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.
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