Settle in.

Familiarity with it all; echoes of years I was pleased to have passed by.

It's the little things, like unzipping my paint bag to discover that, though bursting with paints, it is void of brushes. Or this morning, when I ran to the highest point in my neighborhood and all there is, in every direction, as far as my eye can see: white, white blended into white into white, far across the lake in an infinite emptiness tinged with grey.

The thirst for some new combination of words I struggle to understand; the shock of sitting in a lecture hall with hundreds of people, a place I thought I left behind; the knowledge that this is the final piece of my education, drawing to an end.

It's the snowbanks, melted and dirty, the cold that nips at my eyes and the breeze that numbs my face, the brightness of scarves that make me smile; the coffee, cup after cup; the silence, words scratched on a page; the longing, the longing, the longing.

It's the rhythm of footsteps, pace by pace, the lingering unsaid of motion in the motionless. It's new piled on old, piece by piece and layer by layer.

It's everything and it's nothing and it's barely understood, so quiet as to seem missing.

It's the infinite peace of harmony, three- piece and an accordion, and the resounding silence of sleep in the stead of a day.

A bit of life, Tuscan style.

Today I've had a bit of a realization.

Blogging, for all the joking and teasing about it, is really cool. As life moves forward and branches across the continent, across the oceans, it's nice to hear thoughts from the ones we love. As my friends graduate from college, get married, start having babies, move from the country, return home again.. it's really beautiful to hear the little things that happen to them, to hear of the thoughts and happenings and happiness- es and struggles they encounter.

So I've thought, perhaps I ought to put a little thought in. Especially as the time between conversations stretches longer and longer, both with family and with friends. Life moves quickly and there is no end to the richness and variety of things that occur.

Italia is a dream, is beautiful, is incredible. After leaving for a week and a half, and returning again to beautiful Tuscany... it's been really nice. When I stepped off the plane from London and once again stepped onto Italian soil, it felt a bit like a homecoming. This week has been quiet, studious, and really calm... the space between is really lovely, like an old mitten that I set aside only to find again and fit perfectly and comfortably into.

The weekend has been quiet. I've been recovering from a bit of a cold and as such am taking it slow. Literally, very slow. Walking, thinking, sketching and writing, sitting in the sunlight on benches, walking through the city from different angles, smiling to myself. I do a lot of that here, a lot of smiling to myself. I spent yesterday afternoon in the Uffizi, spending a lot of time with Botticelli and il Perugino.

There is one room in the Uffizi that is simply incredible. Gold detailed ceilings and walls, extremely elaborate decor, and there are full- room paintings on the walls and all the statues that line the walls are trapped up in motion, arms high in defense and clothes swirling around their bodies in protection, faces screaming a warning against some invisible force raining down from the heavens. I was mesmerized, unable to leave. I couldn't write a word about it.

Today I had an authentic Italian meal, full Italian experience and all. The program here sets us up with conversation partners, which are Italians in the community who wish to further their English skills by meeting frequently with us, who wish to further our Italian skills. It's really neat. Anyhow, one of the girls' language partners here took us out to lunch with a bunch of her friends, and it was amazing. Exactly how I'd imagine an Italian meal to be... boisterous Italians yelling Italian, bottles of wine and antipasti followed by prima patti e secondo patti and on and on and on... then the tiramisu and espresso and then, of course, grappa.

This dinner was proceeded by an hours' drive through the Tuscan countryside on a rainy 'winter' day, when the mountains in the background are shrouded in clouds and the trees are speckled with color and the authentic little red- roofed Italian houses are buried in the fields and the rain sprinkles from the sky to kiss the ground... it's beautiful.

My only wish is that I could take pieces of this beauty and send it home, with my love.

figs and fables.

Monday, I ate my first fresh fig.

It was a delight, and made me think of that one children's story where the old woman comes in and offers the dentist three figs in exchange for a pulled tooth, and each of the figs will make his dreams become reality. He doesn't believe her and eats one (though I remember he cut it apart, perhaps they weren't figs?) and his dreams that night came real, which comes as quite a shock to him. On and on, and eventually he attempts to train his mind to dream what he wants, all the while his dog (who he treats quite cruelly) plots, steals and eats the last fig and eventually, for it is the dog's dreams that then come true, the cruel dentist and the dog exchange worlds.

My fig experience was nothing of that sort.

I did, however, also experience my first earthquake, a mere hours after eating my first fresh fig. It was quite strange to feel the earth tremor around me, not unlike how thunder tremors in the clouds.

europeans are nuts. for nutella.

Everyone in Italy takes a siesta.

Which means, for three or four hours in the middle of the day, any action is rendered into nothing. The city literally dies. From the windows echo murmurs of conversation, clinking of silver on plates: the shops lower the grates over the doorways, shopkeepers quietly sweep, or sit, or have disappeared, the streets are deserted.

Yesterday, I wandered Sesto twice: once, during siesta; dead.

The second time, during an unexpected nutella party: booths were set up around town, enormous tubs of nutella with diligent workers scooping it generously onto slices of bread, children playing in the streets, parents on bikes, teens clustered in pairs around the doorways, small groups of girls occasionally melding with the small clusters of boys perched on the staircases, waiting for the girls to walk by. Life! In Sesto!

It felt remarkably like the block parties neighborhoods occasionally throw at home, except... it was the whole city of Sesto, filling the streets, gathering to eat... nutella.