And then I came back to Berkeley, Oakland, El Cerrito, my Honda Civic, and the assorted chaos I once knew.
Good to be home. Adventure has just begun. Will write soon.
Lauren
25 August 2009
27 July 2009
The Big Goodbye
There have been so many goodbyes already!
First there was my last official day as the boys' au pair, crying into their hair before leaving for a monastic week of silence and song at Taizè...
...but we said hello again a week later, when I dropped my immense backpack on the floor, and they came running to offer up Legos, drawings, and dinner.
And then there I went to Morocco, and came back. They had their first overnight summer camp experience, their first nature arts'n'crafts cabin experience, while I tasted sweet mint tea (which fellow traveler Ollie deemed "a hug for my throat"), looked at camels and avoided snakes. Talked philosophy and love with Lindsay on three different beaches, and sprawled beneath the air conditioner. Slept in. Listened to strange music, shrank away from the market barter and haggle, and wondered once a day what was happening back home in Turin.
We had danced all weekend in a marriage celebration, and I watched the wedding with all the family secrets subtitling the traditional ceremonies. I caught the bouquet. I danced with my host parents, and clinked mojitos. I worked for them? Awesome.
And there was the penultimate goodbye this morning, our last time at home together. They drove away to the seaside while I wept and waved from the stoop, departing tomorrow. When I took the elevator upstairs alone I thought about how opposite this was from the airport goodbye I had pictured. (But I'm the one leaving!, I said to me.)
Now I look around my room at all the little things that don't really belong anywhere. I have weighed and reweighed my bags, and despite my inability to lift them they are miraculously below the weight limit for both Aer Lingus and United Airlines. Tomorrow at dawn I will leave this home and never live in it again, to go back to another home that I have never seen before. What if it was here?, I ask myself when the goodbye gets teary. What about that College Home, and the Childhood Home, and that future Married Home? I guess we're always coming from one and going to another. It's useless to keep track anymore as I feel like I now belong so much to myself and so little to places.
Look at my pictures on Facebook! If you haven't a profile, you can email me and I'll send you a way in.
I will be back in the Bay Area on August 3rd or 4th, somewhat impoverished and somewhat more luminous. Unreachable and without a valid California ID. You will recognise me from the new short haircut, the North African tan, and the suitcasing wrinkles in all my clothes. And the politely distracted I-think-my-life-just-changed-again gaze.
First there was my last official day as the boys' au pair, crying into their hair before leaving for a monastic week of silence and song at Taizè...
...but we said hello again a week later, when I dropped my immense backpack on the floor, and they came running to offer up Legos, drawings, and dinner.
And then there I went to Morocco, and came back. They had their first overnight summer camp experience, their first nature arts'n'crafts cabin experience, while I tasted sweet mint tea (which fellow traveler Ollie deemed "a hug for my throat"), looked at camels and avoided snakes. Talked philosophy and love with Lindsay on three different beaches, and sprawled beneath the air conditioner. Slept in. Listened to strange music, shrank away from the market barter and haggle, and wondered once a day what was happening back home in Turin.
We had danced all weekend in a marriage celebration, and I watched the wedding with all the family secrets subtitling the traditional ceremonies. I caught the bouquet. I danced with my host parents, and clinked mojitos. I worked for them? Awesome.
And there was the penultimate goodbye this morning, our last time at home together. They drove away to the seaside while I wept and waved from the stoop, departing tomorrow. When I took the elevator upstairs alone I thought about how opposite this was from the airport goodbye I had pictured. (But I'm the one leaving!, I said to me.)
Now I look around my room at all the little things that don't really belong anywhere. I have weighed and reweighed my bags, and despite my inability to lift them they are miraculously below the weight limit for both Aer Lingus and United Airlines. Tomorrow at dawn I will leave this home and never live in it again, to go back to another home that I have never seen before. What if it was here?, I ask myself when the goodbye gets teary. What about that College Home, and the Childhood Home, and that future Married Home? I guess we're always coming from one and going to another. It's useless to keep track anymore as I feel like I now belong so much to myself and so little to places.
Look at my pictures on Facebook! If you haven't a profile, you can email me and I'll send you a way in.
I will be back in the Bay Area on August 3rd or 4th, somewhat impoverished and somewhat more luminous. Unreachable and without a valid California ID. You will recognise me from the new short haircut, the North African tan, and the suitcasing wrinkles in all my clothes. And the politely distracted I-think-my-life-just-changed-again gaze.
25 June 2009
Return to Venice (San Servolo)
Remember when I almost died in Venice one year ago? I mean, when I melodramatised that I was going to die in Venice from the naturally heinous consequences of unforseen humidity, recent emotional turbulence, and rapid national/geographical transitions? That had been my first weekend in Italy, the first venture out of Turin with my new Italian family, and I had been too busy with keeping food inside my body to enjoy the setting. This time I slowly paced the island and tried to appreciate, without too much fore- or afterthought, the unusual chance to walk the same paths in the same clothes on the same summer days, that I walked exactly one year ago. To look at exactly where I was, and where I am. Talk about closure.
Same weekend in June. Low humidity, thank the skies. Same five hour train ride from Turin to Milan to Venice. Same ferry from the train station to our island, same dormitory, same nannies, most of the same kids. Same aloof Italian parents - khaki and pearls, Blackberries, spritzes - disappearing to a different part of the island for their mysterious conferences. In place of Henry James' "Washington Square," I read Zora Neal Hurston's "Their Eyes Were Watching God." The holiday in August - I'm still referring directly to my original "Death in Venice" blog entry - turned out to be one week in Paris and one week alone in Turin; I did indeed visit Christa in July; and I didn't come home for Christmas, making this the longest I period I have ever passed away from my hometown and immediate family. 375 days since my plane took off, and I'm so much bigger for it.
Irene, the Filipino nanny, remembered me from last year. We have both shortened our hair. "So you are leabing soon to go back to California," she said, smiling. "You are lucky." She has a son and husband in the Philippines to whom she sends the money she earns in Italy from ironing and doing laundry and raising Federico, a vivacious 4-year-old. Irene always smiles.
Our trip coincided with the first strains of the Art Biennale, a biennial international art exhibition that takes over the whole city. I managed to visit the Arsenale exhibition space, the Ireland and North Ireland pavilions, the Morocco pavilion, and a few of the public exhibits. My main aim, however, after doing the Student Thing with my study abroad group in 2007, and the Tourist Thing with the family last year, was to find the real Venice: where do actual Venetians live? What do they do? Do they actually exist, or is everyone here part of the tourist culture? I snatched the few opportune hours to wander Venice alone, stuffed them into my shoulder bag with an umbrella and my journal, and took to the streets. Here's what I found:
Venice is even pretty in post-rain Monday evening.
Someone wore this tiger suit so much that it had to be washed.
Rainbow laundry dries on the line between house and tree.
Australian couple swinging barefoot to the jazz band playing in front of this historic cafe, to the delight of white blazered waiters and various passersby.
There are, in fact, some corners yet untouched by tourist culture...
... such as the wine bar (above) that I entered to escape the rain, only to find Eric Clapton's "San Francisco Bay Blues" playing on the flatscreen. I ordered a big glass of red wine and picked a corner table to attempt to journal, and instead struck up a conversation with a fellow American traveler that lasted all afternoon. Takei, a 28-year-old architect from New York, and I drank our way to the end of the passing rainshower and shouldered our respective loads to wander Venice together. He said he was losing focus in New York, unsure of his next steps, and I assured him that he was headed in the right direction if only by asking himself about it. We tossed coins into the case of a group of lean, hatted, teenaged gypsy guitar players improvising under a portico; I photographed his flannel shirt and bearded grin on a narrow gondola dock; he told me about the girl he lived with and now no longer lives with, and the siblings he barely knows. I wrote to myself
venice is as pretty as usual, and i got a straw hat like i wanted.
i feel like i've run out of things to write. all this time has gone by, and i'm no longer 1. in crisis from graduation, nor 2. alone.
16 June 2009
Open Your Ears
I have met so many people here and around who assure me that a change is coming, that the current course of the modern western world is bound for ruin and the only way to redirect that course is with informed, intentional action. Lindsay said the other day that what we need now is brave people, courageous people. The most recent issue of the Re-evaluation Counseling publication “Current Times” opened with a quote: Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength. Loving someone deeply gives you courage.” It seems that a lot of important historical action has come from like-minded individuals bringing talent and skills to a community*, and inviting other enlightened individuals into a pulsing group of activists via late night conversations, substance experimentation, the wholehearted execution of bad and great ideas – and the more I read about the literary groups and artists’ circles that came before, the more I consider the potential of the community my friend Kelsey mentioned in a recent email:
And there’s no way that venture could fail, simply because we would be together.
Over the past few weeks I’ve been soaking up a ton of new information about the past and current states of the world. The first was a film called Terra Madre about the SlowFood movement – a documentary based upon the urgent call to renew the once-sacred bond between Man and the Earth – after which I had a chance to talk with the director and filmmaker Ermanno Olmi about what effects the film may have on viewers, and on the larger population. As the end of the film was a 30-minute wordless chronicle of one farmer’s seasonal process (tilling, sowing, smelling, cutting) I told them during the Q&A that I thought the film fostered attentive listening. Active, deliberate listening: something often forgotten in today’s age of output. Blogs allow people to publish mindless grievances and ravings; text-message capabilities allow lovers and friends to say things over the mobile phone that they cannot take back, let alone defend or explain; and email correspondence has contributed, in my opinion, to the rapid breakdown of the written English language as a means for articulating one’s ideas in an intelligent way. In another part of the Q&A, Ermanno Olmi mentioned President Obama and his story-telling campaign, and I agreed that he has indeed opened the door to individuals of each life path to come together in love. The next step, however, is to listen. Really slow down and listen. Absorb. To give ourselves the time to do that, then take that new information with us into the action.
* Torino's Promotrice delle Belle Arti (an elegant exhibit space in the big riverside park, my favorite museum here) is currently hosting collected works of husband and wife Camilla and Valerio Adami. They had a circle, too, in the 1980s, which included literary theorist Jacques Derrida. Cool.
Clare and I have been fantasizing a lot about the post-Ecuador San Francisco life [they are currently in Ecuador on a Colorado College post-graduate grant to film a documentary] and, I have to inform you that you are intimately involved in our future fantasy. So, here is the deal. We want to move into a big house in the Mission in the fall with other like minded artistic, into the healthy lifestyle/going out on cultural ventures type people.... know anyone who fits this profile? (hint: try looking in the mirror)
And there’s no way that venture could fail, simply because we would be together.
Over the past few weeks I’ve been soaking up a ton of new information about the past and current states of the world. The first was a film called Terra Madre about the SlowFood movement – a documentary based upon the urgent call to renew the once-sacred bond between Man and the Earth – after which I had a chance to talk with the director and filmmaker Ermanno Olmi about what effects the film may have on viewers, and on the larger population. As the end of the film was a 30-minute wordless chronicle of one farmer’s seasonal process (tilling, sowing, smelling, cutting) I told them during the Q&A that I thought the film fostered attentive listening. Active, deliberate listening: something often forgotten in today’s age of output. Blogs allow people to publish mindless grievances and ravings; text-message capabilities allow lovers and friends to say things over the mobile phone that they cannot take back, let alone defend or explain; and email correspondence has contributed, in my opinion, to the rapid breakdown of the written English language as a means for articulating one’s ideas in an intelligent way. In another part of the Q&A, Ermanno Olmi mentioned President Obama and his story-telling campaign, and I agreed that he has indeed opened the door to individuals of each life path to come together in love. The next step, however, is to listen. Really slow down and listen. Absorb. To give ourselves the time to do that, then take that new information with us into the action.
* Torino's Promotrice delle Belle Arti (an elegant exhibit space in the big riverside park, my favorite museum here) is currently hosting collected works of husband and wife Camilla and Valerio Adami. They had a circle, too, in the 1980s, which included literary theorist Jacques Derrida. Cool.
02 June 2009
In Which She Finds the Dream Position
I went with the family to the mountains near Monte Bianco, Valvaraita, for a few days' repose in a hostelly cabin. We happened to share the weekend with a first place European outdoor someoneorother (Olympic mountain climber?), a young couple of fresh 
polenta-cooking newlyweds, and some scruffy sweatered locals who spoke not Italian but a fascinating language called Occitan. They apologised to me, in Italian, when they would lapse into their own language in front of me, but I waved it off because I like trying to guess what they're saying. I will miss Italians' hand gestures, as they make eavesdropping so much easier.
In the early morning of each of the three days we stayed there, I awoke with the final words of a dream on my lips. I've found in recent weeks that sleeping on my back with hands crossed over my stomach, aside from making me feel like an old man, encourages fast and furious dreaming, often of movement and contentment.
The mountains were moody when we arrived, all crags and fog, driving us indoors to play cards and Forza Quattro (Connect Four). I read aloud from "The Indian in the Cupboard," and to their parents' amazement the stircrazy boys stayed quiet for a solid half hour! They love it. I'm pretty good at imitating the different voices. They especially love the cowboy Boone's Texan accent, though I'm sure they only understand 29% of what he says.
On our last day the blue sky won out over pouting clouds, and set the background for a long wander up into the painted scenery. The boys complained of thirst and boredom, until we started to spot marmots and their outlooks changed from whiny to alert. How spoiled I've become that I don't think twice about how cool it is to read about Obama in the Italian newspaper with a focaccia sandwich in one hand, sprawled upon the grassy lawn beside a ruined stone cabin, nestled between snowy hills! One of the boys contented himself to build a dam in the snow runoff creek; the other fought unseen enemies with his walking stick. Dad walked off for a good half hour with his binoculars to birdwatch/moosewatch/marmotwatch, and came back unsatisfied. Mom stretched out in the sunshine, tanktop straps pulled down for maximum sun and minimum proof. These photos haven't been retouched.
On other fronts, I've run into that funny Hawaiian au pair a few more times in and around the neighborhood park, and each time I envy anew her carpe diem attitude, her freckles, and her sweet leather shoulder bag. She's one of those people of whom other girls always say, "Oh, no one could pull that [obscure fashion item e.g. sailor hat, buttoned gloves, leiderhosen] off except whatsername." Her regular videoblog updates reminded me that I should strive for diligence in documenting these last four weeks at Corso Galileo Ferraris, 67.
My dad asks, "Doing OK?" I reply, "Yeah. Racing time." He says, "Believe me - you lose every time." Listen to this with the lights out and you will see the saddest, brightest bits of your life montage before your eyes.
polenta-cooking newlyweds, and some scruffy sweatered locals who spoke not Italian but a fascinating language called Occitan. They apologised to me, in Italian, when they would lapse into their own language in front of me, but I waved it off because I like trying to guess what they're saying. I will miss Italians' hand gestures, as they make eavesdropping so much easier.In the early morning of each of the three days we stayed there, I awoke with the final words of a dream on my lips. I've found in recent weeks that sleeping on my back with hands crossed over my stomach, aside from making me feel like an old man, encourages fast and furious dreaming, often of movement and contentment.
The mountains were moody when we arrived, all crags and fog, driving us indoors to play cards and Forza Quattro (Connect Four). I read aloud from "The Indian in the Cupboard," and to their parents' amazement the stircrazy boys stayed quiet for a solid half hour! They love it. I'm pretty good at imitating the different voices. They especially love the cowboy Boone's Texan accent, though I'm sure they only understand 29% of what he says.
On our last day the blue sky won out over pouting clouds, and set the background for a long wander up into the painted scenery. The boys complained of thirst and boredom, until we started to spot marmots and their outlooks changed from whiny to alert. How spoiled I've become that I don't think twice about how cool it is to read about Obama in the Italian newspaper with a focaccia sandwich in one hand, sprawled upon the grassy lawn beside a ruined stone cabin, nestled between snowy hills! One of the boys contented himself to build a dam in the snow runoff creek; the other fought unseen enemies with his walking stick. Dad walked off for a good half hour with his binoculars to birdwatch/moosewatch/marmotwatch, and came back unsatisfied. Mom stretched out in the sunshine, tanktop straps pulled down for maximum sun and minimum proof. These photos haven't been retouched.
On other fronts, I've run into that funny Hawaiian au pair a few more times in and around the neighborhood park, and each time I envy anew her carpe diem attitude, her freckles, and her sweet leather shoulder bag. She's one of those people of whom other girls always say, "Oh, no one could pull that [obscure fashion item e.g. sailor hat, buttoned gloves, leiderhosen] off except whatsername." Her regular videoblog updates reminded me that I should strive for diligence in documenting these last four weeks at Corso Galileo Ferraris, 67.
My dad asks, "Doing OK?" I reply, "Yeah. Racing time." He says, "Believe me - you lose every time." Listen to this with the lights out and you will see the saddest, brightest bits of your life montage before your eyes.
21 May 2009
In Which The Heat Begins
Springtime is fast melting into summertime in the city, and high noon birdsong from rooftops makes me sweat. Everything is too bright and too dry. I'm drinking water straight from the plastic liter bottle, a rude habit we try to discourage in the boys, and trying to justify my lethargic immobility with my previous sleepless night.
Last Wednesday night, two friends and I went out to a french chanson concert in a distant bar, taking a combination of bus and metro to reach what turned out to be dim humid locale without available seating. Nonetheless we enjoyed the complimentary drinks included in the cover fee, enjoyed some live music. Upon exiting the venue, we just missed our bus home. Drat! Poor Balbina had just had a cast taken off her ankle earlier that afternoon, after several long weeks of surgery recovery, but limped along like a real trooper. We talked of the awkward beauty of adolescent female bodies - lithe, sensuous, misunderstood - and about our dream vacations.
A strange young Italian guy happened upon our midnight ramble when we neared a hot taxi spot at Porta Susa train station, and hovered near us as we walked past a busy pub. We three girls, all mascara and sandals, moved instinctively closer to one another against this uninvited escort, unsure of whether to increase or decrease our speed. I didn't even realise he'd snatched her purse until he was halfway down the block and turning the corner, and I suddenly understood the word "crestfallen" when I knew neither of us could catch him. Muscular blurs raced past on both sides; some men from the bar had seen the whole thing and chased the youth for blocks. They returned, panting and triunphant, gold and white clutch in hand! Cell phone, check. Apartment keys, check. Ten euros, check. Chapstick, check. They'd found him crouched in a dumpster, they said, and Balbina's nostrils flared indignantly when she they reported that no, no one had punched him. If I didn't have this bum ankle, I woulda chased him down and kicked his ass! Carabinieri, or civil police officers, arrived around 1,30am, and took her info. The druggie youth was soon caught by another pair of police officers when he tried to snatch another woman's purse just a couple of blocks away, and huddled dazedly some yards away from us in the cop car as the first two officers took witness reports in the most ridiculous, roundabout (read: typically Italian) manner. "Can you describe what he looked like? What he was wearing," the young cop asked while the old cop ogled me and Lindsay lecherously. "He's right over there!," I wanted to yell, wanted to use both hands to indicate the culprit in the dark car. "WTF are we still doing here??" Minutes passed as they questioned the "witnesses" one by one. The muscular witnesses bought the pretty witnesses a round of beers. The pretty ones bought everyone a plate of french fries. We didn't get home until almost 4 in the morning. Hence the aforementioned sleepless night.
On a completely different note, someone recently turned me onto an interview with author and educator Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot in which she addresses the search for meaning and fulfillment in what she calls "the third chapter," the years between 50 and 75 that, in this day and age, no longer mean retirement or slowing down but rather another kind of identity crisis.
Move past the boredom and compose... your life!
Last Wednesday night, two friends and I went out to a french chanson concert in a distant bar, taking a combination of bus and metro to reach what turned out to be dim humid locale without available seating. Nonetheless we enjoyed the complimentary drinks included in the cover fee, enjoyed some live music. Upon exiting the venue, we just missed our bus home. Drat! Poor Balbina had just had a cast taken off her ankle earlier that afternoon, after several long weeks of surgery recovery, but limped along like a real trooper. We talked of the awkward beauty of adolescent female bodies - lithe, sensuous, misunderstood - and about our dream vacations.
A strange young Italian guy happened upon our midnight ramble when we neared a hot taxi spot at Porta Susa train station, and hovered near us as we walked past a busy pub. We three girls, all mascara and sandals, moved instinctively closer to one another against this uninvited escort, unsure of whether to increase or decrease our speed. I didn't even realise he'd snatched her purse until he was halfway down the block and turning the corner, and I suddenly understood the word "crestfallen" when I knew neither of us could catch him. Muscular blurs raced past on both sides; some men from the bar had seen the whole thing and chased the youth for blocks. They returned, panting and triunphant, gold and white clutch in hand! Cell phone, check. Apartment keys, check. Ten euros, check. Chapstick, check. They'd found him crouched in a dumpster, they said, and Balbina's nostrils flared indignantly when she they reported that no, no one had punched him. If I didn't have this bum ankle, I woulda chased him down and kicked his ass! Carabinieri, or civil police officers, arrived around 1,30am, and took her info. The druggie youth was soon caught by another pair of police officers when he tried to snatch another woman's purse just a couple of blocks away, and huddled dazedly some yards away from us in the cop car as the first two officers took witness reports in the most ridiculous, roundabout (read: typically Italian) manner. "Can you describe what he looked like? What he was wearing," the young cop asked while the old cop ogled me and Lindsay lecherously. "He's right over there!," I wanted to yell, wanted to use both hands to indicate the culprit in the dark car. "WTF are we still doing here??" Minutes passed as they questioned the "witnesses" one by one. The muscular witnesses bought the pretty witnesses a round of beers. The pretty ones bought everyone a plate of french fries. We didn't get home until almost 4 in the morning. Hence the aforementioned sleepless night.
On a completely different note, someone recently turned me onto an interview with author and educator Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot in which she addresses the search for meaning and fulfillment in what she calls "the third chapter," the years between 50 and 75 that, in this day and age, no longer mean retirement or slowing down but rather another kind of identity crisis.
All of us [individuals in the third chapter] at this point, to some degree, are on a search for meaningfulness, for purposefulness. And we want to find what this next 25 years, this penultimate chapter of our life, is going to be about. And we're ready for something new. For a new experience. For a new adventure. And I think all of us, to some degree, experience some burnout. Burnout is not about working too hard. Or working too diligently or being over committed. Burnout is about boredom. And so, I think in some ways this is about sort of moving beyond the boredom to compose, to invent and reinvent the path that we're on.Check it out at http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/05082009/watch2.html
Move past the boredom and compose... your life!
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