1/6/98

Oh What Fun...

...it is to ride in a brand new 757!

I decided to come home. I had enough. I needed a break. It was time. In Italy I knew that it took a long time to get anything done when there was no holiday, but celebrating Christ's birthday in a country where the Pope lives was too much for me to give more time to and try to get anything accomplished.

My ticket was a frequent flyer. I assumed that the black-out times would not let me go until after the holidays. I was wrong. I could leave on the eve of the Man's birthday.

I found myself getting rather sentimental about going. Not so much sentimentality about getting home, although there was some of that, but more about closing a chapter on the Italian Project. Three months out of the US. It was not even so much of that, as it was about a review of what I had accomplished and hoped to have accomplished, or was it really more of what I have to do when I return?

Over all I felt good about it. I also reviewed my 'experience' of living in a different world than I have been familiar with. Having fond memories of past places, I returned to some of my favorites and performed a comforting ritual.

After making all the necessary arrangements, I was off for six weeks. First a stop to Rome for a day then a nine hour plane ride.

Rome is such a beautiful city! I have been surprised at how wonderful it really is, and how much I actually like it, for a big city. It is the largest Italy, but to me it feels like a small, old, quaint place to get lost in. There are may ruins and, as in Bologna, the streets come alive when the sun goes down.

It is quite amazing that the life in the cities of Italy are so healthy. Unlike most cities of the same size in the US, Italian cities live! Especially at night. They have for centuries. It seems that the cities in the US are alive in the day because of business. At night (with the exception of NY, SF, Chicago, etc...) they die. As most workers go out of the city to the 'burbs' to the security of controlled housing complexes. Safely away from all that could harm them or their families.

It seems that we could learn so much from the social history of Italy.

Well, I am sitting here in Rochester writing this entry. It actually feels funny to be here writing and thinking about all that has happened over the past three months. Was I really living there for three months? Was it only a dream? I know it was not because I have photos to prove it, otherwise I really would not know for sure. Beyond the memories the images are the only real (tangible) proof I have that I was actually there. Interesting and curious, but it also doesn't matter.

I am in a different world now and here. It is a different life. I'm kind of a different person. All of that past stuff is a dream. I'm on break until February 9 when I return (a day after my birthday) to Italy and start up again. The urge to write while here is there but not pressing as much or as strongly as it is there. The urge to photograph is the same. Who or what has been flowing through me so much during the past three months that I could write so much, and now feel so little? It may also be that the power or force is also 'on break'.

Na, I doubt it.