what is art, anyway?

I don't much feel like posting today. School's out and Italy's nearly over and when you're this sentimental it's probably best not to write about it.

So I will send you here, which covers the other half of today's emotions, and then here, because there's nothing like a game of cricket to rouse your spirits (and my dad gets the credit for pointing me that way in the first place).

singing in the lifeboats

[even seafood has a silver lining]

LOW: calamari for dinner.
HIGH: watching Kimberly attempt to eat it.

LOW: writing an article about petty theft in Napoli for my Italian class.
HIGH: realising that, after today, I'll never have to do such a thing again.

LOW: our last Life Club meeting in Siena.
HIGH: finishing it off with a two hour Deep Discussion about Knowing, Doing, Being and Becoming.

LOW: our favorite gelato shop closing for the winter season.
HIGH: a free cone of marscapone, caffè, + fior di latte.

LOW: eight days left.
HIGH: dear friends for keeps.

paving paradise

You know that tired old phrase, time flies? Well, it does. Today we said ciao without the ci vediamo to Humanities 201--and Alessandro.

Oh, where to begin? We loved him the moment he first sprinted into the library, shirt too short and curly hair every which-way. Then he started talking and we loved him even more. Today, he shivered about the cold because he was "dressed like a summer tree", then wished us a "good comeback to America." This from the man unafraid to single out cities as "adorable" and sport a purple sweater.

He's guided us through Ancient Greece and into Renaissance Italy with a million dozen detours in between, and I don't think I'm really ready to give him up quite yet. Oh, you guys! Let's reminisce about

THE STATE OF OUR WHITEBOARD ON ANY GIVEN DAY:

rose

HORACE

Petrarch

carpe diem

(now you try to connect the dots)

A FEW FABULOUS PHRASES FROM VARIOUS AFTERNOONS:

"Hmm, yes. I would like to make a parentheses here."

"Did that answer your curiousity?"

"We're really running through history here."

"This is a very pregnant title."

THE WORD THAT WE'LL USE THE REST OF OUR LIVES:

changement

Today is the first day I've started to miss what I have and oh dear, I'm getting all nostalgic already. Not a good sign for a girl who tends to hold to the past with fierce fondness. But boy, what a lovely living these past months have been. And with Alessandro? All the better.

what a world of solemn thought their monody compels

I wake up to bells, I fall asleep to bells. I write to bells and art to bells and walk to bells day in day out day in day out. Every hour, the bell. Every half hour, the bell. Sometimes, a bell just because. Oh, it's 4:19? Goodness, we should celebrate. Somebody, quick. Ring the bell!

Who is working all these bells, in all these churches, all over the city?

Occassionally, I wish they would disappear. Let me sleep, let me think, let me walk without your accompanying beat. Most often I appreciate their spontaneous song, glad to have something to mark a moment. But sometimes, I catch them swinging. Through a school window, the space between buildings, the curve of a cobblestone road. It is the heavy swing of metal weight to a ragtime beat, rocking with an energy far too young for their ancient hinges.

These are the moments that tend to fill me up, that swell with a sudden emotion I can't quite identify. I am at once full of the joy of living, of being caught in a minute of clanging revelry, and then fraught with a sense of loss, feeling the past slip away with the marked hour. Catching the bells as they toll makes me think, makes me want to figure it all out. Today, I feel like I got a little bit closer to the truth.

I love November 11th. I've talked about it before. But it becomes all the sweeter when you find yourself so far from home, coming to know better the country you left behind. Away from America, I miss my library card, city blocks, and drinking fountains. Silly things like my Converse shoes or Costco salsa. But I have also come to understand a missing for something greater, for the sense of freedom and possibility I didn't really know we have.

When the bells swing, I feel joy for that same freedom. We are alive, we are learning, we are so lucky. I am in Italy because of life choices I was able to make freely, because of parents who believe in this growing and expanding, because of a university that wanted to give me this opportunity. And then I feel a solemnity amidst these chimes. They have rung for centuries now, across decades of human suffering and sadness and turmoil. I am in Italy because of the men who made the choice to serve, because of the generations who trusted in this freedom to grow and become, because of a country who fights for what they believe. And for that, the bells can ring absolutely any time they'd like.

(five o'eight, and all's well)

the deep charity of winter air

Mornings here are white now, the world trapped in fog like swaddling clothes. The air is wet, chilled, suspended between a frozen night and a new day's warmth. These dark medieval buildings rise from the smoke like phantoms, and the cobblestones are slick with cold. Gone are the bright sunrises, the early colors of Tuscany. We returned from a fall in Florence to find that winter's arrived in Siena---and, surprisingly, I love it.

This could have to do with the fact that I don't need to worry about that pesky frozen snow stuff. That this is Italy's version of winter, not the usual freeze-out in the Rocky Mountains. But I am also loving how full of life these dead mornings are, how strangely envigorating. The fog makes you imagine, all lines blurred and the world left to your creativity. The cold makes you remember, warm with thoughts of home and family, nights so near in the future full of cozy fires and favorite mugs of spicy teas. And the grey skies make you think of color, replacing this muddy palette with your favorite sorts of hues.

And it certainly helps that the season comes with scarves, and boots, and twinkle lights. I'm rather looking forward to falling in love with it all over again. In the meantime, my friends, it's time to stock up.

notes from the boboli

(with apologies; i haven't written poetry for far too long)

Here, from the top of the world,
I can see it all.
I am alive
I am aware
I am omnipotent,
a piece of my past
suspended in this present
by the light of the future.

And how expressively they put it,
these slanting rays of sun.
Holding desperately to this moment
we will never have again
while capturing,
in haloed hair,
the very self we long for.

That is the complication
of such a sunset;
in it you see
a chance at everything
you imagine you might become
and in it
you see
the death
of another day.

here is where the birds sing, here is where the sky is blue

I ran off to Florence this weekend, naively believing

that if the hostel says they have wi-fi,

then the hostel will have wi-fi.

(Oh, silly E, what a laugh.)

So I'm still posting this under Saturday,

because I don't think I really failed at NaBloPoMo, not yet.