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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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*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