HAPPY NEW YEAR.

Dedicated readers, I wish you a glorious, larking, and merry 2012.
Felice Anno Nuovo
Selamat Tahun Baru
С Новым годом
Boldog Új Évet
새해 복 많이 받으세요
Laimīgu Jauno gadu
Glückliches neues Jahr

Curried Away

     You believe that, at their core, vegetarians are diabolical souls. And veganism, veganism should be illegal. She's yammering, on and on, about how she hasn't eaten meat in six years, how it might make her sick now--a textural thing, you know--and it mostly just makes you determinedly cheerless inside.
     You kick yourself for having been too unconcerned to secure your regular spot in the back of the bus, against the engine, where the pulsation and dictatorial drones of the diesel tune out all superfluous inhabitants.
      But the bus is gorged today, overfilled and squeezed. By not immediately securing your spot, you've lost your chance at a seat, and as the grimly-gazed driver maneuvers too quickly, people lean, dip, ebb, and stumble, yanking and clinging onto gray, faux leather hand straps. Toes crunch, ass odor abounds, and the fact that Homegirl's frizzy hair is grazing your shoulder is causing an excruciating, inner flip-out within you.
     Shakespeare claimed that "suspicion always haunts the guilty mind", and you wonder what's so interesting about your tits to the joker standing next to you. It's a mystery how a human being can make it through life without a person educating him, equipping him with the knowledge that incessant staring will not, ever, help him score or develop into a moral, acceptable person. You muster your most bloodcurdling, squarest eyes, and you reciprocate with havoc, hoping to evoke carnage.
     You calm yourself, crank Beyonce, your spirit queen, and try to dedicate yourself to your final effort at a clear mind. But your back stiffens when you realize that the guy that you're standing in front of either has the biggest wallet you've ever seen, ...or a very well-tended boner. You want to cry, and there's no way Americans smell as bad to foreigners as they do to Americans. You disavow the entire realm of Indian food and settle in, rooting all of your weight in your heels, locking all of your joints, and choosing to be victorious. You, all of a sudden, feel sorry for feet, with all of these people standing, and you clench your eyes shut with a zealous enthusiasm.
     Dreaming of desolation, you admit to yourself that people skills have never been your forte. So, maybe, you shouldn't be so stunned that people aren't particularly skilled with you, either. A red triangle, next to a blue one, next to a purple one, next to a green one. Around and around, layers forming bands, overlaying atop of one another, a swirling cul-de-sac of colors. And a marble slides out of the curl of his tongue. It drops, hits the floor, gets notched in a groove, and rolls toward his own orifice.

     You giggle, and now you know what your eyes look like from the inside.   

Google Translate: Malay. SMILE.

HELLO MALAYSIA!
Terima kasih untuk membaca. Aku Cinta Padamu.
Going global, going global, going global.

Rusting Pessimist.

      Your skin's dry, flaking, and that rancid jag told you that your nose is peeling again. And the tears, torrentially pouring down your cheeks, make it worse. They burn, and your skin feels so tight that even your blinking feels arthritic. And it's because you're unhinged, stuck in the dark hallway of another house, owned by more people who say that they'll be your family. You hate crying, the act itself, but you especially hate it on you, mostly because you can't stop, once it starts. It's a compiling, rolling snowball, a falling line of dominoes, an unacceptable, murky bunghole of regurgitated horse shit that you can't climb out of, until you pass out.
      You're standing here, crying, in the dark, because you can't find the doorknob to the guest bedroom that you're supposed to be staying in. Furthermore, you're forced into silence, desperately trying not to irk any of the snoozing, other people in the house, feeling the door, up and down, eternally unsuccessful, obviously displaced in this environment. You're foreign here, contrary to what they all tell you, and you decide that you hate houses with closed doors. Even people together are people alone. None of it makes any difference, and you fucking hate cats.
     These are the breed of human beings who clean their houses when people come to visit, the breed of people that turns the faucet on to take a shit, the breed of people who feels free to drag Jesus into regular conversation. And you're a real idiot for allowing yourself to become a charity case.
     You're a retiree, a person who resorts to favorite spots when found overwhelmed or flustered by the presence of others. And whenever you happen to find yourself exactly here, your choice spot is in the bed of the abandoned pick-up truck, next door. It used to belong to a set of very nice neighbors, but their house was foreclosed on four months ago, and apparently, nobody bothered to take the truck. So, you lay yourself down, in the back of it, always, allowing its ribbed, metal floor to make you uncomfortable, dirty, and cold. No matter what anybody says, there's serenity to be found in habits. Plus, the truck is red, helping its expanding rust spots to, moderately, blend in, and you think that's just so clever.
     You finally find the doorknob, quietly letting yourself into the room, but quickly shutting the door again, behind you. You let your wet towel sink into a heap on the floor, proceeding to crawl into the bed, smothered and sick to death by the concept of throw pillows. You pull your knees up to your chest, wrapping your arms around your shins, and you rock back and forth, the movement helping you to realize that, in some small fraction of a way, you still exist.
     The douscher of a neighbor's Christmas lights blink at you, through the window, blinding you every few seconds, and you wish you had a neon, "Fuck You" sign to graciously share with him, at this most beautiful time of year. He's going to give you a seizure, and these people aren't even your real family.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING.

wishing everyone a tomorrow that's filled with turkey/tofurky, close friends, and a giant, food-induced coma.

Fertilizer. ...another one, dug up from roma.

“Marcus Eugene, if you don’t stop eating that shit, I swear to God, weeds will grow in your stomach. Dio mio, get in here. Prontissimo.”  Marcus, a nine year old legend-in-his-own-mind, is the weirdest kid I have ever met, hands down. No contest. To make matters worse, his sovereignty betrays a soreness that only a fellow displaced person like me would recognize. Being shipped off to his grandparents’ house year after year, summer after summer, is a tick for poor Marcus, a burden that could grow for him in ways that his father doesn’t recognize.

For that reason, I personally wouldn’t use the word “shipped”, but I’m sure that’s how Marcus interprets the situation. His Italian is abysmal, there’s no hiding it, and I imagine that he must feel overwhelmingly lonesome here because of it. From my window, though, I quietly get the impression that he’s accustomed to time spent by himself. This kid is crazy, you understand.

Presently, I should tell you, Marcus’ favorite color is turquoise. With gusto, this kid’s favorite color is turquoise; it’s all he wears. This morning, his favorite color, paired with his grandmother’s love for gardening, finds Marcus face to face with the most magnificent fertilizer he’s ever laid eyes on. You know that blue garden stuff that you spread and it looks like colored feta cheese? Yeah, dude’s eating that stuff. Just because it’s turquoise. But his actions, in my opinion, if scrutinized, run deeper, too. He’s sitting solemnly on the curbside, humming to himself…completely unaware that anybody would, or ever could, watch him.

It isn’t that he doesn’t love Rome. No, that isn’t it at all. Marcus is weird, but he’s also a brain, a fervent historian at just nine years old. No, in truth, he prizes days that his grandfather spends showing him the historical sites of Rome, camera death-gripped in hand and ears wide open. I know because I see him. I know because I know his family.

The pictures he takes, summer after summer, wind up painstakingly collaged on the guest bedroom wall, the room that only sees permanence in those photos, a makeshift map of Rome. Without question, Marcus is extraordinary. I know it.  It’s just that he’s so terribly aware of his foreignness.

Shielded by childhood’s purity, the only thing he knows to be a transnational attraction for people is greenery, and I think that’s lovely. Flowers, sunshine, trees, warmness, all of the bliss and warm creatures that foliage draws near to it. Why doesn’t Signora Romano see him clearer? For sure, he’ll ignore her until she busies herself with something else; he is not meek. From across the street, I’m watching his favorite color, the fertilizer, take root in him. Fields and fields of green surface, and I’m watching all of the birds, bees, butterflies, and loveliness swarm him, only they’re not those things. They’re spray paint, dirty children, old women shoppers, and people enjoying their lunch breaks. In this moment, as I watch him struggle to be treasured, I’m wholly aware of the fact that he fits in better here than anybody has ever fit in anywhere.   

che bella.

a few pictures that have been inspiring to me lately.

cher sign elicits giggles. 

Lake Michigan. October, 2011.

translation: rome is eternally in me. OR, rome is eternal in me. I like that one better.

a JFRC throwback.

the vatican, at christmas.

a gem.

lion king?

elasticità

pizza capricciosa, per favore. "capricious".

photo cred: kim bernie. success in capturing the great beauty that is cincinnati, ohio. 

 i've been doing lots of writing lately, hopefully to be shared here very soon. these pictures are set in a combo of chicago, roma, and ohio, just like me. a very huge shout out, by the way, to my dedicated foreign readers. hungary, germany, latvia, and russia, i love you!

szeretlek

Ich liebe dich
Es tevi mīlu

я тебя люблю

ciao, belle. ti amo. 

Temporal Lobe

         He writes music.  Ever since he was little. Lately, he sits in the park behind his house, interminably spinning on the tire-swing.  He is, truly, a gifted composer. But he hates the attention. And it’s possible that the only thing he hates more than the attention…is music. And when somebody hates something that much, it doesn't matter if he’s gifted.

And he wishes he could use all of his senses equally. See, he exists in a haze, everything obscure, everything murky. But he hears things loudly. Everything rings, and his muscles grow tense, and his blood gets thicker, and all of his weight sinks down into his heels. Because his brain feels flexed, and he wonders why people only ask him about music.

He’s gone through a lot of favorite places, but the tire-swing, so far, has stuck the longest. Eventually, they all get somehow tainted for him. But the blurred circles, for now, as he spins, make his head feel normal. His world, in these dear and hushed moments, somehow merges with reality.

He puts his feet on the ground, through the hole in the tire, and he stands up, brushing the snowflakes out of his long, wavy, and dirty brown hair. He slowly walks home, taking the crafted trail he’s been working on for months, through the woods, to his house. The ground is frozen, and so are his toes. He notices that he’s starting to wear through the bottom soles of his Converses.

He gets the mail, unconsciously flipping through it without registering its contents, trudges up the driveway, and unlocks the front door. He’s happy that he missed the mailman in the park today-- he parks there to take his breaks. But everybody knows that the mailman’s a pedophile, so the park is really no mystery.  Once inside, he kicks off his shoes by the heating vent, lights the pumpkin spice candle on the kitchen table, and flips on the free Christmas DVD that his stepmom got for buying a sofa at the Pottery Barn. He turns it on, even though it’s February. It’s already six o’clock, but nobody will be home for hours, so he chooses a microwavable dinner from the selection in the garage freezer.

His high school forced him to see a counselor last year. They told him that they were fretful for him, because he’d begun to pull away from his friends. It’s funny, really, because his music got way better. He wasn’t depressed, like they thought. It’s just that he’s accustomed to isolation. He hates that loneliness has a negative connotation.

He thinks it’s ironic that, for his whole life, ever since he was little and in grade school, people have told him to not do drugs. But the first thing they told him, when he got older, as a supposed outpouring of care and concern, was to take a pill. A pill that would help all the badness fade away. Really, he wasn’t sad. But he took them anyway. It seemed easier. In fact, he found them laughable because they, the pills, made him feel nothing. Not even happy. A flat line. So he stopped taking them. His name is Jeremy.

He loves school, but he’s not good at it. Easily distracted. He’ll graduate this year, though, and he’s aiming for a perfect attendance record. In three years and five months, he has never missed a day. Even when he was sick. Already accepted to three universities, he adamantly does not want to go to college. Maybe, though, he’ll go to the one in Delaware.

Last weekend, he went to his aunt’s birthday party with his father. It was held at her new boyfriend’s house. Customarily, everybody drank and smoked, until a unanimous level of wasted-ness was achieved. Except for Jeremy. He doesn’t drink. It was okay, though, because, throughout the lunacy, his transgendered, male-to-female cousin spontaneously decided to entertain everyone by passionately performing Cher songs on the karaoke machine.  His father was outwardly vocal about his discomfort. But Jeremy, for the occasion, was calm, fixated, and inspired, listening to the music, her singing. She was striking, sporting a sleeveless, satin purple gown, wearing a generous portion of brightly-colored eye shadow, her light hair pinned back, but draping her shoulders. As it happens, Jeremy isn’t gay or transgendered. He just figured that she, his cousin, was the most honest human being in the room. 

Earlier this week, he got his cast off. At his stepmom’s annual New Year’s Bash, he wasn’t paying attention, and he tripped, falling down the stairs, into the basement. Fourteen stairs, to be specific. He’s been counting them since he was little. It broke his arm, and he got a white cast. But he colored it black with a fat-tipped permanent marker. The smell almost got him high a couple of times.

Because he was still wearing the cast at the birthday party, though, his cousin asked him what had happened to his arm. He told her, as he’d been telling people for weeks, that it was a battle injury. She’s about the only one that ever smiled, laughing at his joke. And he asked her what bathroom she uses when she goes out in public. Again, she laughed, pleased to have found a familial ally, capable of being just as honest and outspoken as she is. On the car-ride home, his dad asked him if he was a homo.

He walks to school every day. Even when it’s cold, and even though he has a driver’s license. He can’t afford a car, and taking the bus is disgraceful for an upperclassman. Plus, people always try to talk to him on the bus. Stupid, petty things that waste his time, making ugly clamor. To him, it’s not worth the noise, especially if it’s not, at least, even moderately pretty.

He’s scared of drugs and alcohol, different than most of the people around him every day. He believes that they make you weaker, creating splinters in your brain’s crafted and evolved walls. He’s afraid of bad things seeping into those fractures. This theory has been developed, over the course of the past few years, with Wayne, the homeless man who sits outside of the Shell gas station on his way to school. Jeremy thinks that the dirt caked into Wayne’s wrinkles makes his motions louder, his existence heavier, his skin an instrument.

Almost to school, he passes an elderly gentleman, outside of a coffee house. He’s disheveled, rugged, and unclean, slowly tottering with a walker, clearly judged and gawked at by middle-class suburbia. It makes him sad, because he always liked that coffee house.

People turn away, covering their noses, and Jeremy realizes that there are feces running down the man’s leg, staining an already filthy pair of red sweatpants. And he’s not wearing any shoes, frailly scuffing along with pieces of cardboard haphazardly tied to his feet with pieces of twine. And the pain must be excruciating, his feet mangled and leaving bloody footprints on the sidewalk, making sticking sounds in the February cold. People bypass him quickly, avoiding eye-contact. And the tennis balls on the front two legs of his walker are worn too thin. It all echoes with brutality. And Jeremy can’t keep the tears from pouring down his cheeks, because this is a tragedy. Relentlessly blaming the victim, perhaps better captured as a survivor, he thinks that the human race has a duty to itself to do better. Jeremy hears the man’s watch ticking, and it’s too slow. It’s deafening. 

He stops in his tracks and turns around, going back the way he came. Today, of all days, he deems himself too delicate to attend school.  Distracted and not composed, he walks to the park. He spins on the tire-swing until he pukes up his breakfast. And he prays that the man will be alright. Even though he doesn’t know who he’s praying to. And for the first time in awhile, he gets up from his swing, to instead walk the park’s path, shaped like an eight.

He thinks it’s really terrible that people in this country are so neurotic. Always thinking that people are coming, ready with really big sticks, to beat them. They’ll all take advantage of you, you know. The end is nigh. It’s a shame, Jeremy thinks, because it’s ruined them for compassion.      

And, after a long time, he smiles. Because he’s decided that he will not go to a university to study music. Maybe, after all, he will go to that one in Delaware, but only, only to study literature. Something new, not something that he’s already equipped with. Something that will resound with novelty and resonate with daily challenge.

Because not everybody can be a hero.

Teeth

           I yank my MIT sweatshirt’s sleeves down over my fingers, pulling my thumbs out of the holes I chewed into the sides of them. I grip the tattered cuffs in my hands, and I scrunch them into fists. I’ve, to the best of my ability, sealed myself in, hood on, drawstring pulled. My sweatpants are tucked into my tube-socks, and I feel nostalgia creeping up behind me, because I’m wearing the sneakers that I've kept stored at this park since I worked here, during my high-school summers. There are still blood stains on the inside heels, I traced them with my thumbs before I put them on, and my right big toe still sticks out of that one, ever growing, hole. A long time ago, I calculated that these shoes had trekked over 170 miles on trails. I wonder what that number is now.

 I’ll turn 38 this year. For me, this is a fact that internally fosters both pride and panic. Pride because of accumulated insight and achieved goals, but panic because, not too far from now, I’ll be existing in the “falling action” portion of the plot diagram. I laugh and throw my hands in the air, because only God knows what my “climax” will be. I’m a Senior Chemist at Dow Chemical in Boston, I graduated from MIT in 1997 with honors and a degree in chemistry, and I have a son, named Liam, who is twenty years old. I had him when I was 18, just out of high school, and becoming a young, single mother was a life experience that outfitted me with apparent portions of empathy, resilience, and deeply-seeded motivation. I work in the biopharmaceutical division at Dow, promoting efficiency and progress, one prescription at a time. It’s ironic, really, because medications make me paranoid, and I adamantly refuse even ibuprofen. But, I mean, who knows? Maybe that’s not ironic at all.

In any event, every year, my work gives me a mandatory, month-long sabbatical, and I always come here, to Smugglers’ Notch. I had my choice, as a high school student, as to which Vermont State Park I wanted to work for, but none of the other parks’ names could even remotely compete in magnetism. My decision-making skills were, and still are, disconcerting.  

Twigs are snapping, leaves are crunching, and I cross my arms over my chest to keep warm. I see my breath, I try to construct a picture-memory of the morning fog, and I close my eyes as I walk, because I know this path. I recognize the smell of the wilting Red Maple leaves, I spot a Luna Moth, and I pass Sterling Pond, before, finally, I find Bingham Falls. I take a seat on the ledge, with my feet dangling over the edge, and I remember back to summers-gone-by. Those were the finest summers of my life thus-far, spent outside, alongside kind-natured people.  

I rent out the same yurt, each year, when I come here in the autumn. A yurt is a pseudo-cabin, but defined as a habitable tent. The ones here aren’t as nice as some that I’ve seen, but, even still, they’re outfitted with bathrooms, kitchens, and heating stoves. Smiling, I remember having to describe them to campers who inquired about staying here on trips. Yurts come from Central-Asia, they’re circular, their foundations are formed out of latticed, wooden planks, and they’re portable, invented by and formerly used as homes by Turkic nomads. Technically, the ones at Smugglers’ Notch aren’t portable, but that’s neither here nor there. It always takes me a few days, when I first arrive, to figure out why I like it here so much. I am, by no means, a “green” human being.

My son, Liam, is the exact opposite of me, in all possible ways. He dropped out of high-school at 16, something that struck with the force of a cartoon anvil the following year, when he went on to earn his GED at 17, an entire year ahead of his former classmates. I dragged him, begging him to consider universities, and he resolutely rebuffed all of my attempts. Every single one.

Once, I flew with him to Oregon, to look at Portland State University. My beautiful and brilliant son refused to even get out of the rental car when we pulled up. He took one look at the school, declared all of the students to be “hipsters”, and disavowed the entire west-coast. The only friend he made on the trip was an elderly woman, who happened to be sitting outside one of the restaurants that we ate in one evening. She was a weaver, dressed in rags, sitting on the sidewalk with her loom, hands always in motion, colors sprawling. Liam was captivated by that woman. He was drawn to her, even though she was so old, and I couldn’t help but wonder if it was because I was always so young. Watching him watch her was colossally poignant to me, compelling me to realize that elaborate schooling would not be his path, although it was mine.

Steadfastly, he rejected institutions, and he now works and lives in Uganda, employed by the Invisible Children movement. He is living a life that makes me shudder with pride, even though I find it confusing. His bravery abounds, but his independence is sharply painful, chilling even. As his mother, I know where he inherited it from, and it’s akin to looking into a mirror. Autonomy, jet- green eyes, and relentless fidgeting are our only shared qualities. I haven’t spoken with or seen Liam in over 15 months.  By instilling ambition and individuality into him, I unknowingly insured that I would never see my son again. My care for Liam is an area of my life that I refuse to share with other people.

My first name is Sylvaine. It’s French, and it means “of the forest”. It is transparently fitting here, in this park, where people call me “Sylvie”, but its blatancy morphs into an opaque and cavernous reality when applied to my life in Boston.  At home, I am a woman who has a glare that can cut, a ferocity that can cause blood loss. It's a front that always melted away around Liam, but it's ever-present in my day-to-day setting. I am a woman, somehow foreign in my own home.

A quiet soul, I talk only when necessary. I’m a firm believer in the theory that words used sparsely are words used mightily, and I am always dressed in black, typically a pencil-skirt, usually paired with threatening, pointy-toed stilettos. I have a Chinese calligraphy tattoo, one that I got when I graduated from high school, and it goes vertically down my left shoulder blade. I can just see it if I look over my shoulder, and it, harmonizing with my clothing choices, doesn’t buy me many friends in the scientific community. An accepted hurdle. Notably, I’m a scientist, but MIT and Dow were mostly just to prove to myself that I could. Purposely, I am stand-offish and brisk. My hair is a deep, dark shade of brown, and it's curly and long, reaching all the way to my lower back. I always wear it down, but usually flung over my right shoulder, exposing my tattoo. Showing it never, ever gets old.    

When Liam was young and I needed to bring him along with me in my daily activities, we were a stark and striking contrast to one another. My tattoo and dark features, teeth standing out against my sinister lipstick, distinctly countered his pale, innocent, and creamy complexion. Blonde-haired and wide-eyed, he offered a contradiction to my appearance, teaching outsiders a lesson by seeming to be dissimilar and separate from me.

I told you about my sweatshirt, how it bears chewed-out thumbholes. Admittedly, that’s a common characteristic of most of my articles of clothing. Chewing is my choice form of fidgeting. Especially when I’m concentrated or focused, dissecting or illuminating something significant to me, I chew on my sleeves. Liam does it, too. For that reason, I do not wear long-sleeves to work, and I always, when he was young, outfitted him with layers, the lowest one consistently short-sleeved. That type of restlessness can be ill-interpreted. As I sit here by myself, in the morning chill, in this park that means so much to me, I realize that I’ve outgrown the sleeves that once kept me warm. I live in two worlds, and, accordingly, nobody truly understands me in either one.

For, if they don’t understand my silence, they will never, ever understand my words. 

Your Eyes are Lying. ...also from Rome. Spring, 2011.

                     I’ve been traveling now for nearing three years, and it’s become quite marvelous to me just how normal life seems when I’m visiting famed, historical, and important places. Places that, maybe, I thought I’d never have the chance to see in my lifetime. In the moment of visiting them, I’m aware of distinctly human details, like cold toes or a forming blister, but those slip away upon later reflection. It isn’t until I’ve left a city, or sometimes even a site itself, that I realize how outstanding it is that I was ever there at all. This month, I find myself in Italy…this afternoon, searching for the Roman keyhole. I don’t know as much about Rome as I probably should, but the only thing I can think about at the moment is that Joyce told me to come here. She wasn’t my mother in reality, and I never called her mom when I was young, but she raised me, and she used to introduce me as her adopted daughter just the same. It’s become customary for me to not know much about the places I visit before I go, but to be honest, I prefer it that way, and I think it makes me a better and more open-minded traveler.

            If my life as a child was transient, my life as an adult is even more rooted in movement. I’ve been married four times, moving on eight occasions in ten years. Five years ago, I was an overly-tanned, quasi-successful divorce attorney, 47 and much thinner, migrant in a materialistic city that seemed to be filled with a unique combination of queens, guidos, and chronic overconfidence. It wasn’t until I was getting my last divorce that I swore off my law career and hired a divorce attorney of my own. Miami, for a hermit, is its own special sector of hell, and I therefore had no intention of staying there after my marriage was over. Consequently, I chose to approach my last, and self-proclaimed final, divorce with an intricately molded business scope, carefully constructing my monetary legal victories as a ticket out of southern Florida. Leaving was always at the essence of my motivation during the legal proceedings, a choice of where and when, not if. Therefore, I’m not afraid of loneliness, of saying goodbye to the people around me, and I’m not intimidated by environmental newness. On the contrary, novelty brings a newfound exhilaration for me, comforting me in the knowledge that there is always someplace in the world that I can go where nobody knows me. I made a pledge to myself that I would get fat, date whomever I wanted, and never, ever remarry.

            So here I rebound, and as I wander through what I interpret to be the Italian version of a neighborhood, I’m struck by the realization that I’m looking for something that I wouldn’t know how to identify even if I found it. When I was in high school, over thirty years ago, in a typical conversation with Joyce, she mentioned that she’d been told that the keyhole was a beautiful sight to see in Rome, that one of our friends had seen it on a trip here and later told her about it. She passed away thirteen years ago. It took me a long time to recover, and I’m not entirely sure that she’d recognize me today if she saw me. Even still, now that I find myself in Rome, I can’t imagine not at least trying to find this place in her honor. I’ve always cherished the memory of her sharing that story with me. For no particular reason, it just felt beautifully ordinary, something she may have chosen to share with her own child.

            It’s with a twinge of guilt that I admit to myself that I haven’t kept in contact with many of the people that I love over the years. I tend to be able to remove people out of my life without any immediate pain and without any legitimate reason. Sometimes that scares me. It isn’t usually until years later that I look back with sadness at my instinct to flee. Not that I feel that way about my decision to leave Miami or about any of my divorces. Leaving Miami is the best thing I’ve ever done.

I became an orphan when I was eleven, outfitting me with a surplus of scars that I’ve never been able to fully accept. I was taken in by the family of one of my teachers at the time, Joyce Cappabianco. So, when I say that she wasn’t actually my mother, even though she raised me, that’s what I’m referring to. She had three daughters of her own, roughly my age, and her years of support allowed me to continue growing up in the community that I was familiar with.  They were my family for longer than my parents were alive in my life, but I’ve spent my entire adult existence trying to desperately convince myself that their care wasn’t some sick form of charity.  I think that’s why it’s so easy for me to break relationships. I refuse to ever be a burden to anyone.

            With the belabored help of countless kind Italians and one German, I’m here, looking through this keyhole, instructed to look out for the men with machine guns. The mystery and wonder of Rome is no secret, known to all who have visited, and even by many who have not. To see the Vatican, I most certainly didn’t have to come to the keyhole, but to begin to understand the meaning and presence of St. Peter’s in Rome, the keyhole serves, in my opinion, as a sort of gateway.

            To look out over Rome, especially Vatican City, through such a small, hidden focus, to me is to recognize how irrelevant any of my opinions about this place will ever be. To Rome, I’m a fraction of a blip, here and gone before anybody will recognize me or know my name. This city will persist with or without me, knowing that I will never fully understand. I could spend weeks wondering, deciphering what the mysteries of Rome are, but maybe the true message to grasp, as a person lucky enough to visit this place, is my own insignificance.

            And insignificant we are, somehow also in the midst of our own importance. I think that human eyes are, in a way, similar to the Roman keyhole, a gateway of sorts. If I look into people’s eyes, I see a story, or sometimes lots of stories. To look into a person’s eyes can be like looking into a keyhole specifically cut and sculpted by him or her. Eyes can share, they can shut out, they can expose, and they can betray secrets. I don’t think that I’m capable of truly understanding people without their eyes, just like I wouldn’t understand the keyhole by only standing in front of the gate. To grasp the whole picture, the true meaning, it’s necessary to use an individual’s eyes, or the keyhole, as vessels into the person, or in this case city.

When I was a little girl, my mother used to look into my eyes if she thought that I was lying about something. If, while staring, she then decided that she believed me, she wouldn’t mention them. On the other hand, if she did happen to remain convinced of my untruthfulness, she’d tell me, “Norah, your eyes are lying”. She wouldn’t say it in a way that was accusatory, either. She’d say it in a matter-of-fact, I’ve won, but I’m not mad sort of voice. She’d smile, toss me a popsicle, and tell me that she was proud of me. Looking back on things, that’s probably a pretty twisted reaction to have once you’ve caught your child lying to you, but it’s also one of the most powerful memories that I still have of her.

In those moments of her prying into my eyes, I also carefully studied hers, imprinting burned pictures into my memory. In the middle, they were a swirly, creamy green, like a glass marble, my favorite color. But on the rims, they were brown. My mother had tender, strong eyes.  She had pale skin and long, black hair. She never wore make-up and could always be found in a black tee-shirt, barefoot. She was loud, and she had the biggest smile I’ve ever known. She wasn’t happy particularly often, but when she did smile, it took up her whole face, contorting her other features. Her eyes would scrunch up, sealing her keyholes, completely closed, and her nose would crumple like a squished up accordion. Her name was Aubrey. In a remarkably painful turn of events in my life, Joyce has led me to a place that staggers me, not only because it reminds me of her, but also, most importantly, because it reminds me of my mother.      

Cesraéa. ...Written in Rome. Spring, 2011.

At first glance, I wouldn’t expect somebody like you to have curiosity in me like you do. I’m a writer, akin to you, but not really…and you didn’t know that about me when we met. The title of ‘writer’, for me, is strictly a technicality. I mean, I write, but close to nobody reads any of it. I’m quiet, a self-proclaimed loner, and a little bit of a badass. Not like you, who has people lining up to read every letter you scribble down. Liam Carroll, showoff extraordinaire.  It was accidental that you stumbled across my writing in the first place, and I wouldn’t want lots of people to read it anyway. It’s mostly jagged poetry, and it’s painful for me.

Today, as we toddle along the Tiber, my mind is flustered with thoughts, as it always is. I’m aware of my consistently sidetracked state, contrary to what most people think, but it doesn’t bother me. My neuroses have served as constant companions, and I’ve learned to embrace them over the span of the two years that we’ve spent here. While in Italy, I’ve grown old enough to see all of the things that are unalterable in my life, and consequently, I’ve reached a foundational bliss in this country that makes me proud of myself. My Roman ease, though, if I’m being totally honest, is partly due to your friendship and willingness to be a witness to my life. I will never, ever admit that to you.

I like to create timelines in my head. What I mean is that, when I’m with people that I’ve known for awhile, I frequently think back to the day when they and I first met. I put the sequential events of our shared relationship into order, desperately seeking to explain how we wound up wherever we happen to be at that moment. Without those timelines, I have trouble understanding how people wind up anywhere. Without my own timeline, even, I struggle to see how I wound up in Rome. Well, so it is with you. As we walk together, so habituated to one another that talking isn’t needed, I reflect back to the day we first met.

But then here we walk, along this not-so-mighty-river. Romans would have you think that this thing was a blood-thirsty bunghole, but in reality, it’s just as slow as we are. I’ve been brought out of my reflection world by the smell of fried artichokes, and I’m smiling because I know the area we’re bypassing. Consistently over the course of my life, my favorite country is the one I’m in, my favorite neighborhood the one I’m walking through. Thus, I typically prove to be unreliable and, in general, awful at making decisions about travel, or restaurants, or places to live. Not in Rome, though. My choice neighborhood in Rome, without any qualm, is the Jewish Quarter. The quiet resilience that is exuded from this section of town stirs me, and its Jewish exclusivity is calming to me. These people that we’re walking by have earned the right to be exclusive, to draw into themselves for support and community, to question the very countrymen and women that they live amongst, and they’ve proven that it’s possible to come courageously out of horrors. It’s this type of buoyancy that I find so moving about this city, particularly in the Ghetto di Roma. 

In a way, I feel like that’s what you and I have done, drawing into ourselves for support and community. Yet, me being me, I flip the box, and I am keenly aware of how we must appear to other people as we walk. Take today for instance. Me, long blonde hair, but dressed in all black, rocking my favorite red lipstick. You, thin, with deep, dark eyes, grungy and grizzly, yet still timelessly striking. Arm in arm. It’s possible that we even appear to be a couple. That will never be true, though. You hate women too much, and I hate men too much.

You’re one of very few people in my life that prefers to call me Cesraéa, rather than Chez. At first, I was wary of you for using it so freely, as if you had the right to do so. I’m very fond of my name, as you know, but most people don’t choose to notice that Chez is short for something. All of my poems, incidentally, are titled Cesraéa, and I think that’s why you use it. You asked me once, last year, why I title all of them with my name, and honestly, I think it’s because I don’t know what to write about if I’m not writing about myself. My world is the only world that I really know. People write about lots of people. They write about Steve, Molly, Jane, Mark. But somewhere in there, they’re writing about themselves. I believe that, anyway. So I just try to cut the bullshit and be honest with you. But nobody reads it, so it’s easier for me than it is for you.  Put bluntly, it doesn’t make sense to me to title them with any other name. I don’t think I ever answered that question for you.

I’m smiling again, brought out of my flustered world another time. We’re crossing the Tiber now, about to cross into Trestevere. We’re walking the bridges that connect the Isola Tiberina with both sides of the river, my favorite route. It’s my favorite route because it houses one of my first and most powerful memories of Rome. When we first arrived here, I remember scouring the city for a post-box. I was desperate and discouraged. I suppose I expected to see blue, arch-shaped boxes on every street corner, just like home. In my embarrassing confusion, only God knows how many red Poste Italia boxes that I probably walked straight by, pissed off and unconvinced that Italy and I would find a way to get along. The first one that finally I noticed was the one attached to the outside of  La Chiesa di San Giovani Calibita, on this little island, while I was walking alone one night. Red is my favorite color, it always has been. It’s the color of a slap, the color of my lipstick, and the color of the post box that renewed my conviction in the decision to re-start my life in Italy. 

We’ve just crossed into Trestevere, I’m sure on our way to Piazza di Santa Maria, your favorite piazza in Rome. You’re in the middle of telling me that this, Trestevere, is where you do your best writing. We’ve had this conversation before, so, as we walk, I give you a look to suggest my exasperation, and I leave you again for my own world, tuning you out. 

Buongiorno, Tutti.

I'm a senior at Loyola University Chicago, preparing to graduate in May. The next year- for me, my friends, and also my beautiful cousin/roommate, Sarah- will hold many changes...just as the last three have. So, for now, I'm eager to catalog this time.

TODAY:
-I started a Twitter account. (SOMETHING I SWORE I'D NEVER DO). I'm stunned, and a little bit worried, about the technological responsibilities that I've taken on today. http://twitter.com/#!/Caitlin_Rae_

-I've spawned the name for this lovely blog from a random word generator. "Global" and "Scissors" were my favorites. So, here we are.

-I've helped to generate the next up-and-coming wave in multi-media messaging, the SMEXT. A message where you would be able to send smells through the airwaves. Obviously, my cousin and my friend, Kim, are brilliant. We've even come up with a potential game, "Guess that Funk", where the message receiver would have to postulate as to the origin of said scent, to accompany the SMEXT. ...One day, we hope, this revolutionary notion will be possible.

-I sat near a man on the bus that was wearing a graphic-tee, sporting the logo "Girls Don't Poop". Shockingly, that's the second time I've seen that shirt on men on public transportation. The one that I saw a few weeks ago was blue, but the one that I saw today was yellow. It's clearly a new movement or something, and I'd like to just say: I'm appalled.

Obviously, it's been a big day. Tonight is "wing night" with two new-found friends. Jake Melnick's, our very favorite BBQ place (only PARTIALLY because of our school discount), is where it all goes down. Everything's very exciting.
Sarah, this is for you. GO CARDINALS!

Tony's Eye: