There is a place in Rome where the sun always shines and the wine tastes like sunshine.  That is where I spent my afternoon, in good company sipping lovely wine.  I heard once that there are some wines that if you try to take them out of the country they lose their taste and sometimes even turn during the journey.  Something about them makes it impossible to move them.  I bet it has something to do with the sunshine.

Hello

Hello from Roma and Trastevere everyone!

pace.

Unpacked

I think I somehow got it into my head that if I keep my packing for the last minute I wont get as nervous because there is something that I have to be doing all the time.  Now I think that this is flawed.  Even if I wasn’t packing at the last minute before my trip there would be many things that I would have to do.  Now I have to squeeze them all in to a small space and the nerves multiply.  For example, I should be packing but instead I am updating my blog.

I got up this morning, which is odd for me because I do not normally go to sleep til morning, and made crepes for breakfast.  Then I thought to my self “It is Friday.”  Then “Isn’t Friday my favorite day to write a blog post?”

This time I have no story to keep you from being bored, and I have no peaceful thoughts about the mountains.  This time all I have is nervous hopes for the upcoming semester and the weight of an unpacked suitcase on my mind.

The Most of It

He thought he kept the universe alone;
For all the voice in answer he could wake
Was but the mocking echo of his own
From some tree–hidden cliff across the lake.
Some morning from the boulder–broken beach
He would cry out on life, that what it wants
Is not its own love back in copy speech,
But counter–love, original response.
And nothing ever came of what he cried
Unless it was the embodiment that crashed
In the cliff’s talus on the other side,
And then in the far distant water splashed,
But after a time allowed for it to swim,
Instead of proving human when it neared
And someone else additional to him,
As a great buck it powerfully appeared,
Pushing the crumpled water up ahead,
And landed pouring like a waterfall,
And stumbled through the rocks with horny tread,
And forced the underbrush—and that was all.

Robert Frost

Nocturnal

Last night I brewed some coffee and made some pasta, which just happens to be two of my favorite substances and actually go very nicely together especially when the lights are mostly all off and the business of the day has all gone to sleep.

Pasta goes better with different things depending on the time of day.  I wouldn’t even think about drinking coffee with pasta at dinner time but instead would have a nice glass of red wine.  On an afternoon picnic (yes I would bring pasta on a picnic though I am not sure that I know of anyone else that would) a glass, or actually plastic cup, of cool white wine would be the ideal thing.  And pasta in the morning for breakfast calls for a small glass of juice, either orange or grape.

Whenever I become slightly more nocturnal than most humans I start to think about pasta because there is no other so perfect late night food.

Davy Crockett

“Davey Crockett” just started playing on my computer.  It really is amazing the things that come up when the music is on random.  Listening to something other than my normal list of music is surprisingly comforting.  Old memories, silly ones, suddenly creep back into my mind as I hear “killed him a bar when he was only three” and it makes me smile.

Did I forget the calm, solemn beauty of the Lithuanian folk songs?  Did I not realize that Sigor Ros has more than one beautiful song?  Did I even know that Ben Harper was on my computer?  Of course my brain knows these things, but sometimes my ear and heart need to be reminded.

Hello again.

It has been a while since I have sat down at the computer to write a blog post.  The only reason I am sitting here now is because I used some red wine vinegar today and I thought as I poured it over my head “didn’t I used to have a bog named after this?”  And so I am back.

I am back to say that I love the mountains even more than I did before, and that in the mountains I even liked eggs, and that blueberries are so much more yummy when they are fresh as opposed to frozen, and that summer has made all the days run together so that even though today is monday it feels just like a Saturday.

Last time I tried to post I was writting about how I hate to pack.  This summer I packed for a back-packing trip…and loved every minute of it.  Maybe it all had to do with what I was packing for…

The phone keeps ringing and ringing and no one is answering it although they are all home and all much closer to theh telephone than I am.   So hard to write when the phone keeps ringing.  But maybe someone really needs to talk and just wont take no for an answer.  So I will go see who it is.

Peace.

Eggs

I don’t actually like to eat eggs and I never really have.  I think it is something about the texture.  But eggs are full of protein=energy and as it is nearing the end of the semester energy is something that I am running a little bit short on.

But I don’t like eggs…at least I don’t like to eat them.

I do like the effect that eggs have on my hair.  The protein makes it shiney and bouncy and I am just vain enough that when my hair bounces so does my spirit.

Hint: be careful when trying this at home.  When you rinse the egg out of your hair use cool clear water.  If the water is just a little bit too hot the eggs will cook.  This would make scrambled eggs in your head.

Mountains

I woke up this morning with the same feeling that I have when  I wake up on a camping trip.  The birds were singing loudly, it was a little bit over cast and a little bit chilly.  The feeling was only hightened as I went in to the kitchen to boil water for coffee.  Something about the sound of water boiling and the smell of fresh ground coffee mixed with brisk fresh air changed my surroundings and I could almost see the small fire in the fire pit as I sat on a dew drenched bench of a picnic table.

“In the mountains, there you feel free” (Line 17 of “The Waste Land”).

Everything is always new in the mountains (I am thinking specifically of the White Mountains right now because that is where I grew up).  In the spring there are new leaves, new brooks, and new mushrooms.  In the summer there are new berries, new veiws, and new sunshine.   In the autumn there are new colors, and new breezes.

So on the day before Easter it is somehow appropriate that I felt like I was camping in the mountains.  Waking up to newness is central to a camping trip, and reflecting on the newness is what happens around a camp fire.  The dying embers of a camp fire always get stirred up again and again.

The Locked Door

What would you do if you were locked in a large building full of class rooms for the night?

Last night I found a little corner in one of the university’s buildings and sat down to write my paper.  I wrote off and on from about ten to midnight.  As it got later the building got more and more quiet and I figured I had finally found the ideal spot to study, a place that was not completely cut off from human interaction yet quiet and I could stay there as late I wanted.

A little bit after midnight I got an e-mail saying “where are you?  Come eat ice-cream!”  Ok, that is a good way to get me to take a break from my paper, especially on a Sunday in Lent.  I packed up my stuff and skipped down to the door…and it was locked.  All the doors were locked.  Suddenly the building that seemed so friendly a moment ago seemed large and looming as I thought about the prospect of sleeping there.  Each sound echoed and rang in my ears.  Suddenly a voice rang from above my head “hey!  We’re locking this place up!”  My heart stopped and then sped up rapidly, when ever voices speak to me from on high it makes me a little nervous.  I looked up and saw Campus Security glaring down at me.  “Just turn the knob,”  he said in exasperation.  Ah!  Unlocking the door!  What a thought.