Thanne longen folke to goon on pilgrimages...
My pilgrimage to Italy is done. A nine-hour flight from Rome dropped me right into the middle of New England snow and cold. Now it's "wintry mix"-ing, and much colder than the 60 degrees we had Sunday in Rome. I no longer have wonderful, fresh meals deposited in front of me when I sit down at lunch and dinner. No more fresh mozzarella, fresh olio, local vino rosso, cianghale, agnello, and all the other goodness I ate. Italian food senza pasta is still awfully good! Where can I find wild boar here? Or buffalo mozzarella? Or go to a restaurant and have olive oil that they made? Oh, golly, is the olive oil there amazing! My new favorite salad dressing is olive oil and balsamic vinegar. That's all you need! And gelato... oh, the gelato...
During the 10 days we were in Italy, they had remarkable weather. It didn't rain on us as we bolted our way to as many sites as possible. The sun shone while we took a siesta by the river. Mist slowly faded as we rode the train every morning. Every day, we commented on how wonderful it was, and every day, it stayed wonderful.
We visited many chiesas (churches). We saw statues, paintings, windows, wood inlays, mosaics, altars, reliquaries, and tombs. Our last day in Roma, we climbed to the Piazzale Guiseppe Garibaldi, overlooking the entire city: duomos, ruins, river, and all.
It is both good and sad to be home. I shall miss so much about Italy, my companions, the trip itself. But if I had stayed, I would have missed so much about here, my friends, my church community, the ocean... Ten days was a good length of time. Long enough to start picking up pieces of the language, and to feel at home, but not long enough to get bored or really to miss people back home. We were busy enough, and there was enough to take in, that no capacity was left, mentally or emotionally, to even think about where I'd come from. It was overwhelming, especially in some of the Baroque extravaganzas. What down time we had was spent drinking the air, sorting through the glitter and colours and shapes and impressions, and stretching tired legs. When I heard that a blizzard threatened Boston, it was a distant news, bearing not at all on my reality, and only a glancing thought held it. I'm sorry, but not actually sorry, that I didn't think about people while I was there - except for the thoughts of: oh, so-and-so would LOVE to see this!
But now I'm back. Again, I must think about food, work, money, reading, and all these wonderful people that I love knowing but really didn't think about while I was gone. Oh yeah, I live on the North Shore. I don't live in Italy (yet). What did I want to do this year? What do I need to get done this week? All these things, details, demands, some annoying, some very good. Even though I tell myself I could just pack up tomorrow and move to Roma, I really couldn't. I've got a wonderfully supportive and challenging community here, and suddenly being alone again would break me. Not to mention that I don't know Italian (yet). There are so many beautiful things here. Maybe by the end of tomorrow it will have settled in more. I'm still in a muddle, half there, half here, stretched and dim by the stretching. Jet lag? Partly, I'm sure. Physical exhaustion catching up after the adrenaline fades? Probably. Do I need more time to process what I saw (and heard)? Yup. The worries of this life threaten to choke. The weight of the cold tries to stifle and drain. It will help to talk about it, to show pictures, tell stories, reflect my friends' excitement with my own, and just sit down and write.
I feel like I've been given a mosaic - but it's not put together yet, so I need to sit down, sort by colour, and close my eyes to find the faint outline, then put the colours where they belong until the pattern takes shape. It's a daunting, exciting task. Very exciting.
"Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
cannot bear very much reality."
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