Naive Melody

This morning my mind has been calm, but not slow. It has been the kind of day where, if someone were to stick a gun to my back, I feel as though I could handle the situation with ease, thanks to some self-assurance almost certainly misplaced.

I think my Italian is actually getting worse--my enthusiasm has been waning and I've been paying a lot less attention to conversation; it requires a lot of energy to understand or intuit meaning, and fatigue has set in. There is something more pragmatic about Italian than English--a more redundant vocabulary and more transparent roots to the words. The Italian for "fun" is "divertimento," as in "to divert your attention from the festering obscene horror, here's a puppet show." I went to a puppet show with Monica and Serio the other night, and instead of listening I mostly watched the children's reactions, their free expression. At the end of the show music started playing and two of the puppets danced with each other and nearly every kid got up and began to dance, too. At one point, a moth flew in front of a stage light and I imagined thousands of moths flooding the lights, the amusement being overwhelmed and overthrown by this immediacy.

I'm about to begin "L'Isola di Arturo," a novel Monica gave me. I'm hoping I'll retain the willpower to keep flapping back and forth through the dictionary--should help my Italian. The first few days this past week I went to beaches with Vittorio and Monica, and was very content just being at the sea with the sun and the wind and textures of rocks and sand under my sandals. I've been slipping into and out of bad moods and too-much-in-my-head moods even though I've been out of my head more this week than in the past two weeks. Everything is swimming for the most part. Swimmingly. Monica is pretty much my main source for interpersonal communication, and with my language fatigue lately, I've been feeling more like a receptacle than anything else; so, sweet and well-meaning as she is, Monica's desire to communicate has been wearing on me.

I've been here for three weeks now and it feels good to be at the halfway point for this farm--to have more time here, but to also have this mild anticipation for the next leg. The farm in Sicily that was supposed to host me for October has not been responding to my e-mails, so I'm looking for another farm. Unfortunately, none of the farms I've heard back from so far have any need for WOOFers until the 15th of October, which leaves me with 25 days of unscheduled and unfunded Italy. Not sure what to do yet, still hoping I can find a farm to host me from the 1st of October until I meet my folks in London on the !st of November.

Last night I went to Port'Azurro with Monica and Chinzia. And Chinzia asked me if Jews believe Jesus is or was the son of God. The place was popping and crumy with tourists, but not in an overtly disgusting way--actually, it probably was, but I was so wrapped up in the the sights and smells, it didn't register very strongly. The architecture was right out of Escher, but not with that self-negating evenness; it was full of crooked stairways and intersecting halls built with from haphazard necessities. I walked around and loved the labrynthine feel of the place; I should have had 360 degree vision. And the smells of noasted nuts, fish or clams or mussels, strawberry bubblegum, flowers, I inhaled deeply and wanted to continue for the rest of the night inhaling without rest, but my lungs would not take in the whole night's air, so it was in and out and in. There was a church with doors that portrayed Creation and The Fall, and other scenes from the good book, in bronze. On the steps of the church, little boys and girls were selling plastic toys that they must have grown tired of; and the girls had a sign for bracelets for good fortune, 1 Euro (the bracelets were single strands of lanyard plastic they intended to tie around your wrist)--I passed it up this time.

Listening to the music and seeing the advertisements for this and that, it seems to me that there is a more naive aesthetic, commercially at least, in this country. There appears to be much less marketing of angst and cynicism than in the States, and half of the stores you enter have a picture of the pope hanging next to the cash register. Italy is not as inundated as the US with homogenizing mass culture, save perhaps the religious homogeneity. And though the angst sold in America is just as flat and surface level as the mush in both countries, one hopes that it at least provides a counterpoint by which a dialectical deepeining is possible.

There are no pennies from grandpa in Italy--less omens I am accustomed to reading; so, I am trying to learn the language of this geography, figuring how to navigate by this new star. Continually. In any case, I've got a jar of peanut butter now, so that's something.

Where Is My Cosmogony Gone?

This is perhaps one of the most frightening things to do, to pull away the curtain of habitual stability and look directly into the bloody beating mess of character. To shed the false skin and walk naked to the face of conflict. To slip from the constriction of fear and hammer the skull to shards and bone dust. It requires and returns the active valuing of life, and you can feel the blood rushing to your head and movement slows as the adrenaline throws fits in your veins and you exit your body just so much to get out the words or acts that were crammed so tight in your head and now sound like thunder and look like the tsunami, like something natural and terrifying. I am trying to keep the curtains parted and my eyes fixed and tongue-pen electric. I continue to say I'm trying because I am continuing to try; and without marked goals--live in flux, not limbo.

Each day is still different than the others. I am generally feeling pleased, relaxed, focused, unfocused, voracious, directed, content, structured enough to feel free. Yesterday was my birthday and like all other days, only I felt more loved (imagination or not, I felt it). After dinner we had an apple cake Monica made, and champagne Serio brought. They added candles to blow out, gave me a bottle of sweet wine and a special foccaccia in light blue wrapping paper. It was overwhelming, the care and the smiles which meant, "this is good. we are glad for you and with you. you are not with your loved ones, so we will try to act as substitute. we want you to be happy; this day especially should be happy." I was a stranger on my birthday, and at the dinner table I began to cry.

Today has been a restful day. I finished lyrics for a song for Angel Band, saw off Diego, Sara, Giacomina, and Vittorio's mother, and had an interesting conversation with Vittorio about the Italian government, judiciary, feudal mindset, and the pragmatism and efficiency of the USA--all in Italian (he did most of the talking). Vittorio has already become more talkative and animated now that only he, Monica, and I remain at Orti di Mare, which is encouraging. Tonight or maybe tomorrow we'll bake bread. I'm still working on weeding the strawberry patch, and will probably be at it for the rest of the week. Here are some pictures:

The Petrie Dish

Each day I feel differently about where I am and what I'm doing. I've been reading a lot and writing a bit. I keep pebbles in my shoes to keep me aware of the fact that I'm on my feet--that I intend to be on my feet. Been doing other experiments and stretches, but no practices as of yet. Trying to individuate and juggle the various and constant sense impressions, forge a working definition of love, read omens, imagine scents without visual cues, closing my eyes to see what shapes and colors and scenes manifest themselves, etc. (etc., what a cop-out that is)

Working in the fields, between patches of vegetables and with the sky on top of me, I often feel as though I'm in an atrium or a snow-globe without the snow. The light is eerie in the morning and overwhelming by mid-day. A pony was born last night and it has longlong legs and is incredibly sweet. If I could understand the computer in Italian, I might have a chance at posting some pictures, but right now that'll have to wait.

I found myself thinking in Italian the other day when I was pulling weeds. I'm understanding conversations much more, and can speak without great pauses. My mind often runs away to the future, and I'm trying to rein it in. Yesterday, I climbed a fig tree to pick figs and then made a mitt from a dead cactus leaf and picked cactus fruit. Diego, the main laborer and work boss, is getting on my nerves, but he'll be leaving on Saturday. My pee smells like tomatoes. Or the tomatoes smell like my pee?

There are other things, too.

What Alice Found

Oh my.

I've been in Italy for 4 days now, and have decided that if one desires to speak Italian, it is best to pretend to battle a wasp inside your mouth. If you have a real wasp, all the better. As you progress, close your lips little by little, so as to not let the wasp out-- this is how the natives speak, and the one with the least amount of room between his or her lips while talking is allowed to talk the most.

The farm where I am working is called Orti Di Mare, which means Something By or On or For or From the Sea. The day is two days-- We wake up, eat, and work for 5 or so hours (3 of which are under the oppressive Tuscan sun) and then I usually go to sleep for the next two hours; the next day today consists of reading or writing or going to the beach, working in the fields again for around 2 hours as the weather becomes more hospitable, eating too much, and then going back to sleep.

I am the only WOOFer here, and the only person under 30-- though most everybody is 40, 50, 60, 70, or 80. Very very little English is spoken, so I am making my best attempts to master the Italian language with a poor excuse for an English-Italian dictionary. Luckily, I can speak French with two of the workers. I will post pictures sometime soon, if I can figure out how to do that--I only just found the apostrophe key today.

Strangely, I was not overwhelmed by the beauty of the countryside as I was expecting. It is beautiful, but does not affect me in any tangible way. I am in a state of neither happiness nor despair, more neutral feeling than anything...strange. Vedo una strada lunga avanti.

Down the Rabbit Hole

I leave for Italy in 12 hours and I'm convinced my stomach is beginning to eat itself. The past week in Delaware I've felt like a ghost-- my thoughts and eyes seem not to focus, my body feels numbly. Not a mode I want to last, but good enough to have lived in it.

Donald once asked me what it feels like when something makes sense; that is to say, what is the sensation when a square peg suddenly fits a round hole (by one accomodating the other or some mutual movement)? I think that it must feel something like familiarity, if that is not a tautology. It is a relaxation of the tension created by the self's recognition of the other, relaxing in the assimilation of the other. What this means to me right now is that the tensions, the anxieties, concerning leaving the familiar/the self have twisted me into this ghostly thing that owns little sense of its lived life. The good news? At some point, the closer one comes to the unfamiliar, the closer it comes to being familiar--as my plane flies to Italy, I take the train to the coast, the ferry to Elba, the bus to Lacona, and walk to the farm, I should gradually regain my sense of connectedness to the world.

Although I do find that I enjoy myself most when performing for myself, this blog is not intended as drama, but as the expression, organization, and attempted understanding of my consciousness. I am most truthful when I have many or no eyes watching, when there is no external expectation or there is enough imagined and various that it overwhelms any sense of being able to meet all interested parties (actual or not).

I'm off