I've spent the past few days working quite a bit (and in fact, will be doing so for the next few, too), and my life still remains a little bit vacant, unfortunetely. I'm reading "Written On The Body" and while I was a bit wary at first, Miss Winterson has now gone into more musings of love and such instead of the plot. I know that the musings were scattered but prevelant in The Passion, but here, there are just more dense parts of it, and I love it. I can understand how it's something you can either love or hate; her style of writing, but I'm just a sucker for it.
See, I've unfortunetely caught me in a backlash of memories that I hadn't quite prepared for when embarking upon this, but really, how can I avoid it? I would like to get to other parts of the states, though, to see those other lovely people again.
I'm sort of frustrated with my situation because I'd like to be back in Italy. Who wouldn't? It takes different things to trigger those emotions, and tonight, talking to a guy from Rome and recounting my adventures in Rome, the nights passed on trains, it's all just adding up to an equation that underlines what I don't have. I know that's terribly negative, and rest assured that I am indeed nestled in happy memories as well as entrenched in the missing of it all, but right now, tonight, with the night air blowing in and nothing but me and another double shift at work tomorrow... man, I just WANT to be there again. heh. Is this the part where I kill myself? I should write the handbook before I do it, to help contribute to the stats. That way, there'll be more of a certainty of when students are most likely to fling themselves from their rooftops, Italian techno blaring and the sweet taste of cheap wine still in them.
What an easy place to miss. How happy I am that it still exists, though, because unlike a dream, Italy doesn't dissolve in the morning. Thank goodness.
Last night I went to my first concert since I came home. I must say, I did miss the experience. Sitting in the afterparty, leathered up and sweaty from dancing and singing along, I looked around and saw such crazy outfits, such exotic and freakish people, and amidst the pounding drum beat of some nameless industrial tune, I realized (happily) that I didn't even feel slightly out of place, even though you could find me tapping my foot to a soft concert, bouncing around to the Goo Goo Dolls, or nodding and smiling while grizzled black men pluck out the bluest blues about how their woman done them wrong. It's not like I have an alternate identity, but it felt great to hop into a culture I had been absent from for a while.
Two other points of note:
1. Even though some people could be called "goth", there were also a large amount of really beautiful women. Broke my stereotype in half. Rad.
2. All of the people there, no matter if a towering 6'5 and wearing a black leather trenchcoat with the words KILL YOUR TV and wrapped with studded spikes and fishnet stockings, were very, very nice. I like that. You know, you'd see more violence at any Limp Bizcuit concert than what I went to. Fun, fun, fun. Got some autographs, etc.
I'm about to just practically drift away with the wind, as I'm getting so light and breezy about the past that I might just turn into something akin to a dream, too. Although all this fluff of dreams and such is reminding me that I SHOULD be heading to bed. I will.
The turbulence of all of this is interesting, no? I never knew how I'd feel coming home, and as I stay here longer, it's not so much the current situation that sweeteens the past (OK, maybe a little) but rather me slowly realizing how wondering it all was, how I could walk past the Duomo and a few times remember not even LOOKING at it. Of course, now I would pay for a touch or taste of that place again, but now I digress: I'm making it sound less like a semester abroad and more like a narcotic. heh.
Oh, hell, it probably IS a lot of this current situation flavoring my memories. Someone once told me I have a tendancy to glamorize the past. She was right; I do. But this isn't a semester at college or an ex-girlfriend, it's ITALY, and I never saw 1/100th of the tiny streets or vineyards or people that are there, which leads me to believe that, unlike other past experiences that generally conclude by logic and time and gentle un-hinging (like relationships, for instance), Italy was very much snatched away before it felt like I had even left fingerprints on it. Suicide is not uncommon? The idea is still a little bit outragous, but the reasons for it are less opaque. Not that I'm about to enjoy a nice bleach cocktail, chased with some gasoline, but you know what I'm saying; the sadness is there because it felt unconcluded. The thing is, I have no idea what the conclusion would even be; but I DO know that I feel that there were so many, many things left untapped; just resurviors of experience and as far as I know, they still exist. That feeling of a too-short ending but an option to start again is both tiring but obviously rewarding: it's a little different from a dream, since you can go back, and it's a little different than a relationship, but I feel a mess of feelings with it all that I don't find out of place: sadness, happiness, elation, depression. Yeah, I know, highs and lows and some people might just throw up their arms and say "GET OVER IT, YOU STUPID BOY!" but This Stupid Boy happened to meet some great people, see some great places, and I don't think that the taste of red wine through me while looking at P. Liberta is EVER going to leave me like forgetting the multiplication tables or a grochery list. It's a part of me like any other section of life, but of course, sweeter than I hoped for, and so now maybe I'm just having the equivilant of withdrawls. But that's what you get when you quit cold-turkey, your plane taking off from a runway, abrubt and detached and 12 hours away from a culture that you almost *forgot* about.
I have a double-shift tomorrow, which means I'll be doubly-tired, which means I may not even be able to run around and put out spontanous grassfires that erupt in this damned heat. Colorado is like hell right now, but with less oxygen and more football fans.
signing as if to verify that this wasn't SOMEONE ELSE WRITING ABOUT MY LIFE,
Jared