it's a grand old flag

Last night Kendis made grasshopper pie, much to the culinary confusion of the Runfola family. But the dessert was an almost ridiculous success: Luigia was on the phone to friends to share the recipe, and even “I’ll just have the broth” Virginia took a second helping (although, after a scan of the biscuit box, she was careful to avoid all noticeable bites of oreo). And it surprised me—the mint-choco combo isn’t one I would normally choose on my own, but something about that pastel green made me near giddy. I didn’t even need to take a bite before I knew: America. It smells like America! Tastes like America! Like Baskin Robbins and barefoot summers and birthday parties on back porches. And it drove me to something I’ve so far avoided quite well.

THINGS I MISS ABOUT AMERICA:

:: toasters
:: water pressure
:: front lawns and picket fences
:: smiling strangers
:: dryers
:: space/mountains/wilderness
:: friends’ cars in the driveway
:: leftovers
:: libraries
:: maple trees on city streets
:: coats, hats, and mittens in the mud room.
:: high school stadiums and back-to-school specials
:: wait, wait don’t tell me
:: cold basements + down comforters
:: letters to the editor
:: get fuzzy
:: red, white, and blue

Luckily, there’s an equally long Things I Love About Italy to balance it out, but I still feel guilty that this list exists at all.

Oh well. Now you know. Those no-place-like-home clichés? Too, too true.

funny, but it seems that it's the only thing to do

It is raining. Kind of like cats and dogs, but more like orcs and uruk-hai (I KNOW, OLIVIA. I AM A DORK.). I've never seen such angry rain, not even in the UK. Though my summer in Wales did come in handy when it came to dressing for such weather. Nix the jeans and layer, people. Tights dry fast and you'll feel oh-so-much better when you can take your damp sweater off once safely indoors.

But now we're rather stuck indoors, with not a lot to do. Classes are long over and we've hours to go before church. I messed around with broken tertiaries for awhile, translated a few funny words. Listened to some Brit boys debate the Italian word for "song" without offering the right answer. Thought about doing some actual homework, then quickly forgot any sense of motivation. There is something about cold and wet that only makes you want to curl up and ponder. And Sharlie, Lauren, and Kimberly are in the corner learning Croatian.

Ovo je ludnica.

so what?

A Mrs. Lake classic. Tell her anything—your day, your idea, your future—and you’d need to be ready for the reply. “So what?” she’d say. What does that really mean? Switch into show. Stop the tell. This was the week I decided that I really, truly, actually want to write. Couldn’t live without it, don’t want to even try.

So you decide to write a story. So what?

The problem is, I still don’t know how to answer that. But I'm starting to face up to it (and that's a start, right?).

dillo con un bacio

Yesterday I went to the European Chocolate Festival which involved (among other things) cardboard cow horns, purple face paint, inflatable chalets, and Lindt truffles the size of small cars. People navigated the streets with maps made of chocolate bars while tent stalls bartered everything from chocolate laptops to chocolate hot dogs. If you wanted it in chocolate, this is where you’d find it.

Plus, love. True love. I’d just stepped away from the Ciobar when a boy stopped me, pointing to my little cup of hot chocolate. “Bella, non?” he said, smiling. I agreed with a smile equally wide. “Chocolate usually is.”

“Where are you from?” he went on, his friends gathering about, too. He shook his head at my answer, asserting that wasn’t possibly foreign enough. “Nuova Zelanda?” I tried again. A roar of approval. “Che bella, bella!” they shouted, all in on the game now. “A beautiful country. You know what else is beautiful? You. Yes. You are my heartbeat.”

His heartbeat! We’d hardly even met—and after a shared “Forza, Napoli!” they were gone. Though this sort of love is forever; we’ll meet again, I’m sure. Another day, another destiny. Chocolate has a way of bringing people together, you know.

well of lost plots

I am desperate for books right now. Mad, impassioned, foaming at the mouth. And not just anything, not the holiday paperbacks in the English section—real books. Literature. Classics. My heart is aching for that reeling expansion of thought, of perspective, and I find myself distracted, flipping through the library catalogue in my head, imagining what author I could pick up next. This daydreaming does not bode well for any afternoon class, I can tell you that.

It’s not like this can’t be fixed, either.It's my fault entirely, the byproduct of my own indecision. I’ve been into the English Book Shop three days in a row now, yet to find joy. And while it’s a lovely place to be lost in, this has got to stop.

So here’s what I’m down to, and here is where I release all responsibility and leave the picking up to you:

The Age of Innocence ::: Edith Wharton
War and Peace ::: Leo Tolstoy
Mrs. Dalloway ::: Virginia Woolf
Nicholas Nickleby ::: Charles Dickens
The Bridge of San Luis Rey ::: Thornton Wilder

Every one of the above, of course, comes with a ridiculous pro/con list and about a dozen justifications on all sides. I'll spare you. Instead, all recommendations, raves, and raised eyebrows welcome. Just hurry.

VAI.

CHI: Kristin Matthews
CHE: Atomic Anxiety in American Film
DOVE: HBLL auditorium
QUANDO: TOMORROW, October 23rd, 11:00 a.m.

People, I beg of you. If you are at, on, in, around, near, close to, within a day's drive of Provo, you need to be there. Not only is Dr. Matthews one of the most intelligent, inspiring, and incredible women I know, but she jokes like a Gilmore. If there were fan memorabilia, I'd have bought out the gift shop long ago.

If not for your sake, go for mine. I can't believe I'm missing this.

what I’d wanted to say

Here is one of the many problems with knowing just enough language to communicate in a foreign country: you can say it, but you can’t mean it. At least, not the way you want to.

Like when you’re trying to talk about your sisters. They’re amazing, you say. My best friends. But that’s not right—what you meant was

At night we stay up late talking, and laughing until we can’t breathe. When we were little, that would get us into trouble, especially past midnight. Now, we can't stop no matter the consequences. Everything that ever happens to me, I save to tell them. The good, the bad, the just plain ridiculous--I am storing it all up for the minute we're together again. But, being so far apart, I have a strange outsider's perspective; we’re growing up, and it’s bitter and sweet all at once. I’m beginning to see what we’re becoming, the women (oh! That word alone!) we will be—which seems ridiculous, but true. And what exciting futures! Full of promise, and joy, and a sure knowledge that we will always, always have each other. Which, really, is all I ever wanted. If I had no one else but them, it would still be okay. They are the light and the love I most look forward to.

Or when you want to explain how incredible your roommate is. We started a club! you exclaim. It’s about Life. And she’s from Oregon. Good, but not exactly

It’s unreal! We were so lucky, being thrown together under this eight-hundred year old roof, with the tap-dancing pigeons and a room with three walls. She makes me smile too much and laugh too hard; she reminds me of the great good in the world even while indulging my rants and raves. Today she shortened "situation" to "situatch." And danced along the computer corridor to her own little song. And almost ran away from school. Sometimes, I feel infinitely too uncool to be with her, this film major extraordinaire with her easy wit and lively curiosity. Oh, and our club is going to take this world by storm.

Or sometimes it’s as simple as retelling your morning’s adventures. Not bad, you shrug. Just another day. When really

When I sleep, I dream they’re here, with me. 1920 is just off Via dei Rossi, mia scuola only minutes from Emigration Market. When I wake up, I’m confused, frustrated. My duvet should be white, not peach. My cat grey, not ginger. At breakfast, I spoon out the Miel Pops while remembering pumpkin granola. At school, we plan for home. “We’ll do it then!” we shout, smiling, hoping. A million ideas, none fit for here. It is always there, then, when. I am in a weird place, missing old life and looking forward to new life and not living my present life very well at all*. Which means that I'm more frustrated with myself than anything.

I mean, if I could say all that, then it would be time to go home, anyway.

____________________________

*(And I most definitely just stole a line from an Elder M letter.)

well, that was weird.

I was just talked out of school by my teacher. Muzzi, no less. Of all the people in all the world, she would be the one to stare down my coughing fits and then tell me to tough it out. Instead, she was all sympathy and motherly worry.

"But we hardly have any time to learn as it is!" I said.

"Go. Home. And don't come back. At least not today."

"What about the Oral Exam?!" I exclaimed.

"We'll move it to Wednesday! You'll be better then."

"Don't you want to give me homework?" I tried.

"No. But you should drink hot milk and honey."

Which was the third time an Italian has given me such instructions, so I think I should probably listen? I guess it will give me something to do, anyhow, seeing as I suddenly have an entire day free, and I do know that I'm not well enough to spend it gallivanting about Siena.

But I really did think I was up for school.

draw something

Two weeks into this assignment

and three more to come—this card was all too easy.

lei vive!

Well, it looks like I'm getting better---just in time
for my oral exam.

Not that I'm studying for it, or anything. There are garlics to draw and doodles to procrastinate with. A watercolor to paint and another sketchbook page to fill. Four weeks to go and too many thoughts to fill them with. A dinner to find and a walk back home. And a long, long night ahead of me.

morendo.

Sono malata. La testa, il naso, la gola, lo stomaco: tutto è rotto. Non posso fare niente. Se mi sdraio, non posso respirare; se mi alzo, non posso stare in piedi. Che frustrata! Che stupida.

But that didn't stop me from going to Assisi yesterday, and it's certainly not going to postpone my plans for Lucca in the morning. Plus, there are about a hundred other things to love about Italy right now, despite being sick in bed. Like

1:::men in linen suits. how do they do it? in from Firenze without a wrinkle from the commute.
2:::white peaches from the agrumeria around the corner from la scuola. not only so, so good, but so, so pretty.
3:::midnight contrada revelry, no matter the day or occasion. last night they were dressed in cardboard boxes.
4:::writing love notes for Italian homework. Mi mancano le nostre passegiate a mezzanotte . . .
5:::cute toothpaste in shiny silver boxes. and the cheapest kind, too!
6:::finding a piece of New Zealand in a tiny corner of Tuscany. A wee mosaic tree to thread about my neck.
7:::chocolate festivals in Perugia. one week to go.
8:::coming home late to find Franco snoring on the couch. tv on, house dark.
9:::early evenings at the branch doing genealogy work. Pasquino Pasquini! A true story.
10:::being friends with the bollywood-obsessed owners of this internet cafe. it's nice, running into people you know on the streets.

And now my pictures are uploaded and you are spared any more rambling from me.
299 photos in Italy to 854 from Wales. Both over six weeks' time.
Huh.

I've been thinking so much lately that lately I think

I've been thinking too much.

So my mum sent me this, and I'm sharing it with you.



The end.

I can give you the present, I don't know about the future (that's just stuff and nonsense)

Guess what I forgot today? Yep, camera. This failure is along the same lines with the fact that I can't for the life of me keep a planner. Sure, I'll write everything down and feel smugly organised at the beginning of the week---but I'm not going to look at those notes ever again. Note to self: remember notes to self.

The good news is that I had it with me last night, when Franco showed us up through countless crooked stairs to our palazzo roof, a small catwalk above the city bathed in the light of a full moon. But I didn't have it at dinner, to document prophecies and palm readings, and I didn't have it this morning, when Lauren and I passed a wee delivery truck just begging to be photographed on our way to school.

But back to the fortune telling. The Polacca was back, a rather crazy lady that we came to love and appreciate when she was here last week for dinner. And this round was just as good as the last, smiles sneaked across the tables as she talked and talked and talked, while the rhinestone "SHOWY" across her shirt sparkled in the lamplight. At one point, her mistakes ("Prego per te, prego per te, e prego per te," she said, passing around the dessert) had Franco laughing so hard he could hardly breathe---and when she went on about a flower from her homeland called "Lucrezia," Luigia looked askance. Who knew that was only the beginning?

She was still explaining the Lucrezia flower while we were clearing up the table, when Virginia asked (a little cheekily, methinks) what her name meant. At this, the Polacca became very serious. "Virginia," she breathed, one hand over hers, "you have a very grand name. And I see that you will have a very grand life." I smiled, thinking this was all part of the game. Virginia only urged her on. "Wait, you can see the future?"

There was a dramatic pause, the room silent, the clock ticking. "Yes," our Polish friend replied, heavily, reverently. "But only sometimes."

And so began a long complicated next twenty minutes, in which both Virginia and Franco's palms were read ("It won't be as good, since I do not have the right words."), energies explained ("Oh yes, yes. I have a very positive energy."), and signs sought ("I have an unfortunate psychology, because I was born on September 7th."). Unfortunately, I missed a good two minutes of the gypsy show because I have this habit of remembering my sister during such strange moments, which sends me into hysterics. I ran for the safety of an empty kitchen, where I collapsed against the countertop for some final laughter and a few deep breaths before regaining some sort of composure and joining the table once again. The Polacca was not so amused. "Why do you smile?" she demanded.

My tongue still hurts, I had to bite it so hard.

By the end of the storytelling session she had at least three cups of white wine in her, and the promise to return tomorrow to read Luigia's future. Later that night, after the rooftop adventure, we gathered in our loft room to translate and relive the better parts of the evening for Alyssa and Kendis, who could only guess at the goings-on. Oh, it is a story that will last a while longer.

And now there are half a dozen Swiss boys singing around the Common Room piano, switching from German to English to Italian and back again. I don't know; life is just pretty puddle-wonderful.

the pockets that carry you through the day

Quote of the Week So Far:

"Oh, no---sorry. I was dealing with venomous reptiles and potential death."

---PETER, apologising for not having
our assignments graded.

: : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : :

Just back from the Museo della Scala, where I wandered through an exhibit of Gordon Matta-Clark's work. The guy who pulled apart houses and then put them back together before they were demolished by the city to demonstrate ideas of homelessness and architectural form. I have to think about it for a little while longer until I come to any real idea of what I would say in response, but until then, a page from one of his journals:

"Our European heritage is a one directional formal tyranny the same dependence of Grece-Roman now German-Anglo form bags applies to the moment as much as for Wright-Solomon revolt.

America has no forms all its own except (1) Anarchistic distortion of European monumentality the (2) production line billboard and the (3) tragedy of an exterminated native population.

In view of a formless word syllables being formed by non-functioning mouths

Anarchitecture refers to ways of functioning---we are anti-formal."

DISCUSS.

I predict our next art class discussion to be wildly out of control. Forget Peter's eternal "What is art?"---let's try "What is an artist?"

In Matta-Clark's defense, there were some real gems among his scribbles, namely the post title above, and thoughts like

::: High voltage and danger zones! A radioactive landscape. A room with a wasp in it.
::: Drawers full of time/human places beyond memory/the elephant's burial ground
and
:::short term eternities

Waiting for my photos to upload, I think I understand exactly how that last one feels.

: : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : :

This morning, when Muzzi asked the usual "Come vai oggi?" I responded with a rather bitter "Frustrata." And when she asked the necessary "Perchè?" she got some serious ranting.

I am frustrated because I can't speak Italian, or at least I can't speak it well. At night, when I'm falling asleep, I think only in Italian. Words, phrases, entire paragraphs. In my dreams I speak Italian---rapidly, perfectly. Then I wake up; nothing. The English invades.

She listened to my vent with a sympathetic smile, nodding as I tried to explain. "Bettina," she said, letting me take a deep breath. "It is the same for me. I speak the most beautiful English in my sleep. But you are trying, and that is what matters."

I wish I could believe her. But I am getting very tired of not being able to communicate.

: : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : :

THREE THINGS E. SHOULD NEVER BE WITHOUT

1. camera
2. pen
3.paper

My nightmares revolve around the absence of these things. I turn a corner into a perfect composition of shadow and light---no camera. I love a particular Madonna's smile and have no page to sketch it on. I spend the afternoon in a museum full of wacky wordings, leaving my bag at the coatcheck. I have to ask the docent for a pen (Italian panic all on its own) and scribble on the back of a receipt (1.40 euro for Firenze foccacia), run out of blank space on said receipt, and then ask for a scrap of paper, too.

goal of the week

Because of this prompt I have

:: written a letter to Scott.

:: sent an email to Georgia.

:: searched out a few of the Carden Crew.

::spent a good deal of time pondering friendship, and just how good this life is.

nella campagna

This weekend was set to be like any other, a welcome few days away from school with the usual homework and hidden corners of Siena uncovered in the adventures of our days off. Instead, I got three days of equal parts action, thriller, drama, and comedy-plus a half a dozen moments worthy of a quiet independent film.

First, Peter spent the weekend in the emergency room. (CAUTION: Scenes of Peril and Life Threatening Danger ahead.) We were invited to his house for a day out in the country but arrived early, so set out for some exploring before Leah called us for lunch.

It started out wonderfully; the fields were newly plowed, their deep red clay baking under an autumn sun. Wrinkled women in dusty skirts and heavy scarves called out their buon giorni as we passed, and a wiry little fox trotted along the road ahead of us, occasionally looking back to watch our progress, unafraid. The boys rode their bikes up and over the hills while Eve walked at my side, showing me fistfuls of fennel and trapping grasshoppers with uncanny dexterity. We had just left a small square of abandoned cemetery when Peter saw it, a miniature snake with a body stretched to the exact outline of a very recently digested lizard. It was intriguing, for sure, but not so much that I had any impetus to catch the thing.

Peter, however, did. And he went about it quite properly, finding a forked twig to hold the snake in place and pinning it smartly between its head and its bloated body. Unfortunately, the small reptile had a second’s chance to defend himself, and he did. Forty minutes later Peter’s thumb was very nearly the size of his wrist, and his Italian landlady was urging him to a pharmacy, if not the hospital. An hour after that he was back, wondering if Leah could drive him to the emergency room. Erin and I stayed behind to watch the kids, and when the car rumbled back up the road two hours later, Peter wasn’t in it. Turns out, vipers are big business. And my art professor would be staying the night in a hospital near the train station while frantic calls were made to Milan for the antidote.

Luckily, no great harm done in the end. Peter’s hand is still swollen something awful, but he is alive, with a right hand perfectly okay to keep up his drawing and painting. And the rest of the afternoon in Celsa was lovely, if not so eventful. We explored the land all about their 14th century farmhouse, looking wistfully across the way to where a castle still stands, supposedly complete with its own prince. We ate rice pudding on the porch, and played soccer in the field below. While tramping about the sun-soaked hills, Eve would pick flowers and hold them carefully for me to see. "It’s a whole world!" she kept saying, "A whole little world!" then she’d drop it carelessly and feign horror. "That was all they ever knew," she said sadly, once. Along a wall to an abandoned chapel she watched a beetle cross the dusty road. "Do you know how big this is for him?" she asked, with an expert’s authority. "He thinks this is as big as the entire world. But it’s only a little road!" For two hours she kept it up, imagining aloud the inhabitants for each new universe ("The little people live in the petals, and in the stem, and sometimes even in roots, too!") and then extending this especial existence to everything she saw ("What if that stick is a world! And that grass! And you! We are a world!"). She was giddy with her game, while I wondered how we ever forget to be so wildly imaginative.

That night at dinner my Italian was put to the test, trying to recount the day’s twists and turns. For the most part, a success-though I was at a loss for the verb "to bite" and when Flavia so kindly supplied the past tense, I was sure she had said that my professor was dead. Our laughter, however, was drowned out by the next drama of the day; Lucrezia had arrived at the dinner table without her sister, and trouble was afoot.

Luigia yelled for Virginia several times before going to get her herself. Virginia stalked to the seat beside me, then refused to pick up her fork. "I’m not hungry," she declared. "And I won’t eat with her at the table," she added, throwing a threatening look at Lucrezia. Lu just shook her head, calmly taking a sip of water. "What’s the problem?" Franco asked from the end of the table. Wrong question.

Virginia exploded, a torrent of accusations that grew louder as her words ran faster-too fast and too heated that I could never hope to understand. Lucrezia shot back, quietly at first but with more desperate ferocity as Virginia hammered on, unrelenting. Luigia’s attempt to soothe the tempest was useless; Franco only repeating the same question over and over. It only grew louder, faster, and feistier-until Virginia yelled a particularly forceful "Shut UP!" to which Lu replied, just as stubbornly, "Button your lips!"

I didn’t even have enough time to muse over the fact that, yes, it’s the same in Italian as English before Virginia had picked up her plate, fork, and napkin and stomped out of the room, apparently set on eating elsewhere. Which would have worked rather brilliantly, if Italians didn’t eat in a very separate three courses. Virginia had to return for each new plate, carefully avoiding any eye contact. Flavia and I kept to our own conversation, holding back a smile.

Afterward, I met Erin in the Piazza di Salimbeni, where we wondered at the empty streets and shared stories from the life we lived before Italy, before being friends and sharing such daring adventures. When I got home, Virginia was wrapped up in blankets with chocolate in hand and a movie on to drown out the silence of the otherwise empty house. Peter was in a hospital bed somewhere down the road, and Lauren was in Cinque Terre, too far from our balcony bedroom to share the day’s absurdities.

And that was only Friday.

at least this fixes the vampire problem

Today Peter took advantage of our post-exam high to assign us a whole lot of homework. A few sketches, some more fun with a Mother Color, an exercise in Warm and Cool. Oh, and buy garlic. Seven of them. So we can draw them over and over and over again for the rest of our days in Siena.

The thing is, he announced this like our smiles should match his. I think maybe I'd be a little more inclined to share the joy if we were talking something a little more happy-smelling. Like oranges, or lavendar, or fall leaves. And four drawings a week for the next six weeks seems a mite much, when you throw in the intensive Italian. Putting a due date to these assignments has me panicked; suddenly, it's October. Give it three more weeks and I'm in November, then December, then Home. Time really wears on me, if I try too hard to understand it.

Anyway, I guess I need some garlic. And maybe an extra day or two.

oggi in italia

Breathing a long, deep sigh of relief. First phase of midterms? Over. Not great, but done.

Afterwards, I stopped in at PlanetCopia to run a few color copies (super secret, can't tell, don't ask), and apparently forgot every word of Italian I've ever learned. But the boy just laughed at my fumbling sentences and his own limited English, and with a few hand gestures we got the message across and he headed to the printer.

So I'm just waiting there, chatting with Erin about the Humanities essays that we completely aced (thank you, Wales), when he returns with the copy, which is perfetto. I'm pulling out my wallet when I realise he's saying much more than needs to be said when quoting a price. I try to listen a little harder. And then it turns out he was wondering how long I'd be in Siena, and if I might maybe may want to teach him a little English? He could help me with my Italian, and it would be like a trade!

I don't know how Peter would feel about that, but at this point, I would give anything to get a better grasp on this language. This morning? Turns out, Italians have two futures. Here I was, thinking I had andrò, andrai, andrà down---but it will never be enough. In Italian, when you want to talk about things that will happen, you have to choose between two different tenses for very specific situations. I was lost from the get-go, and when I returned the lesson with a blank stare, Muzzi* just sighed and started all over again. At least she tried to make me feel a bit better about things; "Don't worry about it," she said, "they don't have this in America."

Still, I think we're winning on the haves and haves not scale. Italy can take their dual destinies---right now I'm wanting white chili and dill pickle paint and Sunday interviews on the couch with Dad. It smells like school days and space heaters today**, and I am thinking of home.

____________________________
*This is my professor's last name, but did anyone else just think of the language monster Muzzy? And something about eating parking meters? A, e, i, o, u, je t'aime . . .

**This could be another post entirely, but it won't be. I just love that the seasons feel the same here, that I can smell and hear and feel a piece of home simply by opening a window.

il tempio per roma

Considering there is homework to be done and midterms to be studied for, this blog post shouldn't really exist. Except that it's been such a weekend that I can't keep away. Unfortunately, that means this needs to be quick---when I least feel the need for brevity.

Plans for a temple in Rome, Italy were announced yesterday in the Saturday morning session of my church's General Conference. Our small branch in Siena absolutely erupted. Shouting, crying, jumping, laughing joy. Children were running the halls of our tiny meeting house. The missionaries were celebrating like there'd been some miraculous winning touchdown. We are counseled to mourn with those that mourn, comfort those that stand in need of comfort---those moments, when they come, are always full of a shared humanity. But yesterday, we rejoiced with those that rejoice. And I have never felt a more sweet and eternal joy.

And that was only within the first few minutes of our weekend-long meeting. What I've felt the past twenty-four hours could fill pages. As it is, these paragraphs will have to do. But if I had to sum it up in a sentence, I would simply say this: the Church is true.

count your many blessings (name them one by one)

1:: I live in Italy

2:: on a medieval street in old Siena.

3:: in a house built in 1272

4:: sharing a loft room with Lauren

5:: and a magic cat

6:: it’s only a short walk to the station

7:: where we catch trains to all sorts of fabulous cities

8:: like Florence

9:: and you can buy English newspapers

10:: and feel connected with the world again

11:: reading about life schools in Britain

12:: and found your own crazy club

13:: with the people you love the most

14:: the friends you’re much too spoiled to have

15:: even so far from an incredible home

16:: and your golden family

17:: who you get to see soon enough

18:: spend the entire Christmas holidays with

19:: and keep for all eternity