but young.

Lately I’ve been thinking about the past – burying things that have been long gone, and realizing how much, in aging, I need the things that I knew when I was young. Learning the difference between irreconcilable and irrevocable, and how important both of those words are to my existence. Redefining the place of things and people in my life, and realizing how my past life and self fits into the person I am now. Learning to look back at that girl – with the fresh face and bright eyes – and to see how she is, even then, the woman she will someday become.

“Growing up is never easy.  You hold on to things that were.  You wonder what’s to come.  But that night, I think we knew it was time to let go of what had been, and look ahead to what would be.  Other Days. New Days.  Days to come.  The thing is, we didn’t have to hate eachother for getting older.  We just had to forgive ourselves…for growing up.”  – The Wonder Years

yours.Rachel

Consider this me holding myself accountable

Summer “I will do” list:

DEMF.

Play in the clay once more at the Warren Dunes

Go to the beach at least once a month

Straighten my hair, and wear eyeliner consistently

Take a trip to Cedar Point

Eat outside on the patio as much as possible

Actually cook meals

Bring Beth Lucey to a Tiger’s game

Enjoy and take advantage of my ability to eat Ethnic Food

Go camping with my father (yes you read that correctly)

Send letters and cards to my loves far from home

BAKE!

Spend time actually hanging out with my really awesome biological sister

Have a summery slutnic complete with party dresses and beautifully prepared food

Go on a diet. A healthy one, with good food, a good workout routine, and great results

Visit with my Grandparents

come to terms with the fact that people my age are actually getting married

also, work on coming to terms with that “death” thing

Save most of the money I earn while working this summer

Work my ass off, getting excited and not jaded

One last trip to Chautauqua with my family

New York in August?

As soon as my internship is over, highlight my hair pink.

And beyond?

a road trip out West. I am going, and nothing is going to stop me.

yours.Rachel

this should be a paper about women in antiquity

according to my blog statistics page, the search terms “my life is useless” led to my site – twice. Boy, that’s a feel-good-thought.

I’ve been nagged to write, and a part of me feels the desire to do so, but unfortunately the section of my brain that builds poetry and profound thoughts doesn’t seem to be on board with this plan. In a time so epic as this, shouldn’t my head be filled with thoughts and feelings begging to be penned and typed as a sort-of cathartic release or enlightening exercise in closure? Perhaps, but the only part of me that has ever been predictable is my defiance of the logical and expected.

Perhaps I’m stuck. Not in a sophomoric way, or even in a month-ago-obsession-with-crackers-and-olives-way, rather floating along and moving not but for the gentle tide pushing me slowly toward the shore. The end is coming, as is the beginning. Soon this journey over the ocean will come to an end, taking with it the violent storms and glassy-turquoise water. When my feet hit the sand it will be a new world – climbing trees and hanging from them, balancing a “grown-up” life with a summer of child-like adventures. I can see this sandy beach off in the distance, but no amount of paddling or anchoring will speed or slow my journey. And I’m not sure I want it to.

As I rode the train through the Italian country-side coming home from the beach the other day, I saw rolling hills and fields of yellow flowers glide gently by. Watching myself in the reflection of the window, I realized that I am in a place of true beauty – truest in the sense that it is fleeting. And St. Peter’s square, through which I walk every time I visit my closest friends, with all its fanfare and glory will soon no longer be a part of life as usual. I can’t decide whether I’m scared for the future, or whether it will be a welcome relief, or who I will be in a month or two or three or more.

But that’s nothing new. For the last 4 months, this page has been filled with laughs and tears, with love-songs and hate-songs, with the delicious dualism that peppers my existence even under normal circumstances. A few days ago, I found myself constantly filled with feeling and revelation, in a way that I need less than the fingers on one hand to count how many people actually understand what I mean. Feeling so full of life and understanding and questions and fire that its almost too much to bear (that’s a funny choice of words, isn’t it?) is an essential part of my existence, and it has been very much present in the beginning of this in between. But since then I have been calmed, mellowed for the purpose of self-preservation and functionality, and I find myself meandering through the days and listening intently to the soundtrack.

“You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” – E.L. Doctorow

yours.Rachel

We are All Innocent

Come with me.

Run with me down the stony path at Capri, our faces shaded from the bright sun by a blanket of purple flowers climbing overhead as our hair and the folds of our dresses flow behind us. Roll with me down the sled hill at Heritage, and let me laugh and do it again as you sit at the bottom sick to your stomach and waiting. Put on your prettiest sundress, hold my hands, and we’ll spin ourselves round in circles. Be my captain and I’ll be your crew, wind blowing through our hair as we watch the expanse of water stretching out far ahead of us.

Come to my home and I’ll show you, once again. We’ll run through the wet grass to the swing-set behind the yard and let the wind hit our faces hard. Sit with me, smoke with me, share with me in the grass when we’ve had our fill of the sandbox. Look up at the stars with me, tell me what you see. Lay with me, laugh with me, breathe deeply as you let life fall from your shoulders for a beautiful instant.

Because I don’t care about the pills crushed on your desk. I don’t care about your salary, your benefits, or your retirement package. I don’t even care about the world you’re saving or the futures we’re making – not for now – because we have our present to make first.

For I am not one and twenty, and you are not much farther afield. yes, we have our stories. We have our scars and holes and our hurts and our fears. We have seen demons – some are black and others glittering gold. We have bargained with them, we have prayed to them, we have laid with them and felt ourselves torn between ecstasy and excruciating emptiness. Each of us has our own tales to tell, and our own illusions we’ve spun that are beginning to come unwound. We have left pieces of ourselves in people and places, and some of these pieces will never be ours again.

but yet – We are All Innocent. for I am not one and twenty, and you are not much farther afield. Caught between the sandbox and the stock-market we are but children playing with grown-ups toys, trying to build castles in the sandy desert that stretches farther than we ever could have imagined.

Let us cross the desert to find an oasis. and let me meet you again. Introduce yourself and I will do the same, for these months have been longer than the days that compose them, and the distance has been farther than the miles between us.

And yes, We have our roads, paved with asphalt or gold or simply scratched out in the dirt. They lead off into the distance, winding and obstructed from our view, and as surely as the sun will set our feet will follow them soon. Then I’ll let you go. To Venice or to New Orleans. To Ghana or to Grayling. To Midland or The ‘Nasty or New York.

But before you go… lay with me in the grass. When we’ve jumped from the swings and slid down the slides and held ourselves above the sand on the monkey-bars… Lay with me and let the moments feel like sublime centuries. Don’t say a word. Just breathe with me under a blanket of stars. Silently, let us say ‘goodnight moon’ and watch the sun creep colorfully to her place in the new day.

love.Rachel

I highly recommend the artichokes.

This afternoon my favorite Manhattanite and I met at the school and began a walk to the Jewish ghetto for lunch. The world famous fried artichokes here have been on my to do list since the beginning of the semester, and as the number of days I have left in Rome are numbered (18 to be precise), I supposed that now would be as good a time as any to go and partake. We walked along the river, rushing rapids on this rainy gray day, complaining about passive aggressive present roommates (“you mean they actually labeled their dishrags with their initials?”) and newly existent ones (“well, you only have her for a couple weeks, and at least she’s not a crazy bitch who steals stuff… we don’t think”). Conversation defied the weather and took a pleasant turn towards what we would be eating shortly, and she informed me I would need to fill out a card with my name and address upon entering the restaurant. “I’d heard about these places” she said, “where they call it a ‘cultural center’ to avoid inspections from the health department. Its cultural because its Jewish and everything, and so they take names like your visiting an exhibit or something.” I laughed a little, wondering what I would find in my fried artichokes later, and she apologized – “maybe this isn’t the most appetizing thing to be telling you…but it’s amazing I promise.”

We turned a corner where she darted into a small door, unmarked by anything other than what appeared to be stickers from various publications awarding titles I couldn’t understand to this little hole in the wall. Very literally. It was bustling with the Italian lunch crowd, and we were ushered back to a small table in the back. We sat facing eachother beneath flaking white walls, and next to us on the paper table-cloth a squiggling line was drawn with red magic marker, presumably to divide our portion of the table from our neighbors who would join us later. I filled out my name and address on the card I was given while she attempted to decipher our menu, written with markers from the same box as our table adornment. The waitress spoke no English, but a friendly woman sitting half a foot behind my Manhattanite informed us that our choices included various pasta, a fish, and many different words for lamb. We started with artichokes, ordered a carafe of the house red, and opted for mystery lamb dishes number 1 and 4.

I nibbled the leaven bread beside me apologetically as we reviewed the weekend and reveled in the bizarre inbetween that is now. She, headed for a tour of Europe and an internship in Venice, and I, headed for a summer of “experiential marketing” in the land of lakes, bbqs and the memories of my youth. Making weekend plans – to drink wine on the steps of various piazzas throughout the city – we were not disappointed by our artichokes, nor were we immune to the effects of a couple glasses of afternoon wine.

She remarked about the Seder where an Italian family had hosted her, and about an exhibit on Israel in Vienna that had brought her to tears, while I recalled taking ashes without the forbidden sacraments or standing in the Roman rain instead of singing the Hallelujah Chorus in a room bright with the sounds of brass and the smell of lilies. How could it be that the Jew and the Protestant, relaxed (and sometimes lax – for my part at least) in religion could find their faith revitalized in Rome, the world capital of the Catholic church?

This semester has been filled with revelations like that. Ones that came with passings and heavy handed hits, but also ones that came from dysfunctional machinery, breaking in new shoes, and chick-flicks. The simple color of the sky, the words to a song I’ve heard a thousand times, or completely un-unique afternoons in my apartment (“I can see this happening” she said, “you just sitting in your apartment one day going ‘(rolls eyes upward) hmmm…(furrows eyebrows) well then…” – I laughed because she had me nailed).

“This whole experience,” I said at the risk of sounding ridiculous, “is a kind of a big deal. I’m so in the middle of it that I have no idea how to process all these things that just seem to appear, but sometimes I furrow my eyebrows, and finally settling on a squint with one brow cocked upwards, I think to myself ‘that’s going to be a big one day’.” I read on a friends blog a piece of advice she received upon her arrival – that it takes 7 years to fully understand a study abroad experience. I scoffed at first, but I’m beginning to believe they might have been right.

We took a different way home – hoping to avoid work just a little longer and a bit to drunk to be writing anything intelligent – and stopped for gelato. Musing on death, the culture of NYC and its prestigious higher-ed institutions, art as an elitist institution, and the world’s best cupcake bakeries, we strolled back across the river. She was bound for the library and I for my apartment, both of us hoping more than expecting to get work done.

After saying our goodbyes, I walked home with my Ipod on shuffle and an old favorite came on. Elephant Gun by Beruit. Looking up and furrowing my brows, I remember a recurring dream I used to have while in London. In this dream, I sat alone watching an advertisement on TV for my life as a movie. In the short commercial, I saw myself played by Kate Winslet. She looked over her shoulder, raising her eyebrows inviting you to join her down a giant slide, and suddenly I can feel myself inside the television. There is a narrator, a scene where she/me is spinning around in a dress that twirls, and there is always some sort of kiss or scene of love. All of this comes with great feeling and emotion, to the epic tone of Beruit’s Elephant Gun.

I laughed a little to myself, settling in a squint with one brow cocked, thinking to myself. Oh yeah… this is definitely going to be big one day.

“Traveling through the world produces a marvelous clarity in the judgment of men. We are all of us confined and enclosed within ourselves, and see no farther than the end of our nose. This great world is a mirror where we must see ourselves in order to know ourselves. There are so many different tempers, so many different points of view, judgments, opinions, laws and customs to teach us to judge wisely on our own, and to teach our judgment to recognize its imperfection and natural weakness.” – Michel de Montaigne

yours.Rachel

Ciao Bella

I remember the evening I returned to Rome from London. As I touched down on the tarmac, I realized that after 10 flights in just under a month (with most of those 30 days spent speaking English or feigning French or Spanish), I would finally be returning for over a month solid to the land of pasta and the Pope. Waiting in line (an Italian line – meaning a large mass of people milling, shoving, and speaking loudly) for a cab, I prepared myself to be ripped off by the usual cranky cab driver from the airport. But, as I approached my cab, a young and attractive gentleman stepped out to help me with my luggage. He smiled and closed the door behind me. As we drove, he practiced his English on me. Unfortunately, his interpretation of my language was little better than mine of his, and so we ran out of things to talk about very quickly. I would have been happy to sit and watch the countryside roll by out my window, but I could tell as I felt his eyes tracing my features in the rear-view mirror that he would prefer otherwise. One word he knew well in English was “beautiful” – he used it without sparsity, and often as a filler for the lull in conversation. “You are very beautiful.” He repeated as he smiled and laughed at my Italian or use of “mhmm” as an affirmative answer (to other things). “Tu sei bella” he informed me “means you are beautiful”, and he encouraged me to practice this phrase (as well as in the first person) while he corrected my pronunciation and stared at me in his back seat. Finally we arrived at my apartment, and he asked my name. Rachel – a very beautiful name he said as he introduced himself (with some terribly Italian name I can’t remember at the moment). “Tu sei bella” he cooed as he took one last up and down of me, and as I closed the front door to my apartment I couldn’t help but laugh – I was back in Italy.

A week or so later, the blonde with her soul in her eyes and I were catching up over Italy’s greatest salads. We frequent this establishment near the school, and on this particular day we were seated in an exposed brick room with several tables of American girls and one table of 4 Italian men in the corner. Instantly upon entering, their eyes followed us to our table and lit up as we laughed and chatted. She could feel their eyes in her back, and I could feel them in my chest – looking down I regretted wearing a deep V-neck shirt as I saw them whispering and raising eyebrows amongst eachother. The waiter came and went with our meal, we thanked him with big and friendly smiles, and as we asked for coffee (which came to her with a heart in the foam of her cappuccino) and the check, he brought us little cups of a lemony-dessert. I was surprised but she laughed, revealing to me that this treatment was what she had come to expect after she made eyes with him on her first visit. We laughed together and as we stood up, a man from the table in the corner clapped his hands three or four times – just enough for her to shoot me a puzzled glance which I returned with an eye-roll.

Then there was Bernardo. The man who parked his moto as I was crossing the street then and proceeded to walk with me for almost 5 minutes. His English was better than my airport lover’s, and after our introductions, we were able to establish that I was going to dinner at my friends house (lie), I did not need a ride from him because I couldn’t remember the name of the street they lived on (lie), and that – even though I was “very nice” – it would not be possible for me to have dinner or coffee or sex with him before I left Rome (not a lie.) Later that evening we met a stem-cell researcher with a passion for sailing and Jazz. (Fredrico? something like that) He translated the subtle nuances of our gourmet menu and bought us a (very nice!) bottle of wine (right after my Manhattanite’s friend saw him outside fighting with some woman). He regaled us with tales of his life as he “walked 4 American babies back to their hotel.”

ahhhhh… Rome.

“Men are like a fine wine. They all start out like grapes, and it’s our job to stomp on them and keep them in the dark until they mature into something you’d like to have dinner with.” – Kathleen Mifsud

yours.Rachel

thoughts on things above, and elsewhere

On Blue Skies: She was escaping to another prison and I was sitting in my same golden-walled cell. We were sharing a moment across an ocean while she shared the latest musical discovery of hers with me.

Amos Lee, southern sugar dripping from his lips, serenaded us:    “My soul’s as open as the sky, and oftentimes as blue.”

The poetry of the line is beautiful, but it is my present location which makes it especially poignant to me. As anyone who has visited Rome in the spring (or my facebook photos section) can attest to, the skies here are as blue as you could imagine. On days when the sun is out, beautiful shades of everything between turquoise and sapphire paint the sky in such a way that you can not help but wonder if you tripped and fell into one of the postcards from the street-side shops.

As the warm spring creeps steadily in, I find myself spending more and more time beneath this great blue dome – laying on my back watching cotton-ball clouds blow or walking down the streets observing the steeples of churches thrusting their crosses high into the magnificent heavens above. I am continually struck by the never ending expanse above my head, and I marvel both at its magnitude and color as I find myself swimming in a sea of soul.

Caught between the warm rays of the sun on my cheeks and the cool breeze, my red hair blows into my eyes, and I brush it away to see the blue. For the time being I’ll tuck the red neatly away, saving it for the days when it will once again regain its rightful place.

On Sunsets: Since I arrived in Rome, the desktop background on my computer has been the same picture. Taken by a friend one early Manhattan morning, the silhouette of a tree stands against a purple sky ushering in a yello morning over sleepy Harlem. The tree is not particularly special – not the gnarled and knotted type that is usually photographed; simple and young it stands unpretentiously watching the beginning of a new day, solitary but for a few fingers of a neighboring tree reaching into the frame. <It replaced a photo of my sisters around a dinner table, ringing in the new year (in so many ways) in our holiday finest> An ideal background, this pictures carries enough emotions and memories to bring a smile to my lips, but is does not stare directly back at me with any of the piercing eyes and smiles I miss so dearly.

The matter of sunrises here in Rome is that there are none. Nor are their sunsets. The heavens are bright well into the evening, but when the sun does finally decide to rest her head, she leaves quickly – unannounced by any chorus of color. When she returns, she merely climbs quietly to her place in the blue heavens.

I find myself thinking something I never though I would say; I miss the in-between. The glorious entry of a new day, ringing out its fanfare of possibilities in warm hues. And the regal exit, creeping colors waving goodbye as they look back over their shoulder. There we stand, solitary as that tree in Morningside park, maybe with a few fingers reaching towards our own. I long to watching the celestial tides come and go, holding our breath as we prepare for what is yet to be.

On rain: Earlier this morning I sat in my dining room, fingers tapping on the vinyl tablecloth with brightly colored lemons. As my mind wandered from ancient Roman sarcophagi, my gaze wandered to the window. The song – Amos Lee again – ended and left something that should have been silence but instead pitter-pattered on the roof. I walked to the window, realizing it was raining, but as I looked closer I noticed the heavy raindrops only seemed to fall close to my window; not far off the skies were blue and cotton-cloud filled as ever. I craned my head out and watched, ignoring the inevitable hair-frizz and few black tears, to see that a large gray cloud had settled over my apartment building, leaving the rest of the turquoise expanse untouched.

I laughed out loud, and as I lingered in the window frame letting the rain-water stream down my face, I contemplated what I would look like as a cartoon character. Finally, one of my housemates came out, and as she folded her underwear and socks I could feel her furrowing her brow at me. I remarked on the one rain cloud above our building and she laughed: “That seems to be the way things have been going around here.”

I dried off my face, pulled my hair back, and went about my day. Rain gave way to sun, which stepped back for brief showers and then showed her face again. The rain and the sun dance together, weaving in an out, giving way but never sharing. The way a lot of things have been going around here. And we here in Rome are caught always between the summer sun and the wintery watery chill, wondering at what moment one will leave – as quickly as the night and day – and be replaced by the other.

yours.Rachel

today its rainy, but around here that doesn’t mean much

Last night I fell asleep in peace, but woke up to yet another dream where my father died.

class came and went, and the papers are coming along.

I’m having dinner with my favorite Manhattanite this evening.

I hope, over our anti-pasti and pasta, we will discuss what it means to be American.

It took me quite some time to be able to articulate exactly what it is about this place that makes me so crazy. By all appearances, I should love it. The other day in Italian class, my professor asked each of us why we chose to study in Italy. As you might expect, many people answered ambiguously, or with something about an English speaking program in a place that supposedly rains less that Great Britain. The cute-in-a-very-intellectual-way Classics major behind me spoke up, and I felt the path paved for me to say something reasonably intelligent. I want to be an event planner, I said, not even bothering to try and translate all of this into Italian. I wanted to visit the Mediterranean because there is such a sense of beauty and style in the everyday. He smiled and nodded, more pleased with my answer than Dinah’s about “spiagge” (beaches), even though hers was in the correct language.

And, after having been here for 3 months, I can testify to that truth. Its beautiful – the buildings are colorful and detailed ornately, and the soft lights and cobblestones are charming. When the sun shines the wind tosses the palm trees gently, it looks and feels like paradise. There are some infrastructural problems with electricity, hot water, and garbage collection, but those are relatively easy to forgive given the circumstances. The garbage collectors (when they are seen) are clearly putting their time to better use, none of them appearing without well done hair or lipliner. Even bland street corners are adorned with mosaics or filigrie-filled depictions of the Virgin, and around every corner is an imperial monument to the great glory of Roman past. Every restaurant has tourists from all over the world saying “Isn’t that the cutest place you’ve ever seen?” Absolutely everything is touched with gold.

But that’s just it – the Midas effect. Walk down the street, and every little “Isn’t that the cutest place you’ve ever seen?” trattoria is filled with the same colorful linen, exposed brick walls, and lit by candles and christmas lights. Every slim and beautiful woman, whether she is 12 or 50, is clad completely in black, the bit of color on her body being the honey blonde highlights in her dark brown hair. Everyone is fresh off the cover of a magazine – just one. The art and the architecture is glorious, but it is a giant tribute to one age of glory in one empire.

One size fits all.

And the mood of the people… They wake up and have something sweet with their family. Then around 10am they leave work for a cappuccino and cornetto at the local cafe. At 1 it’s time for a long lunch then a siesta, and dinner comes around just a couple hours after returning to work (with a break for espresso inbetween, of course). Life meanders along slowly, and anyone who does not have time time to meander along with it is working too hard. There is no need to rush to finish your espresso because nothing will be much different in 5 minutes or 5 days or 5 years or 5-hundred years. Things have been moving steadily along since the end of the Empire, and while the toga has gone out of fashion, everything else is just about the same.

In America, we don’t do steady. One minute you’re down – you’re working 60 hours a week to feed and pay mouths and hands, your father-in-law is dying, the dog has a peculiar rash developing, the kids need new shoes, and you’re not sure that the ditch on the side of the road is any less inviting than the home that waits at the end of your commute. It rains – pours – and you have no choice but keep driving and to hope you make through safe. But then, the sun comes out, and you’re up. You’re on vacation, with the entire family gathered around the fire singing camp-songs, laughing about the time your stupid dog rolled in some other stupid dog’s shit and got that bizarre rash. Your company makes a cost-savings objective, and everyone in the office has to take cabs home from the bar after work because no one is fit to drive. You’re lying in the bed with someone you love, watching the sunlight stream in through the curtains and dreaming about your future, and in the immediacy, whether you should make banana pancakes or Belgian waffles. Or you’re sitting around a car or dorm or a living-room in 501 Michigan Avenue smoking, drinking, and feeling like anything that means anything in the world is with you at that moment.

To me, that is what it means to be an American. It’s not about guns, hot dogs, or picking up after your dog while on a walk.

It’s not that things don’t happen here. Every day, people die and people are born. People loose their jobs and get promotions. Sometimes it rains and sometimes its sunny.

But when it rains, no one frowns. and when its sunny, no one stops to smile.

“Without rain there would be no rainbows.” Hawaiian Proverb

yours.Rachel

something slightly resembling gumption

(this is going to be one of those entries I try to avoid)

she’d spent all night trying to shove the crooked pieces of this jigsaw together, but until dawn she’d had no luck. Then, as the morning sun shone through the window, she began to see how the pieces fit together…

If I had to pinpoint the moment it began, I would say it was watching the Holiday with my favorite Manhattan lady on Saturday night. It could be argued that it was more of an ending, but it could also be argued that said ending began any time between last Saturday and a phone conversation we had while I was curled up on a countertop in my bathroom three years ago.

Drinking a peculiarly sweet merlot and eating strawberries covered in chocolate, we opted to pass on the activity that would seem to naturally accompany our feast of sorts (the kind of activity that got her raised eyebrows at the supermarket when she was buying the supplies for the evening.) We were watching Cameron Diaz act poorly and noticing that scenes with Jude Law always have accents of blue – plates, clothing, building, etc. – to set off his beautiful eyes. And, I was showing her a side of Jack Black she’d never seen – we were both in love.

I love the Holiday because it’s the quintessential chick-flick but better. The characters are my favorite part, and out of all of them is Kate Winslet. She is one of the few actresses I actually know, and I love her in the variety of films she’s done (everything from Titanic to Eternal Sunshine to Sense and Sensibility). But even more in this movie… because I love her character. A young British woman, not terribly skinny, who earns a living announcing weddings in a London newspaper. She has a pseudo-lover whom she leaves behind in an exciting journey to LA where she befriends an old endearing filmmaker and falls in love with the surprisingly adorable Jack Black.

It ought to be fairly obvious why I appreciate her character, and I can’t help but get warm fuzzy feelings in the last scene of the movie (spoiler alert – I know it’s a big surprise) when she is dancing around in a beautiful dress with Jack Black on New Years Eve. Even the next day, my Manhattanite and I were sharing salads (told you) and recalling the finer points of the movie.

the thing is, a lot has come into focus in the last 24 hours. Material things have been settled: summer job, housing for next year, and classes for the fall. All of these are stresses lifted, freeing me to focus on the stresses of the present like term papers and finals. These have eased some of the burdens of the last few months, and the present certainly feels less bleak when the future is something to be dreamed about.

More immaterial things have come to light as well. My appetite is back in full force, and I can fall asleep in half the time it used to take. And the dreams are much less ominous, although they are equally cryptic. I’ve been able to exorcise some of the fear and anxiety, but it’s taken with it other feelings I didn’t expect to leave. This afternoon, I was sitting on my bed with my computer on my lap – like I do more that I care to admit – I was suddenly struck by a revelation. A thought that I remember being planted long ago, but that has been unearthed and re-buried repeatedly. A revelation not unlike the one Kate Winslet discovered as she traveled across to globe and ate fettuccine and remembered what it was like to feel crazy weather blowing hair into lovestruck eyes.

Just then, a song came on, and I laughed out loud. “Well, loving is as loving does…” Ahhh the old “love is a verb” concept. Love should be a verb, and sometimes verbs are active. The worthwhile ones at least – who in their right mind would want to be a passive one? or be with a passive one? As the words went on I listened carefully, hoping for more poignant tidbits. But I found that I didn’t like the rest of the song – it was sad in a way I identified with entirely too much. And I am tired of not being in the right place. or not being young enough. or old enough. or red enough.

There, alone in my room in the calm Roman sunlight, I declared myself finished. I felt light, free, and utterly alive!   and I believe it was something slightly resembling gumption.

the third-person piece above was an away message I’ve had up all day. She IMed me from Toulouse, saying she liked it, but asking what it was about. I explained, subtly and metaphorically, and I could hear her chuckling across timezones and the invisible network that continually amazes me.

“You sound like you.” she said.

That may be the most comforting thing I’ve ever heard.

“There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning.’ – Louis L’Amour

yours.Rachel

I’ve got enough oceans in my life

We were sitting in a bar in Paris. His friend the anti-theist was the life of the party, having been found by a slew of friends celebrating St. Patrick’s day a week late he was gesticulating wildly, and his fan club of adoring ladies was increasing exponentially every second. We smiled at him and at them, waiting patiently for him to return as we chatted, made funny faces at one and other, and drank our cocktails. I recall a lot of singing to American music that night, but I also recall musing to him: “Maybe I need a new religion.”

Heading for the train coming back from Versaille, the anti-theist and the explorationist discussed religion, drugs, and humanity. I’ve never really liked drugs. Not in a judgmental way necessarily, but in a very personal way; I’ve always liked to entertain the idea that I don’t need them. I think the mind and the emotions are powerful enough to open doors to new ways of thinking, and I find that if I let myself go to it, I can explore great ideas and spaces in my own head without putting anything on my tongue or in my lungs. Between the boulangeries and cafes it occured to me that I didn’t need a new religion – I needed a new perspective. A new way to bring religion back into my life. A new way to see it and feel it everyday.

The next week called both the power of my own mind and this need for spirituality to the forefront of my thoughts. I watched myself cannibalize myself, tearing myself to shreds as I lost the ability to sleep (save the rare occasions when I tossed and turned with nightmares) and to eat.

Upon returning to Rome, I knew I had to do something. I called an old friend, seeking some sort of guidance, though as he is an agnostic(ish) I didn’t necessarily expect it to be religious in nature. Still, he surprised me as usual and shared his newest spiritual revaluations by way of a fiery-red new fascination. She had described God as a purple ocean. To summarize quickly and inadequately, her intention was to describe God as something a person jumps into and is completely covered by. I believe there was some sort of sink or swim concept involved, and as it came for a modern day oracle, I was certain there were hundreds of other nuances swimming within it. As a closet-spiritualist it struck a chord with him, and perhaps he expected it to do the same with me the metaphor-junkie.

I chewed on it – turned it around, rolling my tongue over its edges and tasting its subtle nuances, but spit it out with the gum in my mouth that was beginning to lose its flavor.

Back to square one, I scowered my mind under the guise of cleaning my room, searching for something, anything, that might get me through the night.

As I moved items from one shelf to another, I knocked over my small stack of DVD cases. Among them was Under the Tuscan Sun, a movie that has consistently been filled with poignant parallels and catharsis, and as I contemplated watching it, I turned through the chapters of the movie in my mind. I came across one scene I remembered in particular. Francesca is discussing the presence of the Virgin Mary – everywhere – which is a phenomenon I have come to understand completely. She is in the churches and the paintings of course, but she is also on street corners. Her ceramic or mosaic images appear on city walls and bridges. There are icons of her in restaurants, around people’s necks, and even in my own apartment. I went to my drawer and pulled out a necklace with the Virgin and babe that I bought while touring the Vatican museums with my mom and sister.

I’d been searching for one for some time. Not because they are difficult to find, but because I was very particular about what I was looking for. I wanted one where Mary looked sweet. According to the story, Mary is a girl in her early teens, terrified because some glowing winged guy shows up in her house while she’s trying to do her laundry or something, and tells her that even though she’s been virtuous she’s going to get huge and then have to go through child birth. I would consider her closer to a Juno than a Jackie Kennedy, and I wanted an image where she looked like it. I was raised a protestant, so as far as I see it, she came into the world like the rest of us girls, and as I recall at the age of 15 I was not even close to the wise and graceful women I often see haloed and holding the son of God. My other major qualm is the images of Jesus. I also believe I remember that the whole point of him being born of a human woman is that he came into the world as a human – not as a child who looks like he’s actually 30 years old. (If you ask me, that is just plain creepy.)

Finally, I found this one. Mary and Jesus are adequately humble and age appropriate, and it reminded of Francesca’s favorite Virgin image. This one was above her head on her bed-frame, and she took comfort from this image when a violent storm raged outside her newly acquired Tuscan villa one night. With this in mind, I put the necklace on (even though it was yellow gold and my watch and ring were white), and went about my day.

I’ve worn it ever since.

As Francesca says, I’m not expecting to come out of this a Catholic. She is not an someone I pray to, interceding to the Lord on my behalf. She is more like my favorite aunt. Someone who has seen quite a lot – just an everyday girl who got dished more than her share, but who took it in stride. And I appreciate her femininity, in such a male dominated arena. Sometimes I like to muse about womanly things to her. “So Mary… there’s this boy…”. And she is there when I need something to hold on to – literally I can grab her around my neck and clench tightly as I breathe “Be. Still. “

I have not yet found the answers to my questions of spirituality, and I still toss and turn in bed at night. But Mary and I… we’re working on it.

“Signora, between Austria and Italy, there is a section of the Alps called the Semmering. It is an impossibly steep, very high part of the mountains. They built a train track over these Alps to connect Vienna and Venice. They built these tracks even before there was a train in existence that could make the trip. They built it because they knew some day, the train would come.” – Under the Tuscan Sun

yours.Rachel