today...

...the sun is shining, and i feel happy. i want to skip class, go on a run, sunlight and freckles on my face. i want to jump and skip and sing. i want a playground for adults.

rome, like paris, surprises. one moment, i want to be gone, and the next, i want to run through the streets, and see everything, and never leave. it's weird how quickly feelings can change. it feels like i'm balancing on a see-saw, trying to remain in the middle, only to fall one way too quickly.

yesterday, the sun was shining, too. we traveled on a big bus around rome to visit urban gardens. our teacher daphne teaches us about the effect of gardens on people, tells us that something about open fields and growing things makes us feel wild, and

"in wilderness, there is the preservation of the world." -thoreau.

sometimes, sitting in a classroom, i listen to daphne speak about biodynamic agriculture, or about depressed artists who design gardens and find life satisfaction, or about the necessity of feeling wild to being human, and it seems like bullshit.

and then, suddenly, with no constraints or restraints on a field of greens on the outskirts of rome, i can't help but feel free, and in feeling free, feel wild. i want to leave this body of mine behind, fly somewhere, run and never stop.

driving back into the buildings, i try to carry this feeling with me, storing it in my pocket for times when the see-saw swings downward. and today, when i woke up, the feeling was opening itself again, even though i was inside a room with walls and ceilings and computers.

today i wish everyone could feel this way, could dream of wild flowers and feel free. feel happy. love from rome.

paris at a glance.

flying back from paris, salty pretzels and sleeping bodies. paris was interesting. i don't know if i would describe it as beautiful. maybe surprising. flowers in small parks, antiques sold on the side of the street, a shirtless break dancer under the eiffel tower. yellow leaves, and the scent of winter. running down the street to warm ourselves, stamping our feet like horses. light reflecting over the seine. bernard's house, the creaky wooden floors, bathroom the size of one body. we slept two on a futon, one on the floor.

we flew into lille, the northern border of france, ate wraps and espressos, got on a free bus full of students. one got a nose bleed outside, drops of blood on the pavement. i got a window seat, two hours of fields, french fog. watched ice age in french and stared out the window. fog so white, it looked like snow. the cold caught us by surprise, bursts of breath steaming, mikaela glad for her last minute jacket, nicole and i wrapping our scarves around our heads like hats. another bus from beauvois, double decker after lines in the cold, a cappuccino from a machine. top, front row. a man with a moustache slept next to me, folded like a frog. he read his poetry, breathed deeply. i felt dizzy from being so high up.

we entered paris by mall, surrounded by the gap and american coffees.

and then, paris: bakeries with crazy colors, men dressed better than women. women, beautiful, bare faces and curly hair, they look so free. red lips. walking, walking, walking. bernard bought five kilos of mandarins, peeled them perfectly. bad starbucks (never thought i wouldn't like it). the market. the sound of french, strange and captivating, better than music. i could listen to it for hours. walking, and thinking how much i'd like to see a familiar face, then running into a friend from high school. smiling for hours after.

samples of chocolate from a free fair, lunch of cheese and baguette, kids playing in the park. the little girl on the metro flirted with us. the eiffel tower show at night, brighter than stars, made the moon look small, worthless. we asked, which is better? i answered, the tower dominates, but the moon is my favorite. steady, not built for a world fair. not built for anyone.

bernard jokes, we laughed, he peeled his mandarins and smiled, straight teeth, asking, why do you make me say stupid things?

monmarte in the morning, so white, so full, devoted sunday morning and mulled wine. more croissants. the band outside of the opera. rolling in the grass outside the lourve. thinking, am i really in france?

and then, we were back. the campo sounded so familiar! today i went on a run, and i ran to the pace of repeating words, rome home, rome home, rome home. my feet moved one after the other.

and today people kept asking me, how was paris? i respond differently, or not at all. for some reason, i can't think of paris and sentences in the same thought. i lack structure, can only get out these quick glimpses and phrases. europe is becoming a sea of pretty buildings, memories that blur. i'm preparing myself to come home, i think. i keep imagining all the normalcies of life, or the things people will say to me when i get back. i wonder how it will be different when i come back, and i wonder how i am different, if i am. i wonder if people can change, if people do change, if people want to change. and at the same time, i remind myself constantly, EMBRACE! embrace this life, this sunshine, these feet in a different location! and in this way, i keep rooted, keep enjoying.

"Home is a verb."

Civita di Bagnoregio is home to 7 people. Maurizio lives next to his restaurant, an apartment with a loft that he leaves for his restaurant in Rome. Tony from Tennessee lives in the old University of Rome headquarters, a series of apartments with room for the old architecture students. A famous TV personality lives in the castle building near the front of the city, where red vines take over the walls and windows lead to air.

There is so much to say, but no way to say it. Civita may be the most beautiful place I have ever seen. We toured an olive mill, visited Heather's farm. We cooked lentils and polenta, ragu sauce, crepes for breakfast. We ate ricotta that was only hours old, and pet baby pigs. We took a day trip to Orvieto and wandered through a gothic church. As always, I didn't want to leave.

A woman who stayed in Civita for a year wrote a book about it. By the end of her journey, she felt she had lost her home. Is it Seattle, where she has lived for nine years? Civita where she learned to write? Paris or New York? She writes:

"Perhaps home is a concept we carry with us- if we commit to making home into an action, a place in our hearts, a stronger sense of self- then it's possible to be at home no matter where our bodies or our possessions reside.

Like being a citizen of the world, the point is not about finding one place where we belong forever or 'losing' something when we leave, but about possessing the emotional intelligence to identify when we're in the right place at an appropriate time- and when it's time to move to the next right place.

If heart is where the home is, then there's no need to lament our departure from one country for the next, no matter how beloved it may be. If we're always home, then the world is a menu of experiences that we can order up as our hunger inspires us-again and again, if we desire, or when appropriate, a new dish altogether."
-Gabriela Denise Frank

I loved Civita for what it was, cliff edges perfect for dangling feet, dinners in the Sala Grande by the fireplace, conversations about the meaning of it all, questions never answered. Winding road drives in public buses, and would you rather-s. Cats for petting, acrobatics in the street, the colors of the leaves in the valley.

In class yesterday, we discussed the collective social nostalgia for the countryside; how can we, as city people, have nostalgia for something that we have never experienced? Is living in the countryside a sustainable fantasy? Is it what we really want? In Civita, I found myself playing with a five year old on a farm, her leading me over puddles to pet horses, to show me her pet lamb, eating prosciutto cut from the farm's pig, homesick for a place I have never been or seen before.

But then back in Rome, I feel at home. We go to the Irish pub we always frequent. We make chili, eat stale bread, drink 1 euro cappuccinos. We go through the motions, and I dream of owning a bed and breakfast, of talking with guests and tucking in bed sheets, of reading poetry while gazing out at fields. It is a fantasy that I feel I need. That we need. Lateral agency in a city of never ending to-do lists.

I guess I understand what Gabriela writes, but have yet to actually grasp it. I feel as if I am grieving leaving Civita while simultaneously celebrating Rome, and missing both Seattle and Tennessee. Life right now feels dynamic, ever changing, ever moving or maybe flowing. As Mikaela says, I feel lost, but I like it. I will revel in the gray area.