Ciao, Santorini. . . hello Crete?

Remind me to tell you about lava rocks and little kids at a red sand beach.

But for now my internets time is counting down slowly from six minutes, so I thought that I would just say a quick hello. And recommend Santorini if you ever get vacation time in Greece. Athens kind of sucks though.

'Bye my loves, hopefully I will see you all soon (I'm getting kind of tired of travelling even though I've been having a pretty rocking time.)

youth hostels -

who decided that only people between the ages of 18 and 35 have the right to stay cheaply when travelling internationaly?

this is what i was thinking on wednesday, but now it's thursday and i have to wash my hair

Hey my loves,

I’m writing this, I confess, not in order to communicate, really, but in order to try and clear my own mind (and also, I find the act of writing, the feel of my keyboard, to be steadying). Life is. . . not confused. . . but very, very complicated. A welter of very intense, vivid moments crowd up together, pushing and shoving and vying for attention, to pile into one single hour.

And then the hours pile into a day. One more full day left, and then I’m gone. Really gone, because the program is moving. There won’t be any Orvieto semester in this physical place any more, even if I did manage to come back someday.

I cried in the sala today, the first time I’ve actually just wailed about leaving. I thought that I was going to be totally fine, not a tear in my eye, until last night at our farewell party (the first of two, but I’ll miss the second because I’ll be in Cinquaterra). After our pizza party, I was in a funk, and the emotion just kept building. Tonight will be our last family dinner together before the group starts splintering. When I found out that Heffay might not be able to be there because he was having guys’ night with Skills - well, that tore it. I bawled. Not have one last family dinner?

This morning, about 9 o’clock in the stone-sculpting garage, I couldn’t stop smiling. Something about the song “The Close of Autumn” was perfection, and the sun was shining and the sanding on my angel’s halo was almost over. The whole sculpting process is almost over. Whee!

I took a nap in the sala on the couches. Rain poured down outside, and so I couldn’t go to finish grinding down my angel’s arms to the correct level. Becca and Katie also fell asleep on the couches next to me, and Heffay worked on his poems for class. He’s writing the ekphrastic poem for my piece, and I am wildly curious. I’ve never read his work. What’s he going to say about this sculpture with which I am so dissatisfied?

I went to vespers at Buon Gesu. For the first time, I followed the entire service through the book without getting lost, and I understood almost all of it. That music. . . well, there isn’t anything it’s like. I love the way it smells there, too. If I could bottle up one thing to bring back to you all, it would be that sound and that smell and the soft cool feel of the space as you push open the wooden door.

The magnolia tree outside my window is blooming. Katie thinks it’s a wedding kind of flower. I think it’s a very solitary kind of flower. It just doesn’t look good in arrangements with others. Its grace is a little stiff, a little formal. It needs space to breathe. Maybe this is why I sympathize with magnolias? I don’t feel like a group flower either. = )

Katie and I planned our last cappuccino break together for tomorrow morning. I signed up for my critique-time. I had pistachio and tiramisu gelato for the last time. I walked the cliff one last time, near sunset.

If there weren’t some firsts to go along with all the lasts. . . actually, I’m not sure about that. The firsts, in combination with all the lasts, may in fact be what is making me feel so crazy. You know, I always laughed at that stereotype of the insane or dysfunctional artist. I was like, “Sure, I’m a little unbalanced at times, but essentially I’m OK. I’m functional. I’m punctual, I have a good work ethic. I can cook and drive and babysit and turn things in on time without constantly pulling all-nighters. I’m honest, and I can totally blend with society.” Well, now I know that I am, in fact, exactly that stereotype of the crazy artist. Whether it’s some gene that I inherited, or due to the commitments I’ve made to honesty or openness of vision or to making art of the visual or verbal kind. . . I haven’t the faintest. But that little monologue that’s constantly going on in your head? Well, sometimes it doesn’t exist. And when it does exist, it constantly contradicts itself.

I’m trying to take Dr. Skills’ advice to heart, though: give yourself space to feel what you’re feeling. And then feel the next thing that you’re feeling. Also, Dorothy L. Sayers: Don’t contradict or suppress what you’re feeling according to what you think you ought to be feeling.

Difficult. But also, in the end, I suppose keeping in touch with what’s actually going on in your insides is probably as important as keeping in touch with what’s going on in the outside world. Yes?

Love,
Kenzie

P.S. No more blog posts for the next couple weeks - I will be in the north of Italy, then in Greece, and then flying home to stay for a few days before I move up to college to begin work. So, extended hugs to last until the time of my next update.

devo essere. . .

Hello my loves!

Once again it’s time for a substantial update from Italia. I find myself already dissociating from living here with the knowledge that the end is coming in a matter of days - the countdown is in single digits. I mean, probably it’s sad, but I’ve accepted the inevitability of leaving, and I doubt that I will have much trouble saying goodbye, especially in light of having such an exciting summer planned. Oh, the countdown to the end of the program? Six days.

Katie, Elena and I go into the studio and have long conversations together before we even start working - it’s great quality time to spend with my future roommates, and I love it. Just the three of us, in a semester where solitude has been decidedly hard to find, in the early-morning cool in the shade of the garage. By now the stiff cloth of the gloves has molded to fit our working positions, and the chisels fit easily in the curve of our fingers, so we sit on top of our workstations fiddling with them and swinging our legs as we discuss - whatever. Yesterday we had a conversation about saying goodbye. It turns out that I am the only one who refuses to look back or wave after I’ve already said goodbye in airports. I just think it’s better that way. I’ve said goodbye, and there’s no use prolonging that goodbye a few more minutes. I’m leaving and that’s that. Odd? Or reasonable?

On Thursday, I walked back alone from San Paulo (the new convent, where sculpting class is held) to San Ludovico (the old convent, where we currently live). I had my head down, and I really walked fast. It was almost lunch-time, and the usual Spring thunderclouds were glowering over the roof of the duomo. Imagine my surprise, then, when a little old lady with short frizzed out hair (wearing the nearly universal garb of elderly Italian women. . . a black knee-length skirt, a floral shirt, and a black jacket) interrupted my charge and rattled off (in Italian, very quickly), some unintelligible paragraph involving much gesticulating towards her head and ending in the query: “c’e mercoledi o giovedi oggi?” Oh. . . I thought, she wants to know if today is Wednesday or Thursday? What? So I smiled politely and breathed a sigh of relief that I did, in fact, know what day it was (sometimes, I admit, I haven’t got a clue) and replied, “Giovedi.” “Gratzie!” she smiled very widely and toddled off down the road, eminently pleased that it was, in fact, a Thursday afternoon.

I don’t know if I am vaguely recognizable as someone who knows their way around or what, but several people have come up to me in the street lately to ask directions (I expect you’re saying: heaven help them! Mackenzie can’t find her way out of a paper bag!). In one way it makes me happy to have someone stop me and rattle off Italian and expect me to understand. What pleases me even more? When I can actually give them correct directions! I know it’s a shocking thought, but several times I’ve been able to help people find l’ascensori, or the wall, or the duomo, or just the public W.C. Entertaining, no?

There’s a huge group of Germans here this week. And by huge I mean. . . well, there are 15 or 20 of them, led by an imposing woman the nuns refer to simply as “la signora.” It’s really very much like a spy novel, actually. “La gruppa di la signora,” Therese pulled me into the corner of the refettorio and whispered to me, “dunque non metti questi su tutti i tavoli.” (“The group of the signora, so don’t put these on all of the tables.”) I nodded gravely and sprang to do Therese’s bidding (all the while wishing I had some sweet spy gear, like explosion-making devices). The most extraordinary measures have to be taken, too, so that we do not disturb the Germans during their noon meal, while still somehow managing to clean up after our own, and everything must be on time. The german signora is, in fact, at least six feet tall, has very fierce dark eyebrows and honey-colored hair (clearly dyed over grey) and wears very flowing, loose floral robes. While I could easily imagine her leading a cavalry charge (floral robes flapping in the wind like arabic costumes), it’s absurd to see her every morning leading the Germans in singing exercises, which she does with commendable regularity. Sometimes they inhabit the courtyard, sometimes they inhabit the narrow piano room, but they always begin the day by singing (and every meal is heralded by some sort of song). One morning they were holding hands in a circle and singing with great gusto. This morning, they were practicing chords. Some of the visiting Americans pulled me aside in the refettorio yesterday morning and asked me, “are the nuns having services? Is that why there’s singing?” No, I wanted to respond, There are only three nuns, and none of them are men, so that military air you’re hearing could not possibly be the nuns at their morning services. But instead I said: “The nuns do have a service at 7:30, I think, but that’s actually a group of German tourists.”

As you can see, I’ve been quite good at subduing my internal monologue lately.

This is probably terrible to admit, but I love waking up without Alexis in the room. Today, for instance, her alarm went off only twice, and she got up very early to prepare presents for her family (she’s leaving chocolate and flowers in their rooms for when they arrive - how sweet is that?). So I stayed in bed until she’d finished showering, blow-drying her hair, and all of that jazz. Just so that I could have some time to myself in the room this morning, with the Germans’ singing coming through the windows, just looking at the clear blue sky and the swarms of swallows swooping around catching - well, whatever it is that swallows catch and eat. It put me in a heck of good mood.

There has been some interesting grading controversy lately. I can’t really join in, because, due to kitchen duty cleaning up after the mysteriously musical Germans, I didn’t get my grade for woodblock printing from Skills like everyone else. Skills is kind of hard to catch lately - he’s busy with some conference and moving the program and stuff like that - so, several days later, I still don’t know my grade. In any case, several students feel upset about their grades, for varying reasons. Some people feel that they should have gotten A’s, because they tried really hard.

Well that, my friends, strikes me as a ridiculously naive demand. I don’t even go into my major courses expecting A’s just because I work really hard - and I do work really hard! To expect to go into a class where you know nothing whatsoever about the subject matter or skills required and get an A because you tried hard is absurd. Particularly when work ethic or effort aren’t even on the grading rubric. Get over it.

Secondly, some people are upset because supposedly all the art majors in the class got A’s and all the non-art majors got B’s. Well. First of all, they can’t possibly even know that, because Alexis and I still haven’t gotten our grades. Nor did the person making the accusations have any idea what kind of grades Katie or Elena made (and we’re three of the four art majors in the class!). Secondly, Knipps was pretty generous with grades all around I feel. The primary plaintiff in this case, if I had been the professor, would have failed the class. Most of the other non art majors? They’d have gotten C’s. A few would have gotten B+’s. I hate that they’re complaining about their grades - if they had any idea, they’d take those grades, shut up and be thankful. And if he extends to the art majors the same kind of grace he extended to the non-art majors, well, that’s fair, and you’re concerned about fairness, yes? I hardly think they could look at the work involved and not admit that the work of the art majors was a cut above everyone else’s - just because we’ve had so much practice doing what we do, and we have a little more conceptual sophistication. Thirdly, three of the four art majors in the class way exceeded the requirements of the project in service of their concept. We had more images than required by the syllabus, we had more color images than required by the syllabus, we had way more double and triple-block prints than required by the syllabus, we made the effort to cut all of our text ourselves rather than pasting in computer-printed text.

But, all in all, the controversy is really just entertaining. I think we all needed something to occupy our minds beyond the fact that the semester is ending. And this controversy provides an opportunity for everyone to be righteously indignant in their own way, and discuss fervently the stupidity of everyone else with their own particular set of close friends. Welcome to convent life! Let’s give it one big last hurrah of gossip before we all leave!

Last night was a good night. We decided to do the tourist-y thing in Orvieto one last time and go see “Orvieto sotteranea,” a tour all about the Etruscan caves/cellars/dovecotes under our very feet. We’d have made Skills proud. Because of the great education he gave us about Orvieto, when the guide asked us what these rooms full of square holes in the walls were for, everyone else yelled out “wine!” and we yelled out “pigeons!” The other groups laughed at us, but we were right!

Our tour guide’s accent was atrocious, by the way. Katie couldn’t look at anyone else while she was talking, or she’d bust out laughing. I’m not sure if it was the strange places where she put the emphasis, or the fact that it sounded like she’d very carefully copied the accent of someone who spoke English in a very southern way (so that the Italian and southern accents did some totally bizarre meld of sounds) or if it was just the quick way that she repeated words over and over and over and over at the end of sentences. In any case, it was hysterical. I wish that I could duplicate it for you.

We all just chilled on the couches in the sala that night, talking and listening to Megan’s collection of Dane Cook comedy routines. Jeff gave us hand massages, because we’re all so freaking sore (Katie and I have been giving each other hand massages, but our hands are so sore that to massage someone else’s hands is kind of a conundrum). He gives good hand massages. I sort of fell asleep, though, while he was massaging my hand, and had to be woken up to go to bed. Stone carving really is just exhausting, and not only physically. The effort of focusing on something so tedious all day is pretty sucky. I can’t wait until it’s done - only five more days! Whee!

Speaking of countdowns: Greg is coming in two days.

The latest topic of speculation and drama, besides grading, is the difficulties of packing our suitcases. Hmm. It’s a difficulty indeed. More pressing, however, to my mind, is the question: what to do about the last two souvenirs I need to buy? And how am I going to live out of a backpack for two weeks? How frugal do I need to be in those last two weeks? What happened to my calculator?

Tune in next time, at this same time, at this same place, for the answers to these pressing questions and more.

Love,
Kenzie

far and silent lightning

It's always nice when one's brain and one's heart reach a truce. Unfortunately, I am not always a party to their articulation of the truce - so I have no idea why it happened a few days ago. Except that maybe Mom laughing hysterically at my problems put them into a more handle-able perspective for me? It sounds like an unusual cure, for sure, but I'll take what I can get.

This post should be full of profundity.

But I am not really that interested in profundity at the moment. Instead, I am interested in finding out where my cappucino has gone to. Dove il cappucino? Desidero un cappucino, adesso. The decor of Blue Bar is really not that pleasing - I do not come for atmosphere. I come for caffeine. Full stop.

If my hands don't stop hurting soon, I am going to break down and cry. Actually, I kind of wish that I could just have my little inevitable stress-crying bout right now so that I could stop being on the verge of it for days at a time. Over the weirdest things, too. Alexis, Jeff, and Esther denied me access to one of their poetry workshopping sessions. . . well, so what? I'm not in the class, so it's a perfectly reasonable thing for them to do. I've just never been on the outside of a writing group in my life. It was a weird feeling, like the validity of my poetic identity had been denied. I didn't like it much. It must be depressing to be just an art major.

Will I still drink this much coca cola when I'm in the United States?

I think I need to go in search of my cappucino. Like, deep sea diving, only for caffeinated goodness.

Love,
Kenzie

It is difficult to know one's own mind. I should add this to my portfolio, or make a second portfolio so that it's some kind of series. First offering: It is difficult to say that I love you. Second offering: It is difficult to know my own mind. Probably that would be a great hit.

I'm worried. Those two weeks of travel at the end of the semester? It is hard for me to cope without alone time. On vacations one seldom gets alone time of any kind. And when I do not get alone time I get pretty cranky. Also, I will be traveling with three extroverts. Hmm. Difficult.

Also: Stone carving. It's kicking my butt. My muscles are acclimating (my joints unfortunately are not), but my work pace has slowed to a crawl, and I am having a heck of a time picking out all the forms that need to exist by the end of this week. My fellow students have become vivid cautionary tales of what happens when you try to rush it with the wrong tools: big chunks of stuff break off irreparably. It's scary to watch. A lot of swears have been flying around the studio lately ("Tompkins said a swear!").

On an up note, it was great to have Lucy come out and visit. It made me miss the rest of my school friends really a lot. I can't wait to have girly tea-time with you again/eat dinner/have a geeky conversation/Pro Tempore/take long walks/pretend to have a study party but really just a normal party. . .

It is funny how one piece of mail can be so important feeling. i didn't expect this particular piece of mail at all, I was completely surprised. I've always abhorred/laughed at people whose blog posts are all ambiguous and mysterious, and they don't really tell you what's going on, but they allude portentiously to events in the background. Well, here I am, doing the same thing, at least sort of. I got mail. It felt important. In one way, that really is the entirety of the story. To get all of it, you may have needed to be around for the past nine years (or since my birth).

I didn't realize that in having a boyfriend I was taking such a huge step away from the way I'd ordered my life before. Of course, I didn't realize that in coming to Italy I was taking such a huge step away from the way I'd ordered my life before. I guess what freaks me the hell out about going back home is trying to incorporate all these changes into my real life. That is, I realize I will have to give certain things up in order to keep certain good things about my life right now, but I also want to keep the good things of my life before. So it's complicated. I wish that I could revert back to being 18 when I felt more like I could bluff my way through things, but at 20 I've started to realize just how little I know. Is this what's called adulthood?

I'm sure I will be more optimistic with my life when stone carving is done, never fear. I think it must just be the physical discomfort of life right now which is pushing me over the edge of "complicated" and into the realm of "angst." Or maybe it's just the craziness of study abroad in general which is the most stretching experience I've ever had, and not just stretching but pushing and pulling and punching. Study abroad also fights dirty, and throws in a few bites and scratches. Be warned.

I meant that to sound kind of wryly humorous, but probably it just sounded depressed. Sorry.

Anyway, I've got to go back to the convent, because it is nearly curfew time. Keep me in mind, please, these last few weeks. I feel rather crushed at the thought of . . . well, just about everything involving concentration or intelligent effort. It's one of those days.

Love,
Kenzie

i hardly ever ask rhetorical questions

Hi my loves!

Lucy is here. It's good. it makes me miss all of you back home even more, but it is so good to see her again and be able to hang out around here with a friend from home. I am pretty excited now for when Greg and Ryan arrive - which is only about 10 days away.

Corpus Domini/Christi is coming up soon . . . it's apparently a huge thing, and I am very very interested in yet another civic holiday which is very religious.

Stone Carving is going really slowly, but I hurt less than before, so that is a plus. Hopefully I will still not be sore by the end of the weekend.

We are considering a day trip tomorrow, which is exciting.

This is pretty fragmented, but then so is my brain.

Love,
Kenzie