"...she always strove to repair the small tears in the fabric of society to make things better, to leave things better than when she found them."
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I saw a video in the early hours of this day – around the time of the blood moon eclipse – of a dog who had fallen in love with a small pumpkin at the pumpkin patch. He carried that little pumpkin around – cuddled with it, nurtured it, slept with it. It was his “emotional-support pumpkin”. Today is the midterm elections. There is quite a lot of energy associated with today. Mostly I have been laying low. Preparing for the apocalypse. Ha. Today is also the anniversary of the death of my father. A few weeks’ ago R and I had…
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While we watched an Italian game show, we packed. So it was extra easy the next morning to take off after breakfast. Of course that was after I spilled a whole bottle of water on the breakfast counter “ho sbagliato!” (oops) Linate is always the super facile airport. It’s like venti minuti – twenty minutes to be there, super easy everything. The plane was fast and we arrived at Napoli. Così pazzo. So nuts there. Thousands of people. Our driver found us. Paola. Come si aspetterebbe— As one might expect there were at least six quasi-incidenti – almost-accidents before we even emerged from the parking lot. We chatted in Italian for the whole more-than-an-hour. She drove…
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There is a place I have wanted to go. But last time I was not mobile and it was not possible. It was great to be there. Nothing crazy, nothing fancy. Just joy. Stone steps, antiquities. Religious frescoes (why oh why do I love them so much?). I go to the garden. Hydrangeas – ortensie, hosta, ferns – felci, come nel mio proprio giardino — as in my own garden. Beautiful comfort. I peek in on the sculpture class in the studios. I am reminded of how we chip away at our lives, adjusting, adjusting, always adjusting. There is a story I have heard of Michelangelo…
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It was many years ago during a dermatological excision that we, in our family, learned that Nancy Sinatra could be associated with surgical procedures. At the time, the doctor, a 70-something eccentric, loved to listen to his music — loud — while holding a scalpel. So, “Summer Wine” and “These Boots were Made for Walkin”, previously favorite Nancy Sinatra songs from my childhood, took on new meaning, involving Tylenol, gauze, well – you can imagine. This association is so ridiculous — that we cannot hear these songs without glancing at each other and grimacing. It’s a type of pop-song-flavored PTSD. So…
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The city is hot. We are on the numero 15 tram…stiamo andando in centro – we are going to the city center. Per the government order people are masked. But a few, purtroppo, no. We smell caffè, cigarette smoke. Through the open door we see a musician sitting, playing soprano saxophone. The air is still. The sound carries. C’e’ una ristorante di Pizza – a pizza restaurant, another, poi uno dopo un altro…then one after another. Empty. Tables set. At the ready for i turisti…tourists. And there are plenty of tourists. As many as I have ever seen, except at Natale. And it’s Wednesday. Fittingly,…
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Challenges create opportunities for action. We are in a time now where there are opportunities for you to find faith – to reach for something greater than yourself.
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(Episode 27, Breathing Out Stars Podcast) Before I begin I want to say a thing about carrying on. It is said that at the top of every mountain is the base of the next mountain. This is a super important lesson for us to get – that when we finish something, accomplish something, we are not done…it is just time to start the next thing. When I reached 25 episodes it was a lovely benchmark. A milestone. Not an easy thing in a difficult time. But rather than resting on my laurels I sat down immediately and began episode 26.…
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I am not the first to write about a wedding and neither will I be the last. My story is personal. The story of life cycle event in pandemic. The story of entitlement, perhaps. The story of change. This is the story of what we do, sometimes, while we process, process, process our life’s transitions while the world is in flux. Our daughter, Bells, told us from the beginning that everything would be blue. That I would be wearing blue, my husband’s suit was to be blue — that flowers would be blue and my shoes would be blue. Everything…
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Being Human - Childhood - Difficulty - Family - Food - For fun. - Light - Loss - This really happened.The Snow Cake
“They were the same little people whose snowy socks went around and around my dryer...”
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There once was a five-year old boy. It was summertime — and of course — there were fireflies. Many, many fireflies. This child, with his mommy and his daddy, spent one summer evening chasing those fireflies…and catching them…and putting them each, one by one, into a tall jar. Now…there is this jar….like a lantern….filled with maybe twenty or so fireflies. This classic childhood adventure was then followed by a bath — and bed — and the lantern of fireflies was put on his dresser. There was then a story, a kiss and the door was closed. It was perhaps thirty…
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Look, it is not a lot to ask, I don’t think. After years and years and sleepless nights of scraping and steaming wallpaper from the walls of many, many places that we have lived…praying to the home improvement fairies for their aid — I have, for the past three years, been dreaming about wallpaper. It doesn’t help that I am couchbound right now —. Looking for distraction and — well, distraction. I have been looking to fall in love with a wallpaper for a teeny bathroom and, betraying my younger, ambitiously do-it-yourselfer self — I have fallen in love. It’s…
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It was maybe the first spring-ish day we have had thus far. Lucky for me I got to spend it in an ambulanza per la prima volta — an ambulance…for the first time in my life and then, on a gurney in the green hallway of the Ospedale Policlinico di Milano. I was considered “Code Green”…Codice Verde. It was not my fault…nor might it have been the fault of the verbi pronominali that I was learning when I realized I was starting to faint. All’improvviso, I am now sul pavimento — on the floor. But alas, I don’t think it…
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But what, oh what, is a little old-ish expat to do on a rainy Sunday morning? After a breakfast of colomba and tea and strawberries from yesterday’s market…it is hours and hours before we can listen to the news we like on the internet. I apologize in advance…this post is a bit disordinato. And podcasts, yes, we listened to them most of yesterday, after going early to the mercato — another rainy day. But early at the mercato there were fewer people, hurrah, as well as strawberries, later-season artichokes (but I bought twenty of them anyway), onions, cabbage, garlic, mint,…
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We have disappointed our hosts, again. They left us slippers to use…pantofole…but we have not used them. Le pantofole were left for us, on an embroidered linen towel, next to the bed. Apparently we are cretins. But you know, it was not because of us that the glass table exploded yesterday morning at breakfast. It just — shattered. Il tavolo esplosivo. For no reason. At what point does tempered glass stop being tempered? Like a person…does it hit its limit, finally, just like the most patient, the most ‘tempered’, of us? I have fallen in love, all over again…and yet,…