ever eccentric

Hi loves. This is another update to let you know that I am still alive. But it will not tell you much more than that. Because frankly, I am trying to be wholly here and trying to soak up, imbibe, immerse, percolate, seep, infuse, absorb, inundate myself with what's left of my time in Italy. And blogging, trying to place myself outside of Italy and choose what will be most meaningful to communicate, is distracting me from this endeavor.

I'm struggling with the fact, currently, that none of you can really know what the every day, day-to-day is like here. I can't give you the smells and the buzzwords and the banal, absurd dinner-table conversation which happens. I can't give you the heat or the sudden cool of stepping into the convent corridor. What does the sky from my window look like? Have you ever just watched the swallows for an hour? They look like they're diving towards some kind of center, they look like water bugs, their motion is one quick pencil gesture on the smoothest paper. Even a poem is going to fall short, and a poem is the most potent way to communicate that I know.

Will you all still like me, now that I've been abroad and changed so much? I wondered that. I wondered how much I've actually changed, and how much it's just my perception of myself that's changed by being in new company and new culture all the time. I think you'll still like me. I hope. Will you still approve of me? I wondered that too, and the answer is not quite as clear. I can picture some of you just clucking your tongues and trying to convince me that some of the decisions I've made this semester are wrong, that some of the attitudes I've adopted are inappropriate. But if you still like me, does that give me leverage to change your minds?

Sometimes even I'm weirded out by being in my brain. = ) But mostly I'm happy. Today, for instance, I couldn't be happier if I tried. Well, unless I could have huge hugs from all of you. That would make me happier. Also if I had remembered to shave my legs before wearing a skirt and coming to Blue Bar for the internet (apparently, I learned this today - Italians do not have cappucino after lunch. They have espresso, but not cappucino. Is that odd? I think yes.). I stick out enough without trying - I should probably at least make a vague attempt to fit in. Yes?

Somewhere along the way I passed the 500-post mark of this blog. In fact, I passed the 550 post mark. I feel like that's really a lot. But is it? It's about three years' worth of me thinking out loud to you. I wonder why, as such an internal, private person, I feel OK just talking out loud to the interwebs like this. But I guess it's because I'm still picking and choosing what I'm saying, and I also have time to craft my narrative if I so choose, although often I don't. Has my writing improved at all because I've been writing so frequently on this blog? Will I look back on any of my posts and be proud or happy? Eh. Who knows. I have honestly run out of motivation to really ponder these self-evaluative questions. I'm just me, and I guess that's OK right now. Yes?