Firenze Sempre

Those were
(Quelli erano)
The golden days.
(I giorni d'oro.)
The mornings where sunlight
(Il mattino dove la luce solare)
Looked like dust filtering through stagnant air
(Considerata come la polvere che filtra attraverso l'aria stagnante)
And
(E)
The heavy weight of jewels.
(Il peso pesante di gioielli.)
The evenings on the coast when warm breezes
(Le serate sulla costa quando brezze termiche)
Carried
(Eseguita)
The clean smell of
(L'odore di pulito)
Cacti
(Cacti)
And
(E)
Sea salt
(Sale marino)
On them.
(Su di essi.)
Monuments
(Monumenti)
Rose like memories in the piazzas,
(Crescere come ricordi nelle piazze,)
And
(E)
Buildings
(Edifici)
Loomed as tangible as the passing of time around them.
(Profilò tangibili come il passare del tempo intorno a loro.)
A back alley in Firenze
(Un vicolo in Firenze)
--Only the Italian names for places—
(-- Solo i nomi italiani per i posti--)
Via dello Studio.
(Via dello Studio.)
I am late on my way to a friend’s apartment,
(Sono in ritardo sul mio modo di appartamento di una amica,)
But walk
(Ma a piedi)
Slowly,
(Lentamente,)
Rewarded for my patience when,
(Premiato per la mia pazienza quando,)
Above me,
(Sopra di me,)
Piano
(Pianoforte)
And
(E)
A woman singing opera
(Una donna di canto lirico)
Erupt from open windows.
(Scoppiare dalle finestre aperte.)
I stop
(Mi fermo)
On the cobblestones
(Sul selciato)
And listen,
(E ascolta,)
Knowing this is a moment I will remember fondly
(Sapere questo è un momento mi ricorderò con affetto)
For the rest of my life.
(Per il resto della mia vita.)
Nothing has changed here
(Nulla è cambiato qui)
Since 1482.
(Dal 1482.)
I hope nothing changes
(Spero che non cambia nulla)
Upon my return—
(Al mio ritorno--)
A 20 year old shadow of me,
(A venti anni ombra vecchio di me,)
Left wandering the streets here,
(Sinistra per le strade qui,)

Forever,

(Sempre,)

With
(Con)
Part of my heart
(Parte del mio cuore.)

XOXO

"Andata In Gatta"-- The Cats Of Roma

"Andata in gatta" translates to "gone to the cats," an Italian euphemism for "three sheets to the wind," or "dead-drunk." Interesting.

Cats in Florence behave the way Victorian parents wished their children would: they are seen, but only from afar, and not heard. They appear, sleek, mild-mannered, aloof, on rooftops, and only turn to look at you when you call to them.

Roma cats capture my heart. The cats of Roma are straight natural-born hustlers. All missing tips of ears, some teeth, or some hair, nonetheless, they entertain tourists to literally eat from their palms. Scruffy, shameless, grubby-- they act the way cats are not supposed to behave. Mr. Mephistopheles would be appalled. I, however, am enthralled. They talk back. They demand more from you. They looks straight at you and demand more. These are not cats who pussy-foot around the subject. I admire them for this, for their sass and their ease at making demands; for their single-minded affection and independence. These are cats who love you and leave you. Maybe that's what attracts me to them-- the fact that I like to love and leave at will as well. But just like the cats, I also deeply need and crave the affection I get from my interactions. Just like the cats, I want a place to come home to, a hand to reach out and touch me, praise for surviving and thriving.

Maybe I emanate this need more than I'll ever know. But for whatever reason, the cats here seem to know it, and love me for it. They cock their heads and listen to me when I talk to them in the language that Julio Cortazar described as "somewhere between silly and mysterious, making dates with them, giving advice and admonitions (as she tickled their bellies)"-- the odd clicks of tongue on roof of mouth and soft whispers of hisses and kissing sounds. They let me hold them, climb willingly into my lap on their own accord to be closer, swarming in groups of 3s and 5s and 7s around me, milling under legs and between boots and rubbing against my knees. They blink slowly. They mew back. One-- my favorite-- a long-haired black male with a jaw off-set from once being broken, looking like a dashingly disfigured boxer, with blue eyes that startle when he turns and looks at you, nods at me. I don't even like cats, much. If you asked me, I would tell you definitively that I'm much more of a dog person. But these cats don't ask.

These Roma ruin cats just like me. Maybe it's because I'm more of a cat than a dog, myself, no matter how much I appreciate a good canine. Pleasing people just isn't in my repertoire-- I'd rather hide and sleep.

So it bothers me when one is aloof and scales a tree. He can't seem to make up his mind about me. Conversely, a squat brown and black tiger "guardian of the spirits" in the Protestant cemetery playfully engages me in a game of hide-and-seek in the flower beds, jumping out to startle me and touch my boot with a tagging paw. A playful spirit, obviously. A cuddly tiger female winds around me, and I watch a group of Irish tourists repeatedly try their luck at making friends and fail. Feeling bad, I coax her like the Pied Piper with whispers and beckoning fingers down to the group, where all the other cats have scattered from. "They're nice," I tell her, and then turn to the anxiously expectant Irish.

"She's nice," I tell them. "She'll let you pet her." And she does stay for them to scoot over and scritch at her, waiting patiently until the last hand has touched her to then duck under the rail and disappear.

As I stand to leave, my favorite, the black male with the blue eyes, reappears, melting out from the shadows of the ruins to say goodbye, rubbing that distinctive jawline over me, a face only a mother, or a complete sucker, like me, could love. I thank him, gently run a finger under that deformity, certain most people won't touch him there, remembering how much my cats at home love being scratched under the chin. He tilts his face up to me, blinks his big blue eyes slowly (so that's the power big blue eyes have?) and grins.

Cats know more than you would ever guess. Here, in the ruins, I let these strays, mangy and rag-tag, yet still elegant and commanding, wrap themselves around me, and into me. I find I need them, possibly more than they could ever need me, because they are cats, after all. Cats don't need like people need. And I am finding that I need.

---The best part is, you can

adopt a little scoundrel of your own. Going in my first Big Girl Apartment? A Roman gatto.---

XOXO

This Could Be Any Moment, Anywhere, But It's Here.

The bed has an old green velvet headboard, and one button missing, dimple showing cheekily.

The bed has an old green velvet headboard, and the wineglass on the nightstand table is half-drunk, tiny little effervescent bubbles still not popped-- a pinot grigio, lively, and bright in the soft yellow light of the nightstand's lamp.

The bed has an old green velvet headboard, the wineglass on the nightstand table is half-drunk, and the music in the background is a strain of plucking chords, melding male and female voice, tenor and alto, one octave up, one octave down, reverberations and melody, and is soothing and sleepy.

The bed has an old green velvet headboard, the wineglass on the nightstand is half-drunk, the music in the background is a strain of plucking chords, and the book is surreal and contemporary and just a little bit pretentious for the sake of being surreal and contemporary and pretentious, even though it was written by an Argentinian author in 1966, during what could probably be called the Age Of Writer's Pretension.

The bed has an old green velvet headboard, the wineglass on the nightstand table is half-drunk, the music in the background is a strain of plucking chords, the book is surreal and contemporary and just a little bit pretentious, and the ashes in the elegant blue and brown cut-glass ashtray (also a bit pretentious,) still smell like smoke, still just a little bit alive, still potent and pungent and arresting at the corner of the senses, trying to grab attention for another go, another full-frontal assault on health and good, clean habits and mind over matter.

The bed has an old green velvet headboard, the wineglass on the nightstand table is half-drunk, the music in the background is a strain of plucking chords, the book is surreal and contemporary and just a little bit pretentious, the ashes in the elegant ashtray still smell like smoke, and I am struck with the sudden crashing revelation that outside of these few mundane details in this scene, I am in a totally foreign country, and knowing this, listen to the rumble of trucks and small cars and the high whine of mopeds and the tic-tic-tic of high heels on the uneven sidewalk and shouting in Italian and the screech of bus brakes and that nothing (save maybe the cigarette smoke and the music,) is familiar and I am quite possibly living precariously outside of my own life, in this strange and beautiful new and oh-so-very-old city, just buying time here, (another 81 days, 1944 hours, and a fuck-ton of minutes, breaths, sighs, strange words, and laughs,) until I can re-enter Life As I Know It, Take Two, and then, that will seem strange and foreign, and I will find myself longing for the missing half-glass of wine already drunk from the half-drunk wineglass on this nightstand table, and for the high whine of mopeds, and the tic-tic-tic of wooden heels on worn-down sidewalks, missing my alien outlook on life, a spectator instead of a member in this sport.

The bed has an old green velvet headboard, and one button missing, dimple showing cheekily.

XOXO

The All-American Normad's College Life, Excerpt 8:

"Unsanitary"

I find that the wall in the narrow bathroom, while not conducive to sitting forward on the toilet, makes a convenient rest for one’s drunken head while perched precariously sideways-ish on the seat, praying you don’t slip off.

I could almost brush my teeth and spit into the sink from this position, saving time, if I felt so moved to be so completely unsanitary.

Five minutes later, I am brushing my teeth while still seated on the toilet.

While sulla toletta.

Hello, Italy. I have arrived.

XOXO

The All-American Nomad's College Life, Excerpt 6:

"Dick"

Addicted. A-d-d-i-c-t-e-d. Note the sound that when said aloud clearly states “dick.” Because that’s what’s happening. You’re getting fucked. Hard.

I’ve pulled my jeans on, cuffed the bottoms, slid into my Uggs, fished my gloves and lighter out of my purse, and just barely wrapped my insistently questing fingers around the small cardboard box before my mind can catch up and put two-and-two together and register what’s happening. One moment, lying in bed, reading a mindlessly good escapist novel, snug and warm. The next, slammed by a want—no, a need—that has me moving faster and more surely than love, or money, or fear or any combination cocktail of the three has ever made me move before.

I sit down on the edge of the bed, hard. Two months from now, April 1st, will mark my two-year anniversary as a smoker. A year and half smoking Djarum Black cloves exclusively, and no overwhelming wants or needs. A casual smoker, as casual as a casual lover. A few times a week. I liked the process more than the end result, the inhaling and exhaling. Two months smoking these fucking, godforsaken, piece-of-shit, nasty-ass Camel Lights, and I’m reaching for the box like an expiring narc-fiend. I’m on the balcony with them every night like an illicit tryst, rain, cold, or clear skies. I’m spending 20 of them like I spend 20 dollars—quickly and with ruthless efficiency. On the way to classes. In the morning with my espresso, one bitter complimenting and cancelling the other. With a glass of wine before, after, or even during dinner. If I got for a walk, they’re in my pocket alongside my cell phone, which I would rather bear losing.

Mingling with the incessant and growing need is another emotion—disgust. Self-loathing. I, unlike some, am not too proud to admit my shortcomings as I momentarily contemplate quitting, and meet self-resistance to the thought and the realization that I can’t.

Chimney. Ashtray. Butt-stubber. Ash-flicker. Grinding filter between shoe sole and sidewalk. Leaving a trail of discarded stubs like a perverse Gretel. Filling the same lungs that fought with me for the first nine years of my life, already inherently weak. Go ahead. Hurt them more.

Like I said a mere month ago, and not in any sort of self-servingly pretentious or morbid deliciously snarky way, smoking is slowly committing suicide, one cigarette at a time.

Addict. I am a victim of myself. Dicked. Deep.

I resign myself, right now, right at this very second, that the day I hold my graduate school diploma and master’s degree in hand will be the day I enroll myself in a quitting program, flush the remainder of the pack, and invest in some Nicotine patches.

For now, though, I reach back over for the hastily discarded pack and count. Three left. Thank god I bought a new pack this afternoon.

XOXO

The All-American Nomad's College Life, Excerpt 5:

“Constant Constellations”

I walk out onto the balcony of my brand-new Florentine apartment, glass of chardonnay in hand from buying my first bottle of wine today (€2.89, .75 liter bottle, so don’t get too excited), sit down, and look up, toward where I know the almost full moon will be. The first thing I see, instead, is the constellation Orion.

I.) I was worried I wouldn’t be able to see the stars in the city.

V.) The wine, cheap and sweet or not, is good. I, a solid beer and liquor drinker at home, have not met a glass of wine I don’t like in Italy yet.

C.) I thought, as I flew through the starless night on the plane over here, that the nearly 7,000 mile difference between the U.S and Italy would render the night skies totally different, and I would find I wasn’t even looking at the same stars as you anymore.

N.) Cassiopeia will always be my favorite constellation. But Orion has become my touchstone.

I place a wish on the three jewels on Orion’s belt. When the sun sets, I hope the night sky is clear enough that you can look up and find them.

XOXO

The All-American Nomad's College Life, Excerpt 3:

“Lessons In Italian Living, Day Two: Eat Before You Drink.”

After walking around town all day, having digested nothing but the Florentine dust blown by the high winter winds around the Duomo since my small, very European breakfast of a croissant and half a peach saturated in its own liquid, I find I have drunk my glass of chardonnay at dinner before eating a little too quickly. I am a little too warm. A little too blurry. A little too quick to divulge. A little too excited with life, and a little too charmed with the hole-in-the-wall Robin and I managed to locate after walking a few half-circles in lower Florence, my Rick Steves’ guidebook held out in front of me like the Holy Grail. Written in Hebrew, of course. Because that little hand-drawn map is just as readable to me as Cyrillic symbols.

I am, in other words, “tipsy,” or, because it describes how I feel much better without the connotations of the giggling girls tipping over in hallways and I am not quite there yet, “light-headed.” (And so you know, I do not get “drunk”—plastering myself on other people, with an uncontrollably modulating voice, easily convinced to do stupid shit; I get “tipsy”—giggling and swaying in hallways and on sofas. Modulating voice and stupid shit I am convinced into perfectly sober.)

Anyway. The waiter asks for our orders. I’m pretty sure I butcher every word after “penne.” I ingest roughly a pound of pasta in chipped meat and cream sauce. Not feeling the pressure of tipping like we do in America, I leave a Euro for our abrupt yet serviceable waiter. I am happier about this Italian custom of non-tipping more than I’d care to admit. With my mathematical skills and hypersensitive apathy, leaving a tip is always the point in a meal that I hem and haw and feel guilty—not when I’m ordering. I imagine the waiter or waitresses’ children. The car that needs to be repaired. The college loans that have just started to come monthly calling. The electricity bill. What it would be like if it were me; how much I’d want someone to pay for my work. What my friends who wait have to deal with—the rude customers, orders in the middle of nowhere, and 17-cent tips. In other words, if you wait tables, you want me as your patron. I am a helplessly conscious push-over.

After, we back-track toward the Uffizi to find a proper gelato shop—one that puts real fruit in their window displays of the creamy, decadent treat—and I smoke my second cigarettes and eat my first gelato in Italy. Tiramisu-flavored. The cone is better than in America. I decide to say, fuck my state of affairs— chardonnay, smoke, and gelato go perfectly together.

XOXO

The All-American Nomad's College Life, Excerpt 2:

“Flight Of The Midnight Sun”

Somewhere around St. John Island past Labrador and before Greenland, I realize I had absolutely no idea what I am doing.

My seat-mate thinks I am a professional snowboarder for Burton due to my 2007 U.S Snowboarding Open backpack, a spectator’s souvenir which cost me $50.

“So, you’re travelling when you’re not in the Olympics?” he asks me.

I realize I could be whoever I want to be, if just for this eight-hour flight next to this total and totally inquisitive stranger. I could be an Olympic snowboarder. I could be run-away Russian royalty. I could be…

I notice his heavy platinum wedding band. I suddenly want to ask about his wife. He’s young—where did they meet? How long have they been married? Does she mind being away from him when he does his traveling? Does he mind being away from her? And most importantly, how did he know she was the one when he met her? How do you know? This is the question I want to ask everyone.

A glint catches my eye as I write this from the fourth finger on my left hand. I wonder how many people want to ask me the same question, not realizing that I am a farce; a sham; a lost pretender, no closer than they are to the answer.

I can be anyone I want to be for this trip. For this flight, I am married and have all the answers, along with an illustrious snowboarding career.


XOXO

The All-American Nomad's College Life, Excerpt 1:

“Italy Enters WWIII”

She turns to my first Consulate Official Paper-Pusher and lets loose a stream of biting Italian. I am lost in translation, but as voices raise and speed of speech progresses forward with the volatile projection of a fatal wreck, out-of-control, waiting to happen, I don’t need to parlo Italiano to know what’s up. I have single-handedly started WWIII in Boston’s Italian General Consulate, just because I wanted some clarification. I get my first taste of what it will be like to be in Italy and causing a bumbling American, non-lingual ruckus. I am appalled.

Italian Dragon Lady leaves the cubicle behind the glass. I can only assume she is going to go breathe fire onto some helpless puppies to let off her steam. My first Paper-Pusher beckons me up to the window. Being someone who, as much as she tries to, seemingly can’t stay out of mischief for any even half-way reasonable amount of time , I know where this is going. He’s wearing the same look my parents, teachers, friends, co-workers, boyfriends, sales associates, police officers, taxi drivers, pedestrians, bank tellers, and road crew workers have all worn at one point in time when dealing with me—a cross between thundercloud eyebrows and a mouth that ends in a downward twist. “I’m stressed enough without her yelling at me,” he tells me. Ah, the animosity of co-workers. “You’re getting your visa now. It’s printing. Why are you causing trouble?”

I want to tell him that if I knew the answer to that question, my life would be far simpler, though not nearly as pandemoniously exciting.

Instead, I profusely apologize. It seems like the better thing to say than “Sir, I honestly could not tell you. And, if I did have the faintest idea why life seems so intent on throwing me into the most bizarre and quizzically backward situations, including numerous moments like this when I want to look at someone and say, ‘I cannot read your mind—just fucking tell me up-front what is happening and stop bullshitting around in half-sentences,’ in the least rude way possible, I certainly would not be making my, or more importantly, YOUR life any more difficult and obviously painfully trying than it already is. Do you think I actually LIKE being That Unholy Ruckus Girl?”

So I apologize. He waves me away with an extremely disassociated and imperious Italian wave of his hand. I take my seat again, feeling verbally and emotionally spanked senseless and raw.

XOXO