roll.in.

whenonorwhyweget sicka this shit
just sick of it.

rollin back and forth reelinin and up down out round the blue the navy blue memories
stuck and lurching in a bucket rusted out with guts
rusted round the windowless room
that same sick fucking feeling
i am sixteen again
i am twenty three
i am sucking thumbs again
i have lost my.

hoping my.

silence will speak louder than my god damned words.

rainingonsunlight.

it is raining on sunlightdrenched green mountains and over a flat sea tagliato con le onde bianche it streaks like waves across my eyes and i realize how much i've missed the sea. i have married the sea.
god i love it when nature is bigger than me. a crumbling castle set alone on the edge of an island where i want to swim to run in the deep cold sea.

flying into sicilia again.

the brightest double rainbows i have ever seen and they are following me. a day that seems we have all died.
and gone to heaven.

curioustop.

why when i stopped being a child did the highlights magazines stop being interesting?
why did i stop being curious about knowing?
every day?

lost skeleton key.

i am wondering about all the skeleton keys over time which have gotten lost. ancient iron fades in flavor gives way to the soft thud of a fist and delicate intricacies, secrets are no more. sacred becomes public till
the chain link fence.

grove.y.

a flock of seagulls fall on an open empty field. an orchard of grid baby trees wrapped in plastic bags make me smile. white shakin in the sunlight
followed by an orange grove still in its prime.
fields of fresh raked soil littered with stones.

etna.

lontano lontano vedo le montagne nella distanza, traces of chariots aflame with silver piumage. is it etna? is it paradise? i imagine myself as a warrior, beard long and waving, rising up through the front of the crowd screaming 'ANDIAMO!' my sword shaking like a fist in the face of god.

smoke.

smoke over the city. it is a day with breeze siphoned from a blackberry covered hill drawn in colored pen scratches in a book of my childhood which once belonged to my mother.

ortigia.

skeleton sailboats have the wings of a dragonfly and they shoot
buzzards across the sand.
sun is shrouded in salt and sees me through tear fogged eyes set in glass.
i am the smallest sailboat dripping bright blue perched on the horizon line teetering on the edge of this flat world made of rock and salt water.
filling my nose and greeting me with seaweed stained rusted air.

fisheyelenz.

i hate having 'cum' in my hair.

it tugs and pulls like eighties hairspray.

and dont think because i'm looking so deep in your eyes that i'm looking so deep into your eyes.

my tits look much bigger in that fisheyelenz.

i looked into the sky and frowned for you.

everyone knows the sea is alive. the surface is the skin pulsing rocking boiling bubbles are the blood beating
underneath lies the world in waiting.

paramecium.

born from collide tide rock
paramecium
bubbles and scum
drifting back to sea
a short-lived journey.
they are losing ground as we watch
pop one by one lose flagellum lose momentum
row together join together
and with this one they touch ankles for a breath
then slide and separate sing alone for a beat dance with another who gets too close
they form an elephant
then scare eachother
into popping all over the
green losing face disappearing and
returning to the waves.

proprio round world.

when this lazy sun refuses to light our day any longer
i am watching the stray fallen on the searocks hidden in a hole
waiting for enlightenment patiently waiting to die
hanging contrario high above the sea the sky sets on chemical fire neon pink
from here i can see how proprio round the world
proprio pink on white sails drift away to the horizon slide up into the sky pass over my outstretched hand singing
spherical onde di sale loosen themselves from beneath the eyes gravity pulls them up over the iris the sky turns to kaleidiscope window pane covered in slow moving salted rain
oil pastel clouds
watercolor blur
i can't focus on the beauty
i only see ship deep
over the shoreline we go eyebrows off the tips of brown hair meters away they are pulled up and away back to the salty sea we return
in this moment i know nothing
but that everything is good

i am waiting for someone to come push me off the edge

here comes the sea breeze
it will catch me as i fall on the way back home

under the sea above the moon.

i have never seen a star
twinkle
like that.
red and blue and green
like an old bubble light on the christmas tree of giove.
i have just danced an expensive meal which i was paid 30 euro to enjoy
to the point of nearly vomiting.
sea breeze makes cool my head from the sweat.
out here is nothing but falling stars though i've run out of things to wish for.

the first scratch on a new notebook.

the things that are true and the things that we say are true.

cars.

we're moving slow past an accident and we're
singing to the ambulance
saying
oh my god
i dont care about the car
and oh my god i dont care
at all.

-now now, every children. cars.

carpeted bathrooms.

dark teal green carpeted basement bathrooms with full sized wood-panel sided outdoor jacuzzi. reeking of flooded bathroom carpet mold. i'm in the hot tub in my bathing suit and my best friend's new best friend is pissing in the toilet right in front of me and complaining about her period. i listen in fascinated eager disgust and lie again about having started mine, oh a year ago or so.
under my now equally dingy wet bikini top lie pads of synthetic fiber and the boobs that just won't come.

conquilli.

scraping away layers of fingernail i dig into the tiny craters to collect friends.
push them pull them roll them this way that until they break free.
some still awake.
they lie in my palm clutched tightly and fall open like flowers dying on a battlefield
their alien friend eyes search me for food.
i am doing them a favor by greatly increasing their chances of getting laid
and they are doing me a favor as the only child in the woods collecting fairies to sing songs to make friends with.

counting sailboats.

my job today is to sit with seagulls on the rockshore and count horizonbound sailboats pouring out of the bay. 1234567 8 9...16. 12345 6 7 8 ...19.123456789101112...14.
the wind beats like a thunder drum the taut skinsail and echoes ripples out across the sea surface. i want to be a sailboat so i can be cute and small and steadfast off the edge of the world. i want to proudly be the simple intriguing shapes of a child's first drawings and change colors when the sun is hidden by a salty cloud.

goldmoon.

ritually collected dormant snails, pried them out of their craters, ripping the dried mucous sealant free, to plop the whole pile together in a shallow pool. white red green blue brown violet orange plaid spots i try desperately to focus on the tiny colors of pretty as bubbles stir to life. one or two climb out over the others have sex push them further under water and set out for a dry hole of their own, contentedly alone as the sun is released from the grasp of lethargic gargantuan pockets of sea tears.
as the sea breath moves like a growing blanket over the water turns cerulean and sputters under its touch. crystal liquid turns silver as it falls over the pitted surface of goldencrusted moon.

etna after the first snow.

gelato ballena etna.
god save the choco drizzle crown.
she almost disappears amongst her lazy low-lying cloud subjects, her imaginary mountain range. she menaces behind a bleak cityscape. looming as if just a step away but in reality over 100 kilometers. i want to march to the pinnacle sink my eyes into the burning churning pit and throw myself arms wide inside, a sacrifice to the ice cream gods.

photos of dead people.

photos of dead people when they were alive.

i killed a man.

i killed a man. a black man. a big one. i broke into the school and my mission was destruction and he was there all alone. i remember a gun and blood on my hands and a feeling that i had to hide but i couldn't stop. i didnt want to stop. i busted through the back windshield of his black car with my bare fists just for the hell of it and watched the blood surface and flow away on my knuckles. i woke to scratches on my fingers.
an infinite staircase iron with wooden planks broken broken broken destroyed as if by my destructive hand but i didnt do it and im trying to descend them to escape before the cops come.
lies and alibies.

insideoutumbrella.

the seaside is littered with umbrella skeletons, old skin hanging off to one side. abandoned like virgins raped and beaten by the sudden whims of a sea who knows not his own strength when stricken with fever, the tempest.

punishing.

this is why i sleep more when i'm depressed and fall right into that big pit. this is why i have the list of things i can do which could pull me out of it and strictly avoid them.

this is why i keep ridding myself of hair. to hurt her. to punish her.
how dare she be pretty.
how dare she be happy.

fuck living by the sea.

fuck living by the sea. that is not enough.
i want to live IN the sea
i want to die in the sea.

senza titolo.

lolling tongues out of mouths the sea moves into me. gentle surprising strength. im a ballerina thrown to shore. lazy and with decision the white kittens sail above the sea and all are powered by the listless whispers of the air sinking over me.

watermelon style.

i swallowed the sea and it grew watermelon style in the urn with the churn of my stomach is squeezed POP! explode implode make diamonds shower out of my skull.

button button who's got the button?

it is my belief that there exists a group of sicilians who walk around with their shirts hanging open tails flapping in a breeze about their waists. flies undone, coarse night-sea black hairs spilling onto the street
for i collect their buttons after the flapping rhythm of their uncaged clothing has long passed.

whale.

i plunge into cold as soon as i reach the edge, sharp crater rocks invading the tender soles of my feet just before liftoff. i am alone and the wreckage of the ship looms, an island on my right. boulders and open sea to the left. i am a frog machine efficient and fast fighting the demons of my imagination. they are sounds underwater, my heart in my ears magnified by the thinness of the atmosphere through which i face my fears.
the stairs chiseled out by a bearded grecian before my bedtime story pull me effortlessly onto the whale. she floats 20 ft out of the water but her tail descends at an alarming rate a slide into the forboding side, the open sea.
curiouser and curiouser.
tiptoe over squishing seabeds and sink deeper into water the titanic struck by iceberg i am.
pockmarked are wells open in the hull that fall forever into turquoise. it is not the fish i am terrified of, they are no bigger than a finger
but the feeling that under my feet is sea for miles deep and before me nothing but an infinite infinite infinite horizon.
i am standing on the edge of something huge.

sugar substitute.

i'm the new and improved factoryborn sugar substitute screaming quietly round the cellar in your cup of lukewarm tea. you can jab your silver spoon at me till your fingers are red and swollen i will never disappear. you cant get rid of me you'll have to swallow me whole.

korrecting my karma.

i may look generous but dont be fooled. the shit i stole for you means much more to you than the shit i stole from you means to me.

nutella. tivu.

italians are addicted to nutella. stefano says, 'you know when you watch a sad movie and you get depressed its perfect to sit down and eat the entire jar and then you feel so much better.'

what a girl.


dario saying 'i hate to leave the past in my mouth, so i have to rinse it out.'
he was talking about brushing his teeth, which he referred to as 'one of my favorite things.'


my tunisian neighbor came to me and said 'you must put one of these satellite dishes on your balcony.'
neither of us speak italian well, so i misunderstood him. 'i dont like tv.' i told him.
he said no no i need it for my tv. he has lived in this apartment for 3 years with his satellite dish in the same place, and i hear his crappy arabic sitcoms with dubbed in laughter when he's not working, nearly all day. he says it doesnt come in clear enough and needs to face inside the island, which it cannot do from his house.

i told him tv is bad for him anyway. his argument was that it was arabic tv. i said that dish will be ugly and i dont really want those waves going through my body. he said you can close the door to the balcony.

i thought about the food his wife makes me almost every night for dinner which is perfect when i come home from work and am starving and have no food in the house and said, 'come vuoi.' as you want. whatever.


later i came out on the balcony to watch for stefano on his bicycle and found my neighbor out there, staring hard at my balcony with a roll of wire in his hand.

oh, tunisians and television. dedication.

insurance is power.

stefano and i drinking white wine in the afternoon over a newspaper, headline shot of a boy in salute with trumpeting men behind, a military procession. stefano points to the article and says 'look. six men died, our men died in iraq fighting the war YOU started.'
my eyes grow hot with knowing guilttears and i shoot back angrily, 'i did NOT start that war.'
'oh excuse me, the president YOU elected.'
'you're an asshole.'
'oh excuse me excuse me the president you elected TWICE.'
'you are such an asshole.'



why is italy fighting in that war anyway? he says we're allies you saved our ass in the second world war and now we have to go along with every war you start which is every couple of months. iraq! okay... afganistan! iran! okay...

he says i was almost home. for a couple of months after the second world war, there were so many us troops in sicily who had set up shop to go north and kick hitler's ass, they wanted to make sicily the 51st state. then some shit happened with the CIA and the project was aborted.


i went today with marilia and the three babies to the doctor. we didnt pay for parking, parked right in front of the building actually. there was no one in the waiting room, which was clean and modern and uplifting to walk into. the walls donned beautiful colorful abstract paintings and collages. we were sent immediately back to the doctor's office, which was also the examination room. this sounds much scarier than it was. it was an office with mismatching eye-pleasing furniture, some toys, old style scales and a table with doctor's tools in a cute kiddie toybox. he had a medicine bag that opened down the middle like those in the westerns. he was kind of old, talked for an hour with marilia about the children's eating habits, teeth pain, and development in walking, and examined each of the children thoroughly. the room was large and reminded me nothing of the sterile, stifling doctor's offices in america which make you sick just by sitting in them.

since this was a private visit (he is a public doctor but marilia lives outside of his geographical boundaries), she paid him. for the 1.5 hour visit, and three patients, it was 80 euro. he wrote her 3 prescriptions for the babies, and helped us carry them out to the car, using his umbrella to shield them from the rain.

when we got home marilia called the farmacia and told them what medicine she needed. they delivered it about 30 minutes later. faster than most pizza places. and free.

what the hell is so scary about any of that? that is the best you can get even if you want to pay for it and it is still much cheaper MUCH cheaper than america. if you're going to pay taxes anyway what the hell should they go to? public education is a joke in america and roads should be a given. what has your government done for you lately?
why are americans pretending they have money to throw at insurance companies? why are they resisting using their tax dollars to help everyone lead healthy lives?

for a country that prides itself on being a step ahead of the rest, america is really behind the times.

and for a christian country it sure is a selfish one. fuck helping my brother out with my tax dollar, he'll abuse it anyway.


ivo summed it up in a thick italian accent while we watched obama on tv. i asked him 'why dont the american people want free healthcare?'
'insurance is power!'

disney.

it was raining today. my super modern rainboots carried me outside anyway, where i had to do my shopping at discount prices at a local supermarket. my hair was frizzing but perfectly cut under my yellow umbrella.
while waiting for the bus, a car drove by and swerved to avoid a cat, driving right into a puddle of wet, soaking me under my umbrella, and my groceries. the driver immediately got out to check that he hadn't killed the cat. i sneezed and shivered in the cold, and this strong beautiful man turned and saw me standing there, dripping wet with my groceries.
a bright toothy smile flashed at me and i melted like a bowl of sugar left out overnight and covered with beads of morning dew. i looked into deep blue eyes and didnt realize we were floating towards eachother, traffic stopped behind his sports car. he came close enough to smell, my favorite shopping mall cologne floated into my nostrils and i nearly swooned. this was the man i'd been waiting for all my life. he took me in his arms and tilted me back, planting the kiss of all kisses upon my awaiting lips and i knew we would be together forever.

then god came down with his angels and blessed us.

and a couple months later santa claus was very good to me, filling the stockings with expensive lingerie and an engagement ring. we married in a church by the sea. elvis came back from the dead and sang during the reception.
i was a virgin my wedding night. and god came down again from his throne and fucked me first, a gift for keeping my legs closed all this time. god and i begot a son, of course, because a daughter would be weak and lame, and this became the son of god. my husband wasn't jealous though because who can be jealous of god? also because we are never jealous of eachother.


then i woke up and realized that hollywood and disney are the devil and create stories entirely for setup and disappointment. the love story of amelie, the love story of beauty and the beast, i dont care who the fuck it is, it doesnt turn out that way. show me the end, the gruesome bloody truth, the years after of confusion and doubt. the death.

castles by the sea.

empty brand new interstate stretches repetitive patterns of metal
a hideous beautiful factory for a mile by the sea spewing cancer into the air surrounding barges on the horizon with power. fog.
neon green planted in a perfect grid shimmer in wet sunlight.
empty castles, does ANYONE live in this endless expanse? shells of stone homes come at me from a dream a lifetime before.
chameleon sand colors dirt in the hillside no, a house it is a home it was.
an abandoned castle with four fancy bishop spires charcoal dark graffiti by the... ocean? looks like it today, looming out of the fog brushing on sandy shores, extending in the shape of a waning moon.

the sea is the ocean now.

a single light in a forgotten house in the middle of a distant dark field. the sea is the ocean now, a black void after city lights, a hole into the earth from which you can see everything into which you can see nothing.

the smell of a catholic italian.

i want to take a photo sing a song of the smell of a catholic. italian.
the breath of a catholic italian.
the scent of the aged
perfume of mass
incense
stale.
bread.
skin spots.
belly laughs or pursed red lips.
fermentation.

healing lips.

when i dont speak for a day i can feel my lips
growing together
healing i'd have to pull hard to break the seal break the spell break the silence

agrigento

la citta dove abita il mio amico dario e agrigento, a vast steeply rising hill covered in trees with a jetson's highway on stilts falling out creeping out of the sky the trees grow into apartment buildings of varying towering height, pale shades of yellow and peach.

pieces out on heavy bear

http://www.heavybear.janecrown.com/HB3/HeavyBear.3/ click here.

rusty seaweed.

the pilgrimage of rusty seaweed jellyfish from their deep sandy home.
released from the rocks they float through the pressure of deep sea
to the surface
just under the surface
caught in a current find themselves trapped
between the bumpers
one and two
in and almost out
forever more.

Kali jones and her stories.

‘he seemed like a nice man. He had two wives.’
Eating sheep’s brain with the man of two wives.
The sheep’s head offering in a village where she was shown the video of the calves with their throats slit, slipping all over the blood-covered terrace, bleating bleeding. The children parading the heads on sticks in the streets.

On the terrazzo she shows me the marks in the tree from the cat years ago who finally got to the family of baby birds they were protecting. In her sweet light accent she speaks of the bits of nest and feathers. All that was left.

I tell her she reminds me of flannery oconnor. The punchlines always in the gut. Her response is the story about the pregnant female cat who used to hang around on the terrace, beautiful one day she showed up with an empty belly, alone. Sometimes when cats give birth they are so weak that they have to eat their babies. Especially in siracusa.




Standing in the kitchen in a breezy marmalade nightgown, Italian coffee boiling over into the fire on the stove, facing me with hands clasped pressed over her face, suddenly remembering a dream.

The dream of underwater volcanoes.

I am swimming along on the bottom of the sea it is like when im there with my eyes open but with much less color. Switch to view from above the water is turbulent and like cutout shapes of waves but dark. There are a few people bobbing. A warning. I told you so.

It starts and I am fascinated, there hovering above the seafloor and it starts, a bubble under the surface of the sand. It grows.

And into a caterpillar and tall and a flash of one and two it explodes jelly fire shoots into the water into the sky.

People are hurt.


A man afterwards shows me the small fresh wounds on his finger, focusing on a particular one on the side. The same spot where I woke up to a terrible zanzara bite.
He says it just kept bleeding all night and they extracted the live ember that was embedded there, stewing and churning and burning its way through flesh.

His finger was emitting blood like a volcano emits its blood.

the sea's alive.

the sea's alive and i hear its breath as it heaves a sigh, a moan
back and forth
makes love to the rocks all its life.

all its motion all its energy bent on the moving in moving out
coming in coming out
and the collision
myself against myself
sea against sea

caught between the rocks the in and out
somewhere between one and two
a mass of confusion wraps around eachother tries to hold on but has nothing to grab onto

is a sieve.

thrash.

i thrash about flail my way to my favorite rock and cling there laughing at the ferocious waves as we play the game
they knock me loose

to make a swarm of bright white and swirl in them. something like an lsd trip.

the red queen.

the things i keep forgetting about italy...

friends walk down the street looking like lovers. girls hold hands, occasionally i've seen men arm in arm, and men who greet eachother with a handshake and continue to hold hands while having conversation.

i find the european cheek brushing, occasional cheek kissing exciting, but prefer for my friends to give long tight american bearhugs, occasionally accompanied with cheek kisses, that are actual kisses instead of the usual cheek to cheek brush, fake kissing.

the lunchtime glass of wine. how nonna gave me thick sweet syrupy orange liquor at breakfast and was disappointed that i wouldnt be her drinking partner all day.

i always take cold showers. and they are fast.

how cheap freshly made bread (80 centessimi for a perfect loaf), water (22 centessimi/ 2L), fruit and veggies (i buy handfuls of them at the supermarket for well under a euro), milk (59 centessimi per 1000 ml) and cozze (2 euro/kilo) are.

how nobody uses air conditioning even if they have it, and the few who do use it do so with the door wide open.

how those living on ground floor keep their door wide open and you look into people's kitchens and living rooms as you walk past them on the tiny street.

women do not change their last names when they get married.

divorce was only recently legalized in italy. until then a man had many wives, instead of a wife and ex wife(ves). still the term ex wife is not used, rather 'my wife,' for each of the two or ten.

people give you rides when you ask them for directions to a place.

when the current is against you it takes all the swimming you can do to stay in one place. it reminds me of the words of the red queen.

cut foots.

the air here is cooler now that the storms have come. the sicilians call it 'freddo,' cold, which means for us kentuckians that it is not hot. the air is still warm but at night it is just cool enough that i am glad to be wearing long sleeves and long pants. i watch a lightning storm illuminate heavenly clouds over the sea and the veins of light spread and flash in my brain reminding me of my mortality and my smallness in this world and i am filled with excitement.

the rainy season has begun and i will need to buy a pair of rubber boots very soon. the drainage here is not much better than in lexington but more in the way that it puddles in uneven streets instead of washing toothin college girls down drains.

i feel safer here than i did in lexington, despite the mafia, who doesnt touch women let alone foreigners who arent land or business owners. i walk in the streets and can feel at home. my apartment also helps me feel that way.

there are chocolate hazelnut biscotti, cookies i eat after almost every meal. i bought a kilo of them for 2.5 euro, and they are lasting me a good while. it feels nice to be able to satisfy my sweet tooth. at home i almost never bought sweets. i also have on two occasions splurged and spent 2.5 to 3 euro on a bar of modicana chocolate, once with bergamot and once with pistaccio. it breaks into four little bars and it is so strong and crystallized in your mouth, it makes a symphony of sound while you chew and you are overcome with happiness. sometimes i reward myself with this.

the photo that kay crump took of my sisters and i when we were 13, 16 and 19 sits on my nightstand. it has been displayed in all 5 of the places i have lived so far.

i awoke this morning and felt very very far from home. it is unbelievable to me sometimes how far i am, and that i actually made it here.

i am very blessed to have such good friends as kali jones and stefano. these are the kind of friends i had in america. strong and true. it is a very good feeling.

last night before my date with davide, kali jones made photographs of me behind a semi-transparent screen. they are reminiscent of those jim hall made years ago, and are really beautiful and exciting. im privileged to be part of her artwork. she has a beautiful mind.

i have succumbed to the european habit of the bidet.

my tunisian neighbor often brings me heaping bowls or plates of ramadan-approved food when i still have her cute bowl slowly being emptied of food in the fridge from yesterday.

stefano gave me some italian music so i can learn the lyrics. it is actually not bad and i am surprised. i often hear britney spears, r.e.m., radiohead, the eagles, and other famous american music spewing from bars and street-level apartments and passing cars and have yet to hear a good song on the radio or from many italian people. they often like the worst american music that is made, or music that i liked when i was twelve. (cranberries, nirvana, shaggy and tupac to name a few)

my feet are more often than not in the process of healing one or two semi-deep small wounds from the rocks. skin dangles from a toe or heel and i walk kind of funny for a couple days, frequently reminded of the fun had while frolicking amoungst the rocks and waves and brine. i tell stefano if you come away from the rocks without a wound you aint doing it right. we compare wounds when we climb breathless from the sea. his skin is very very dark and his blood looks neon against dark brown toes. i can always see him when he has beat me to the rock, from a couple hundred feet away. i merely look for the darkest, skinniest body amoungst the tourists.

i feel like i have a million pets sometimes, as there are stray cats galore and stray dogs as well, though the cats will rarely let you get near enough to touch them. in siracusa as well as roma, and apparently all of italy, people are fools for cats. they do not spay or neuter their animals.

marilia has said they will hire me back again for the week as well, for the rest of the month of september. i will be paid 6.5 euro per hour on the weekend, for about 13 hours, and during the week will work 4 hours, and she said we will work out a price for the week. i told her last month's pay will not do this time, as it was well below minimum wage and i have to eat. i am however very excited to have work again, and still may receive a call about teaching english.

the streets here are so tiny. the largest of them in ortigia about the size of the smallest alleyway in america, others just large enough for a vespa.
everyone hangs their clothes outside, and you have to duck around underwear as you walk down the alleyway.

you also have to dodge dog poop as it is more often than not where you will be stepping in the street. i take my shoes off at my front door and sweep and mop every couple of days.

all the houses here are hundreds of years old and are crumbling every day. i eat on my balcony and hear plinks and watch dust pile below the wall which reveals its many layers, down to the metal gridded structure where the concrete was poured. our houses fall apart and we sweep them away, every day.

there is a building here where kali jones pointed out a large crack running down the exterior wall. it was one of the few buildings to survive the earthquake of such and such year 600 years ago and this crack is the battle wound.

i found that if i go to the edge of my balcony and lean out and look up the street i have a sea view. it is larger than some of those my family and i saw, advertised in florida as 'ocean view homes,' and i feel very lucky.

the sea is not the ocean. this is something i only learned by coming here. it is heavier, floats you easier, the salt is gentler in your mouth and on your skin when it dries there and the water a bit sweeter. it is less apt to giant waves and more often than not rather calm. i never saw a rocky ocean but i like the rocks in the sea better than sand. they cut your feet but you never bring them back with you into your home or car or into your eye when you shake out your towel.

i started my compost pile about a week ago and have since upgraded. i found a huge tin used for palm oil near a garbage can, clean as a whistle and makes a good drum too. i dont really have much to add to it in the form of vegetables right now but then again i dont have much to grow either. i save my 2 liter water bottles, cut them in half and use them length wise for planting olive pits and tall-ways for things like random seeds i found in roma.

i have my water bottle planters sitting in a wooden crate i got from the market. they throw many of them out each day and they are very decorative and charming, as well as useful. i am now using one for a bookshelf and hope to get another soon to use as a table when i eat on the balcony.

i sigh sometimes as i miss everyone, very much, and at times am a bit homesick and lonesome. nevertheless, this stuff is so nutritious i may never have to brush my teeth again.

no but really. a world outside of my world has opened up and i am apt to explore it. i'd be a fool not to.

lacrima.

lacrima delle madonna. the tears of the madonna.

there was a neighborhood here where a picture of the madonna got wet one day. a scientist tested the liquid and declared it human tears. a miracle.
they bulldozed the beautiful old neighborhood and built a hideous jagged-edged raincloud colored teepee, complete with statue of mary at the highest peak. it can be seen from most anywhere on the island. everything is metal and concrete, reminding me of the back wings of rupp arena.
i see a sign for il cripto, the crypt and i am intrigued. i cross myself in the old habit with the murky holy water and wonder who has spat and pissed in it.
an uber modern church setup in a dark circle of concrete, chairs in rows, the seats of those more like the Infallible Father akin to Star Wars thrones.
for no apparent reason a thirty foot long rock juts awkwardly out of the conrete floor, seats set around it in complete ignorance.

i scoff at the souvenir shop, dare someone to tell me to leave for bearing my shoulders, click pictures, digital sound echoes, and dip greedy fingers into another vat of holy water. for everyone likes free shit and isnt that what catholic churches are good for anyway? cool water sifts through the hairs on my forehead, dip into a nostril, drip from the tip of my nose. free crackers and wine and should their god be real, a free blessing from him.
the sirens echo inside and eventually the ultra creepy reverberation of children's, father's voices as if deep in a cave, mixed with the groan of traffic.
they are conrete ghosts.

it may be muffled underground nuns singing or a cd playing or the man i saw dressed like gandhi with a cloth around his waist but they sound like pigeons cooing and flapping their wings. the main floor is underground and smells of mold and mildew. behind a curtain i find darkened closets stacked full of altars and the scent of catholic mass secretly excreting.
a room of handicap access confessionals lined up like hardwood porta potties a button for english, italian, french, deutsch. i am terrified as i was at the age of eight but i try to open the door nonetheless.
in spite of myself i feel fear genuine and old running through my weakened legs. the door and the skeleton keyhole are solid. i think i may see someone sitting behind the darkened glass but it is only my reflection though i am not sure.
a scale model of the monument, ten feet tall, lit up as if it were night time, made entirely of matches. i am disappointed to find that il cripto contains no more stench than the decay of half assed superstition and no more dead body than that of human intelligence.



the notes of the bell tower are creepy.
i assume they are a recording until i notice how flat the notes.

boatsnobs. granchii.

i am proud to have grown up on the water.
the ship 'next wave' is a good ship. she is from sweden and needs painting. a little rust running down the sides just like i like em. i almost got to go up in the crows nest tonight after sunset but my long red skirt prevented me. i ate dinner with everyone below deck and swam for about an hour. under the water you can see nothing but color and your hands in rhythm outstretched in front of you, a beautiful illuminated color of brown, yellow, surrounded by blue lime green, koolaid that didnt get stirred well enough. if you open your eyes by the boat when the light is just right you can see her huge hull underwater and a hint of what may be the anchor chain splitting off at a steep downward diagonal into the unknown seven meters, thirty feet down. a real ship has two anchors.
i found some boat snobs. they are akin to the roadbike snobs in lex. boat hipsters. they say a boat without sails is just a floating piece of metal. they think they are really cool.


manfo is from ghana. and he is black as coal. he cant swim but he will if i ask him to. he wears a lifejacket and we teach him how to kick and float.
he doesnt understand white people named darko because it is the last name of many darkskinned folk in ghana. he caught two crabs that crawled on the side of the boat. who knows where the hell they came from, she was floating in the middle of the bay. they pinched him but he said he didnt care. in ghana he would stick his hand way down in their tunnel in the sand and catch big ones. he says they would bite me but i would say i am going to eat you. and he did.

coloseuchrist.

one of the girls on the boat, a chinese girl named barbara who spoke english with a little bit of trouble, asked me as the sun set and the moon rose high and huge and full and orange about my tattoo, the key to my heart?
we shared a love and tears at the sight of the coloseo, colloseum but i did not go inside. she said oh it was beautiful, they had a giant cross inside, are you christian? i smile and say no. she presses her hands to her heart and sways like someone in love and smiles it was just beautiful.



the colloseum doesnt have shit to do with jesus christ, but if you want to associate your god with mass man and animal slaughter for sport, be my guest.

tunisia, yellow.

i miei vicini, my neighbors, are from tunisia. i lie on my bed with the doors to my balcony flung wide, a tank top and underwear in mid afternoon warmth, and listen to the haunting singing of indians, moslem land.
i think i hear a violin in there, shaking around with the voice like a rock in a tin can rolling down a cobble stone street.
and smell garlic.
how they can stand to start cooking so early in the day when they still cant eat is beyond my current understanding.
last night i came in and as usualy their door was wide open. their bed is just without sight, but i can see the4 sea from there. i called out a greeting and got no answer. but ten minutes later he came to my door, apologized for not responding.
he was in prayer and while in prayer they do not speak.

i wash my favorite yellow skirt, yellow victoria secret panties and grey arden b tank top with one of the tablecloths that came with the apt. it is indian too and very fragile but i put it in my new lavatrice on 90 degrees celsius anyway, hoping to rid everything here of germs.
everything comes out mud colored, occasionally a bit magenta, red, pink, orange. i kick myself but then reason that i am still young and therefore a bit stupid and will likely not be this way forever.

that was easily the worst ice cream i've ever had.

and to make things even more awkward i decided to save it for later. just like the terrible sex

'let's do this every day'

'lets save this vomit for later'

kamikaze.

the god damn thing is too huge for the freezer so it is dumped in one upside down swirl, vanilla, guilt and restraint, disappointment, self disappointment, and bits of chewing gum.
to not have ricotta, okay
but what fucking gelateria doesnt have cioccolatta??

biting bits of cheese in the fridge im reminded of earlier in the day when work ran over two hours and the feeling of being punished and sneaking bites of the babies food because i am so fucking hungry. remembering the line from paul bowles the night before... 'but the servants aren't that hungry, are they?'
their master inspects the dogs bowl before because otherwise they will eat it.



















even the prized buffalo cheese can't save the day. i poured out the water thinking i'd save a mess in the fridge and what i got in response was white leather, a little hard, bits of water inside. the dead body of my buffalo cheese.




















maybe i can eat it all in one sitting and then i won't shit for a week.

hey jude.

yesterday while taking the long way (seaside) to my destination i spy a girl in bathingsuit, holding an inflatable ring, a man walks along behind in just his wet swim trunks, playing the chords to hey jude on the guitar. a woman going my way starts singing in thick italian accent.
i cannot help myself and begin to help her out with the words.

i am in a much better version of that terrible movie, across the universe.




last night i was reading in bed and heard the distinct notes of an accordion pass by, strong male voice accompanying.

email to the fam.

i laughed out loud to myself on sunday when i was at the house of marilia's mother, babysitting and here i had just travelled about twenty minutes with ivo in the car, driving past beautiful countryside and hills on one side and ocean on the left, listening to ivo sing silly dance songs, and immediately i come in and they insist i sit down and eat with them, have wine (the same 14% alcohol content wine, which i must tell you i refused all but one tiny little glass) and coffee and ice cream, and then they insisted i go to the sea and take my time swimming there, while they took care of the children. i laughed out loud as i was being paid to go to what is now my most favorite, and the most magical place in the world '''' under the sea! i spied what i imagined was a jelly fish at one point, and was awestruck, diving under and opening my eyes and simply astounded at the beauty in the bright brilliant blues and teal and shape of rocks underwater and the light coming down in pin points of light. with your eyes open under the sea everything is blurry and perfect circles of color are fish and you reach out to touch the little gray spot and it moves just without reach. i kept diving under over and over and i couldnt get enough! when i came back to the house i wanted to write about it and tried but failed, and i wanted to paint about it but i dont know that i could fully describe how simply beyond anything i've ever experienced was this kind of beauty.

swimming again in my favorite place.

i have to make myself leave for here i lose all track of time, up and down, forget after a moment the salt in my nose the heaviness of the sea on my chest. up is down and down another dimension. when i raise my head from the water it is as if from a dream; i can barely remember if at all. through salt surrounded eyes i see a world of the most brilliant blue pricked by rays of streaming light.
perfect black fishes are gray circles floating in a loose school, a line and then the bright blue fishes too. i laugh at myself. i got myself to italy i am fighting the waves of the sea i am a mermaid
i am queen of the world.

kali jones. jazz fest. drum circle.

kali jones e io take a bus half an hour out of town for the free jazz concert in a small inland town. four africans and one white boy in funny african costume strap on giant drums and beat them like animals with their strong fists. i watch the largest one as he smiles with huge pearly bright white teeth and a pink tongue and sweat glistens in a stream down 85% cacao skin. his arms are as big as a horse. he sings loud and clear and smiles so wide his head might fall off like humpty dumpty when the corners of the mouth meet at the back of the head. he beats on the drum so hard so loud i was ready for bed ten seconds ago and now all i want to do is move dance sing yell.

i am reminded of wisdom and how he said in africa there were no longer any native religions, only christianity and muslim. i implored them to use their nigerian name with me. onchiwoh and onyekachi. i thought it sad and stupid they called english their first language and never usedtheir nigerian names with white people.
dying culture. what is more sad?

kali jones found a small scorpion, dead on the street this week. it was perfectly preserved, one claw open, little legs sticking out and moved all together like a beaded necklace, not like a stiff dead beetle or anything else i've ever seen dead. it was a dark reddish color and seemed almost unreal. i told her it was an amazing omen of good luck.

the sea has a voice and i hear the breath sighing as it falls against the rocks.

i laughed out loud as i ate ricotta cheese in my own apartment for the first time last week. i had found an apartment, let alone gotten my own ass to italy, successfully bought amazing cheese in the market, and had made myself a ridiculously marvelous salad and the taste of this cheese was so nourishing in my mouth i couldnt help but laugh out loud. so good for me.


the other day when i moved into to aldo's apartment, i found kali jones on the terrazza, in the hot sun, with her little sun hat, steve zissou sunglasses and a knife digging meat around the bone of a whale tail. technically, a sword fish but god it was big and looked just like a whale tail to me! i took photos, as i couldnt help it. her wavy hair sticking out in puffy wisps around the hat and this huge black tail, the knife, the bloody meat, it was beautiful.

she wants to make me her mermaid and use it in photos. her photographs are bloody astounding, amazing. they have been printed in aldo's magazine and i see them around her house. for the past two days i slept on the couch in her room next to her giant paintings, the 'empty' ones and a huge roll of paper on the floor with the image of her nude body, pressed against the ground with glue, then covered in black powder of some sort.
she gave me a book to read. stories. i am always laughing at her because of her stories and how humurously eternally dark they are. always the punchline is right in the gut.

sunbathing topless is where it's at.

it is nice to play like the boys
amidst a disney princess beach towel
tits out
sunscreen
the end.

today i swam three times in the sea.

i awaken with my alarm at 5-20, enough time to dilly dally before grabbing a cup of hot tea to soothe my morning throat and head for the shore. i arrive before kali jones, before the sun.

she comes in red pants just as i-d immagined her and i drive after her into the sea. the air is cold and so is the water as i imagine doing this in november.
the sun appears, an egg on the horizon a basketball stuck in a net then an ice cream cone. kali jones says it looks like the sun. i say an artist should have a better imagination.
we frog kick along, barely above the water, spitting waves, looking down -dont look down!- to see clearly the titanic surface of the moon clad in aquamarine, surrounded in spots by dark blue, black, fifty feet below or more.
we swim slowly a few city blocks and arrive at our accidental destination, la isula di cane, island of the dogs, where legend has it people used to sink in cages dogs they didnt want. the wreckage of the ship greets us quickly and we run aground, mermaids staking claim on our tiny rock island.
the lighthouse, a foot wide, has fallen prey to the sea and left a small foundation in its wake.

the rocks cut our feet, the sea pulls and pushes us with force up onto them and we sit high, surrounded by stalagmites and seaweed, and bleed.

clouds and wind. finally.

there are clouds today in the italian sky. they are small but they are visible and enough to be deemed clouds.
i wonder why the wind comes in such choppy motion and cant be one continuous stream of sound. the only sound in ortigia is violent wind in my ears, warm and salty. i watched a pigeon flying hard to the sea a feather separates, a portion of this creature and it fell high and was pushed away by the wind. it reminded me of you.
after such rapid repetitive light beatings the skin feels numb from the tickling of the wind.

erin brockavich.

marilia's family is full of cancer. they live in catania and many people there have the same kind of cancer. it is because of the petrol plant there. some days early in the morning you can smell it because they release too much into the air. they do it over night so people wont smell it.

marilia's father at lunch was talking about his town which has become overrun by mafia.

the little orphan girl who marilia takes care of has to be gone from her mother country 6 months out of the year because of the nuclear plant that exploded and the radiation. marilia says when marina, the little girl, comes back she is always very thin, and then they have to fatten her up.


at lunch i said yes to red wine and after two small glasses was getting woozy. i looked and the bottle was 14% abv. alcohol at lunch. drunken babysitters. never again.


i saw a cat while walking with francesco, whom i spoke to all night in only italian because i dont speak arabic and he doesnt speak english and neither of us speak italian very well. it was on the roof and i pointed it out, look how funny that cat is sleeping on the roof. he said it is not sleeping it is dead. and i became very sad, because people were just going about their own business and here was this dead cat hanging half off the roof.

many strays here are very small and sickly.

saturday night.

at sunset i am given one of those unbelievable visual desserts, bright cerulean blue up high sinks into peach cobbler all hazy all ingredients swirled together with a flour overlay. i walk to the sea and ewade alone, slow, happy cold dark water on my feet, til a big dog comes nearly charging at me. i am almost afraid for a moment, recalling kali jones' speech about packs of wild dogs and ripping people's faces off, but it is too late for this dog is female, playful, and following me in and out of the sea. she receives burst of energy like ap uppy and bolts across the sand, stomping in sand castles biting the water and chewing a plastic bottle. she is overcome with joy and devoid of self consciousness. i realize we are in common. i envy her.
she follows me a block or so away from the sea until along comes a cute boy with a cute male dog and then she is gone gettin laid whiel i am alone.
i watch fireworks from the bridge.

in piazza duomo are two telescopes bigger than me where i line up and view the surface of the bright, beautiful colorless moon. an art exhibit of the body displayed exquisitely, i drink int he color shots, polaroid transfers, giant uncircumsized cazzi.
above the square twirl lighted gyrating toys. they are spun by merchants who blow bubbles which float along the notes of the accordion and pop on my shoulder as i sit with tourists and cockroaches on the steps of an ancient roman wall.

la festa di venerdi.

we drive fifteen minutes out from ortigia, giuseppe drives like a maniac and listens to easy listening, cheesy italian music. past rivers and cane and vast fields of dirt ready for planting. i keep saying 'voglio vivere qui!' 'i want to live here!'
we arrive at a house party on a ranch, complete with sound system for guest performers, many of which are old and famous, and servers for little dishes of food, glasses of water, vino. this was a my grandfatheràs land, we made the walls out of sontes we dug out of the fields.

sun sets in an ever clear sky cotton candy bands melt into the field behind a green finger tree. three children, maybe 11 years old, perform a play and they are incredible actors, and i envy their mastery of this incredibly beuatiful language. i want to speak it perfectly and await the day. i am falling in love with this place.
i have seen one fast food restaurant since i came.


a kitten roams around here and i pick it up, then notice it is missing an eye. a fresh'looking wound.
i find the incredibly nice outdoor bathroom to wash my arms and hands, sticky with eye goo and take with me the skeleton key that was in one of the fancy stall doors.

karaoke ensues, waltzes, 'poker face' which iàve heard so many times since i've been here and it always makes me think of the drag show at the bar in lexington. they play beyonce's 'halo' and of course i laugh at you, adele, and sing along and think of home.

projected is a video of the last party at the summer solstice and it is low quality, home'edited, and makes me laugh because the music is so terrible and it is so poorly edited, they keep playing music like celine dion's song from the titanic.

i get a little drunk off the free white wine and plates and plates of amazing food. i accidentally eat octopus, and stuff myself on tables of amazing desert.

urchin. capri. refugee.

the other day my friend francesco, who i met through ilaria, and i went to swim in the sea a bit but its kinda cold and im chicken so i waded. he found a sea urchin (he is kind of like the crocodile hunter but for things in the water) and its little sticky arms came out like snail eyeballs and stuck to my finger, tickling, red.
i want to go to the castle and i dont care how many euro it costs.
last night i ate octopus prepared in a nice restaurant, drank fancy red wine and all for free. my friend ramzi keeps inviting me to the events of the university here, and it is pretty sweet. tonight i am seeing him play for belly dancers. he is an odd character, like everyone here, but seems to have alot of connections and has hooked me up with the volunteer work as a refugee art teacher, a bicycle, and maybe an apartment, and maybe a job as the photographer for these events. i will tell you when i see the euro!
today i found my first money here. ten shiny euro gold and glinting perfect in the sun. i also found a little disk, a medal from a necklace with jesus and his little halo holding a baby.
today i walked to the sea. there was a fire made by local kids, supposedly, burning grass. nobody thought a thing of it but me. ramzi and i picked capri, capers the size of small limes.
liam and valentina have an orange tree that is producing! it looks just like my lemon tree but with fruit on it... russ how are those plants doing? send photos!
i decided when i have an apartment i will not have any cacti. they are nice to look at but very impractical as they are under the laundry on the terrazza and your towels are in danger of becoming full of prickles only to surprise you after a shower and also because my skirt flows into them and then i have cacti spurs on me.

i was painting some plant stands for liam. i made a watercolor-oil pastel drawing for valentina that was my trademark vangogh'esque swirly circles that were orange and blue but they looked like tits and valentina said so. i said one tit was hers and one was mine. she wanted me to paint their plant stands to look like the orangeboobs. i said yay i've been wanting to make art!

i am ready to start knitting and producing scarves but must wait until settled in an apartment. soon.
i wake up covered in sweat, it is so hot.
today i did yoga by the sea and valentina does things i didnt know a body could do. she is literally superwoman. liam looks like a little jumping bean doing exercises by the sea.
i saw a dead pigeon down by the rocks, freshly dead. looked like it had flown into the wall and fallen to its death. then i saw a gecko peering at me from the wall.

and little crablike creatures everywhere. i thought i saw a roach on the sidewalk crawling the other day but it was a crab. grancci they call it.

when i shower i have learned not to be a pussy about it. you just have to take the shower head (only works when detached, like a hose) and hold it above your head and flip the water on real fast and indulge yourself in the cold slightly salty water. these are the fastest showers of my life.

in liam's house we use stones found in the sea for soap dishes and stones from the ocean to work the calluses off our feet in the shower.

they clean the entire house every morning after the yoga. valentina does exercises with weights on her feet and she is RELENTLESS. today i learned that i am to be challenged to do a pushup. i cannot currently complete one. valentina does like a hundred every day, with her feet elevated.
when she comes back from work, selling oranges in the streets and orange juice, she is like a tornado, full of energy, cleaning like a fiend, not speaking, unstoppable. russians are so odd and so intriguing.
we are teaching one another. she is teaching me italian and i am teaching her english. she has me translate the tolvstoj book anna karinina (that is spelled incorrectly for sure). the first sentence, which is as far as we have gotten so far is, translated into english because i dont remember the italian version and dont have time to look it up

every happy family is similar, all unhappy families are unhappy in their own way.


she asks me to tell her what it means, why the author wrote it. i say there is a key to happiness and many ways to be unhappy? she says yes and the key is equilibrium. which is not present in the compost pile remove your pizza crust from it immediately!

her english phrases she uses for me are currently 'bad girl' pronounced 'bod gerrrl' with a trilled r and 'shutup' pronounced 'shitup'

she is a character.

i want to go to the gorge so badly. i miss the clouds in kentucky and last night i imagined i heard it raining. i miss the rain.


love you.

to market to market

oh the usual... cheap chinese made sandals for three euro, fabric, sunscreen, etc etc, people yelling dai dai dai dai! and other phrases in very annoying voices over and over... fresh amazing olives nuts of every kind dried fruit and cheese for purchase by the kilo ) i bought green olives that were NOT as good as the ones in rome but still sweet, and a kilo of almonds yum!) and when i went to buy a skirt, i handed the asshole five euro, he gave me my change and lifted his shirt to show his flaccid uncircumsized penis that he had pulled out of his pants and left sticking out of the top just for me.
my instinct was to punch him. i think i closed my eyes, and walked away, stumbling over something as i left as quickly as possible.

i also wanted to punch the kid who jabbed me in my side for who knows what reason when pushing through the crowd, but thought of being put in jail for assault, and also getting my ass kicked, and restrained myself.

valentina and i rode bicicles to market. uphill the whole way! on the way back there was traffic and i was a bit scared but she was fearless. i almost got hit once, and the second time the bike got all screwy and i had to hop off and fix it ' the fender was broken and stuck in the tire.

all in all i MADE IT and with a couple good buys as well.

ramzi and i are meeting in a moment to discuss my volunteer work teaching art to refugees, and also my work as a writer and photographer for the events (yes i know, events... but it is what it is!) and also the possibility of an apartment.

he may have found me one, which we looked at together yesterday, which was very nice for a one person apartment and spacious and right by the ocean, but last night i met kali jones and we drank white wine on the terrazza and talked into the night about amazing art works sheàs working on. she agreed to let me stay there. now i will have a DARKROOM and an ENGLISH SPEAKING AMAZING ARTIST AS A ROOMMATE.

and a TERRAZZA AND ROOFTOP THE SIZE OF CALCUTTA. SIX FLOORS ABOVE SICILIA. fuck yes.



the link to aldo's site, with link to kali's work is here


http://www.aldopalazzolo.it/kalijones/Index.htm


there are no shots of her current paintings which are hanging in the apartment and are VERY minimalistic, white with a bit of white texture, large canvas, a spot of rust on the corner. she said they were made in a period of emptiness ''' after losing her father and a lover in the same year. i love them.

love you.


look at the new photos i put up.

glass'bottom boat ride.

a little forced since i was told to write about it in exchange for euro which i have yet to see.



sun glints white off the sea outside and below the boats opens to reveal at surface level, white bubbles travelling steadily in strings backward, like foggy clouds under yarn

deeper lies the titanic of rocks, buried for centuries and surrounded by sand dunes, fields of sea plants, craters *or is that a sea urchin_( and white mushrooms all over.

the breeze comes in refreshing us all from terrain reminiscent of the surface of the moon. we find gollum's cave. the girls snap photos of one another and speak of boys, in ortigia and at home.

the sea is mostly calm and reminds me of the lake in kentucky, lake cumberland, back home, but clad instead of hunter green in brilliant blue.

bands of sea color i imagine expand from the boat in a circular motion.

fiskars.

it started as a trim with teal fiskars ' an antidote for the hot day, in the sea on the beach.
i sat on a wall with the sea to my thighs and trimmed a bit carefully. i finished and put the scissors back in my bag, wiping and rinsing away countless annoying black hairs from my hands an dlegs. i started to think about liamàs words that morning, when i told him i badly wanted to cut it again 0 ' wait til monday we shall see if marilia minds or not' i thought about cutting it monday and having to clean up all that hair twice, about how hot it was with this thick black sweater on my head, about what people in italy would think, what my family one million miles away would think, what the people now staring at me on the beach would think and i said no. this is stupid.
i have wanted this for a long time and i have to do this for no one else.
i grabbed the sandy kindergarden scissors, turned my back to the voyeurs aka creepy old italian men, sat down in the sea and watched black flowers fall away and separate, swim to shore, drown in salt and float motionless save for an underlying rhythm.
i saw my shadow on a rock wall. it was spiky and made me smile. now i do catch myself ciritcizing my reflection and think back to my key and the silliness, the smallness of a worry about the level of beauty of the face on this body.

seashells and alice

millions of the most beautiful perfect tiny shells you can imagine and in every pattern and color. i feel a bit like alice and the rushes when the most gbeautiful seemed just out of reach no matter how many she pulled into the boat they kept disappearing as she piled them in with wondering greedy child hands and fell in the water with a great splash trying to reach the most beautiful one.

white plastic bag. (american beauty?)

i lean over the edge of the bridge and watch time slow as a submerged white plastic bag is held in the space between underwater and almost to safety, almost to see the sky, take a breath, expand the lungs. underwater, everything is so slow, especially white plastic bags in the midst of decision.


every day nature teaches me something. there are always surprises.

mafia.

the photos of the mafia murders nearly made me throw up. even in black and white and maybe especially black and white the human mind knows that shiny dark is blood
it is blood and it is gruesome.
yes, elizabeth, the mafia is very real and their siracusan headquarters are two blocks from where iàm staying.

yesterday's journal entry.

a little boy maybe five or six walking by with his mother and two siblings, i hear 'signora!' and he comes up to me and keeps chattering happily in italian and along come mother and siblings and i smile and dont say anything but then, c'e? what? because i dont like to give away my non italian speaking status unless i must and his mother sets down a pail with a little crab inside water sloshing over sides and onto my sandals.
he keeps chattering this whole time and in the confusino puts his hand into the pail, i say 'atenta!' watch out! one of my few but important words, and he walks away laughing and talking, he grabs a finger and i understand from spanish the word 'ded' as he laughs. i laugh too and the youngest peers back at me through the salty window of a parked car.
a chorus of flip flops echo off the walls of a roman building where i sit eating my tuna panini, late lunch under roman columns.

an emaciated black cat appears out of the street and finds my hiding place on the steps of a closed restaurant. sheàs been in many a fight in her day and her milkfilled breasts sway under a rail frame. there is a popolo, puppy that is very small and calm that i have made friends with. he hangs in liamàs neighborhood and lies on peopleàs doorsteps.
last night i made two feline friends near the home of lani who has five birds in five bird cages on the wall around her front door.
explored the island alone with a map in my bag but never in my hand for as soon as i think iàm far from somewhere i turn a corner that is now familiar and realize one can get stuck on an island but never lost.


sometimes italia is accidentally artistic. como la virgine con il mio gelato (like the virgin mary with my ice cream)
if you look closely in the photo you may see an ancient italian pigeon on the ancient italian ruins.

the love of fashion and nice cars seems here to sometimes come from a simple love of beauty and beautiful things ' something iàm sure is present in american cnosumers sometimes but which iàd never before noticed.


today i had salt'encrusted skin and hair and sand'covered feet.

we are all hypocrites

yo voglio un moto. i want a motorcycle.

my stomach and leg muscles are still sore from yesterdays 5 am workout.





in roma, with ilaria, it was customary for everyone to walk around in their underwear in the house. we usually wore a little tank top and our panties. it was a custom i gladly accepted because for one thing it was hot and for another who needs pants anyway?

i met two boys from kenya, one seeking asylum from his country. he had tribal tattoos on his chest that looked like claw marks from a cat. their names were Godsson (god's son) and Wisdom. they were very friendly and we found a starfish. i also found a sea urchin which in the excitement of photographing the starfish was thrown into my bag and voila! many small pieces of sea urchin.

we couldnt figure if the starfish was alive or not and they were going to throw it back but had never seen one before and i insisted they keep it because we thought it was probably dead and because starfish are very special and i'd never seen one in the water before like that ' when it started to move. in the commotion to photograph it a giant italian man came over and asked for it, Godsson handed it to him and he took it to the aquarium about 100 feet away. i was very upset. as i'm sure the starfish was as well.


the other night i had a walk with aldo palozzolo, a famous photographer with whom i may soon be working. he showed me photos of patti smith and robert mapplethorpe and i saw in his house where he'd exhibited work alongside andy warhol. when he kept saying ' you know cattismet?' i had no idea who the hell he was talking about but then he wrote it ' patti smith ' and i said of course!! he said i have photo of her and i said non credo! which is one of my few phrases and means i dont believe it! and he got puffed up and said in italian ' sarah! remember this! my name is aldo palozzolo and i do not tell lies!!' then he proceeded to show me amazing photos which are strangely largely similar and hardly distinguishable from the photos that jim hall made in lexington.

he is very funny, and kept making fun of me in english ' because because i like bunny! i like bugs bunny!!'

old photographers are always a riot.

we went and got gelato, ice cream that was very good and walked around the piazza duomo.


today i saw the littlest and dirtiest pet shop where i giant parrot kept saying 'ciao!' in a clear voice and i held tiny rabbits. i realize though i felt so guilty for leaving the bunnies and some people said why dont you take them with you? it would have been impossible and the death of them and probalby me also to get them here . 22 hours of travel! not for a bunny, no.

i miss them very much.


love you all, will upload more photos monday when i have better computer accesss, and free.e

colours.

meredith '
sipping hot tea in italy this morning near the open door where outside creeps in the smell of compost where geckos eat breakfast lunch and dinner i am reminded of you when i see things living small black swirls in the bottom of my teacup. and near my heart always is the escarabe you gave me and when worried i hold it close to me. it now opens! i can open and close it and inside is you and me and home and safety.
i listened to colours on the plane and in the sky and sang to the passengers and danced in my seat. it was the only song on my ipod that consistently filled me with happiness. reminded me of dancing with you that summer night around a coffee table. and on the train i listened and the world and the hillsides flashed by and i heard the entire hot chip album for, blieve it or not, the first time all the way through and thought of you!
what a gift, friendship.

sea.

i am sitting within feet of ancient roman ruins and have torn out the sad pages of my journal thqt i wrote in america. i let the sea breeze carry them through dirty streets, under cars, down drain pipes wash away in the sea.

between high green mountains and deep blue sea.

past watermelon fields and butts of people working in their fields, past ancient ruins of roman walls akin to stonehenge. lots of stucco crumbling into the sea, clay colors in hot roman sun.
graffiti akin to new york. cacti, trees like a finger pointing green to the sky, palm trees thick and strong not those spindly sickly things in florida.
mountains with fountains underneath keeping the crop alive. houses scattered about in farmland.
between high green mountain and deep blue sea.
old stone ruins still used for houses, plants growing out of the holes for windows. houses farmed like clay out of the rock upon which they stand. building structures that are concrete shells. crumbled castles in the mountain side.


the sea turns from frothy waves on shore to sparkling white under the sun and then to black and becomes the clouds at the edge of the world. hills reaching up to disappear under clouds then rolling away to peek out under bright cartoon blue.
windmills white and huge twirling distant whirling dervish dance to the same drum but each one step ahead of the next

second, third day in roma.

dear friends,

once again please excuse my english as i am trying as hard as i can with the small amount of time i have and also once again, as my italian improves my english gets worse. tit for tat! also i am typing on a european keyboard with symbols in odd places so donàt worry about that. see what i mean....

yesterday fabrizio, ilarias roommate took me to necci, the ristorante just down the block and we had cake for breakfast with tea and capuccino. fabrizio is an actor and he is very funny. he is very nice but also worries so much. and hairy too.
he took me on his vespa where again we wore helmets <9everyone in roma does<0 and to meet with mario grasso, my extended family member, for sightseeing. things are a little difficult here because i have to use someone elseàs phone to call ilaria and also fabrizio if i need to get back in the house, and then have transportation to get there, and also make sure they are actually at home and their phone actually works!
so mario and i did some sightseeing and i took photos, which you can see at the link i sent before, which has new photos. i will put it here just in case
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2325882&id=12901818&l=49226ee2aa

last night ilaria and i went to a party of her friend andrea who is an actor and lives elsewhere in italy. she doesnt get to see him much. the house was on the fifth floor and we walked up all the marble stairs. at first i was very shy and said nothing much at all but took photos and didnt speak, because i was very unsure of my italian, what little i do know, but then i met a few who spoke some inglish and we talked at length, with me speaking in a mixture of english, italian and spanish. if i knew spanish perfectly and spoke that to them they would understand much of what i say.
the wine was white and made by andrea and his family in capri. he mashed it with his feet. it was very good. there was lots of food on the table, all made by people at the party. the white olives tasted like sweet butter and i couldnt stop eating them, though my new friend, francesco, a somewhat famous actor in rome, kept trying to make me stop because he said they cause indigestion.

everyone i talked to was either a photographer, filmm maker or actor. there was an american boy there who was a filmmaker and we spoke for a minute though my inglish was terrible compared to four days ago. it is good though and i dont mind it at all. i need to learn italian as quickly as possible!

everyone was very nice and told me my pronunciation was great and that i was learning italian very quickly. ilaria told them all that i know it better than she did. ha ha, and she is italian. she is very sweet.
i was telling francesco about my favorite bands and everyone here knows and loves bjork and radiohead of course but he said he had never heard sufjan stevens and wrote it down to download. ten minutes later two sufjan stevens songs come on and fra had heard them and loved them. they also played animal collective, from the shortbus soundtrack.
they let me put music on and i played hot chip, metric, tv on the radio, and daft punk for them. we all danced and even people sitting down were moving to the music. the boys all dance together and it is very funny. one named pepe was hilarious and kept doing a chicken dance.

my new friend piero is a phtoographer of fashion and is amazing. unfortunately his show is tomorrow night and i will be in siracusa.

everyone was so nice to me and said very beautiful wonderful things upon departure. iàm getting better at the double cheek kiss that happens on exit.
and refuse to use a bidet. that is weird.

i showed them my website and they loved the photos and we took photos all night, and some friends took photos with my camera. everyone was beautiful, and the dessert was too.

today ilaria wanted me to go into town by myself and see the pantheon, etc. i agreed and she left for work but then i was so scared to go because i dont know the language well enouh to speak with an italian who doesnt speak english, and all i had were four euros given to me by the lady in the airport who gave me the phone card, and my phone card only works to call american numbers.
i could just see myself getting deathly lost. i stayed inside as i didnt have a key to the apartment and felt a little sorry for myself.

then francesca came home, the other roommate of ilaria and she let me use her phone to call mario as he had been calling ilaria and fabrizio, so they said when i called them, and he put me together with enrico and sylvanna, other family members who came after my long nap to take me to the pantheon. while waiting on them i walked around a little with my camera in ilarias neighborhood, and successfully questioned a local shop owner about where to find a restaurant, and understood him for the most part.
i ate at necci again because i knew it and thought it wouldnt be too expensive. i tried to speak italian with the waitress but we could not understand the blank stares that passed between us but luckily another waitress did speak italian. here you are charged for table service and also for bread they bring to the table, though you can refuse it, and can also eat standing up.

people were looking at me so i thought. i try to pride myself on ilariaàs comment that i could pass for italian by looks but iàm sure my giant bag, canteen of water <9iàm too cheap to buy water<0 and the way i held my fork gave me away.

i fell asleep and dreamt of the pantheon. i was awoken by ilariaàs thick beautiful accent saying my name and responded in sleep with 'si?' and continued to speak italian with her as i continued to wake up, though she was speaking to me inglish. sylvanna was downstairs and in all the confusion of getting her upstairs i was still speaking italian, as best i knew.

she and enrico are older and neither spoke english well but better than mario and together we went to see the pantheon, colloseum and foro romano, the roman ruins. i did not get to go into the colloseum but it moved me more than anything else simply by driving by it. i became emotional. it is magnificent.

also the roman ruins took my breath away. i could hardly control myself! it reminded me of the time i saw saturn through a telescope. unbelievable and familiar and tear'jerking!

i crossed myself with holy water in the pantheon. and saw the grave of raphael.

also there are ruins in the city covered in graffiti. it is terrible! so sacred and ancient, like the pyramids covered in graffiti. there is a pyramid here, and also an obelisk from egypt that the romans brought here and placed on one of their monuments.

all of the fountain people and gods are vomiting water.

there are beautiful ancient looking fountains coming out of walls around the city that spill cold water into the ground and i fill my canteen of water up there, and if you put your finger over the faucet the water comes out of a little hole in the top and you drink like from a water fountain near a bathroom in america.

enrico told me that romans are 'fools for cats.' he mentioned this as we saw postcards with cats on the feet of giant statues, in the pantheon, and other notable places around rome. he was right. there are ruins there that are surrounded by glass fence and there are tons of cats sleeping and living there. and cats sleeping on benches around the city i bet they eat lots of fat pigeons.

we went into one of the oldest churches in rome where two nuns sat quietly praying the rosary.

i was unable to go to the vatican as the lines are hours and hours long but i did buy two rosaries for my mother and niece as requested. i will bless them myself.

we visited a coffee shop and got little cups of frozen coffee chocolate with chnks of raw sugar and whipped cream on top. inside was an antique machine where they roast their coffee. the profuma, smell around the city was amazing as coffee beans were roasting everywhere.

i am excited about one day instinctively walking up to someone shaking my hands in prayer, as the italians do when excited.

today i had a breakthrough ' sylvanna and enrico and i were talking about something and i said 'io penso che' i think so whereas before i could only use the verb to think in the form pensa which means he or she thinks. and i thought to myself OH HO did i just conjugate a verb correctly on instinct??

it was a long walk back to the car and when i got home we waited for francesca who had ben shopping with her other friend francesca. i came into the apartment and took my notebook that my roommate james gave me and worked in the courtyard on my book for elise, my niece, as the sun set. a man from the apartment came out back and coaxed a kitty out from under the building, picked it up and kissed it many times, and left.

then another black cat came. they hung out with me a bit and were a little curious but mostly ferile and i worked until i could no longer see well enough by the light of the building alone as the stars were out and i could not tell where my colors from my pencils were going.

now i am waiting on ilaria to come back from recording a rap song she is singing to advertise for her play on friday.

i miss and love you.

first day in roma. email to family and friends.

bathroom

through the peephole

view from bathroom window

view below bedroom including the woman who is always on her balcony

view from bedroom window

the key to her apartment is amazing

climbin the marble stairs

Hello friends and family! Ciao di Roma! Please excuse my English as it will be continually worsening as the weeks go by, as my italian gets better. Something I noticed from LIam's emails, and find endearing. I have, in the nearly 24 hours I've been here, already picked up the Italian accent even on my English words.

Update is as follows:
The flights were difficult but everything resolved itself. I was very emotional all day. I was feeling sick on the plane and couldn't sleep for the 8 hour flight, as I had a two by two foot space for sleeping and things were very uncomfortable, but I was able to find someone at each airport to let me borrow an Ipod charger (I packed mine in my suitcase instead of carry on accidentally) and listened to Italian tapes the whole way. I did drop my laptop at one point from a height and it is now functioning almost perfectly but is very slow sometimes and makes funny noises.
I arrived in Roma and got through customs and passport checks quickly as I am good at cutting line and was in the middle of questioning an airport exchange booth person for the second time about exchanging enough change only to use the phone to call Ilaria, as my flight was early, when a woman from Philly nudged me and said you can have this calling card if you'll help me use it to call my cousin! So we found her cousin and I kept the calling card. There are fifty minutes on it.
My guide, Ilaria, is a good friend of Liam's and is 29, an actress and singer in Rome. She is very funny and speaks English very well, even when I speak fast!
Ilaria showed up not long after and we hopped in her beautiful new orange car and took off, to the sound of the Cranberries from her cd player. In Europe the drivers are very skilled but follow no road rules as in America other than to flow together. You know when you are turning and you look to see if cars are coming and if one is coming you stop? Same with crossing the street? In Europe no one does that, they just flow together, using every inch of the road and weaving in and out together, within inches of one another. They don't drive fast at all in the city and buses, motos (motorcycles) pedestrians, and bicycles all flow together and nobody honks, it all just works out.
Ilaria took me to my hostel where it was too early to check in, and then we went to a bar for coffee and pastries. there was a film being shot just outside the bar and a woman singing opera in a church. the music flowed outside to where we were sitting in the cool morning air. The sky was clear bright blue all day and it was warm save for the breeze. I saw the colloseum from a distance as well as saint peter's. My phone did not get service as T Mobile said it would, but Ilaria let me use her phone and the calling card to call my parents and I talked to my sister and let her know I was safe.
From there we went to Ilaria's apartamento, and she helped me carry my 50 pound suitcase up three flights of marble stairs.
She said you must be tired and let me take a nap. I took one for apparently two minutes and told her I felt like I should be doing something, and was worried that we should go check in at the hostel now. She said you may stay here, and as I only put down a $7 deposit on the hostel, I of course agreed.
I took a shower and a nap on her bed with the cool breeze rolling in from the quiet street.
I met her two roommates and she made me espresso. WE sat in the kitchen stirring sugar into our cups with tiny silver spoons and listening to local radio which played Animal Collective as well as Fleet Foxes, which I woke up to from my nap.
In her apartment she has a tree just like the palm I had in my bedroom. One of her roommates greeted me with the European cheek brushing.
Also they use a bidet in the bathroom and hang their clothes out the window. Their washer is very small and cute.
From here we took Ilaria's moto (motorcycle. Don't worry Mom, we used thick helmets and go slow and Ilaria is a very skilled driver) to some of her favorite places in the city, where we saw the pantheon (but only from the outside as it was Sunday and they were having church service inside) and a church that held two Boticelli paintings, and picked up pizza from a local stand. Mine had tuna and cilantro on it and was amazing.
The whole time I am snapping shots of the beautiful city and my guide who is beautiful as well on my holga camera, with black and white 120 film.
Ilaria showed me the church where she (almost) got married and led me past soldiers with giant guns intheir jeep to a huge pair of metal doors and pointed to a hole next to the key. "Look" she said and I did.
It was like looking down a long hallway with walls fifty feet high covered in green vine, with an arching ceiling and at the end the light shone through and there was the dome of Saint Peter's far away, all bright and white. I attempted to take photos through the hole with my holga.

We stopped in a bar for a glass of white wine and buffet (aperitivo, they call it here) and while sitting outside chatting, we were approached by three Italian men looking for a light. Ilaria smokes hand-rolled cigarettes, and we all talked for an hour or so, during which time I learned much more italian and practiced it, while intermingling it with Spanish when I didnt know the Italian for a word, and the men were very funny, friendly, and polite. Ilaria told them she was from Kentucky also, and they almost bought it, as many people sometimes don't realize she is from Italia as her hair is so light.

On the way back we stopped at a kind of carnival and listened to a little concert. Ilaria knew all the words to the songs.
Tomorrow Moby plays for free in centro, and Ilaria's roommate has also invited me to come to his play and take photos for the bill of an actress of whom they do not have photos yet. We looked at my website together and he liked my work.

Fabrizzo, one of Ilaria's roommates, sat in the hallway ironing his clothes for tomorrow while I ate the most amazing vanilla yogurt ever and Ilaria showed me ridiculously funny videos of a lemur on youtube. We laughed so hard we cried.

Mario Grasso, an extended family member, has contacted me and we will meet tomorrow while Ilaria is working for an extra guide of Roma.

Ilaria and I are now going to bed.

I will keep you updated!

Love always,
Sarah

first day in roma.

i am now on my computer - it appears it is slower when plugged into the outlets here, so we're runnin on batt now.
below are excerpts from today's frantic jotting in my little notebook -

starting from the plane::

endless calm seas run into a mountain range fault line cauliflower clouds with flat tops through the breaks in the water see a road?
below and mountains below the real ones.
i do believe if i were to fall from this plane down through the sky into that white i would not end. my spirit could not vanish from a place like that. i would join the white and go on forever and ever.


(on driving, at which all italians are very skilled and by that i dont mean 'good' drivers in the sense an american would think so. americans could never drive in italia!)

they exist together very well. cars bus moto bike on foot all flow together like in ocean. no rules, no lanes, no honking.


the italians are very straight forward, but polite.

a smell like weisenberger mill at the river tivere (tiber)

everyone dressed so well and modern and cute.

a sense of ebb and flow, smell of pot in open air. ilaria and i took 'aparitivo' (which i interpreted as 'imperitivo' which obviously has a completely different meaning!) at a bar, with a little buffet and sat on a wall with our wine and food.

the gas smells different - it doesn't choke. i don't mind the smell.

things are simply working themselves out.

ilaria doesn't shave your armpits but does her legs - the opposite di io!

italia makes very cute boys.
opera singing and a film being shot at the bar where we took breakfast.


(for russ)
ilaria always french- inhales her hand-rolled cigarretes.

she said of the cars 'yes but sometimes they roll you like cigarettes in the street'


the following is my list of italian words and phrases i picked up and also asked for when ilaria and i were joined by three italian men who were very funny and polite.


si, pause, ma sti cazzi?

escusi - formal, escusa - di u.s.

come si dice _____ en spagnolo

inglese.

siamo en una bote de fero

non credo - i don't believe it
furbo - smart
ascoltare - listen io ascolto
cantante - pino daniels terra mia
io voglio tu voi lei vuole loro voglono
tu par la piano
buffo - divertente
tu hai - you have io ho
antonello pellegrino
sarah marie miller
cuanto anni hai =- how old
io ho 31 anni
trentuno
oggi yeri domani
a bi ci di e efe gi acai
figlia figlio
vecchio
se la meme
e le stesse cosa its the same thing
non importa! nevermind
io bisogno di
non piu - no mas
preocupato - worried
sempre






(and now ilaria and i are on our computers and she is alternately listening to opera and the doors)

roma

plane ride ' equals two by two feet for sleeping equals me not sleeping and watching movies in italian to try to up my vocab which is now consisting of about thirty words! by luck and luck alone made it through the airport <8ok a bit of cleverness and line'jumping on my part<<9 and found ilaria, drove through rome, had coffee in a bar. i broke my laptop officially ' it is running but running very slow since i dropped it while it was on from a height of about four feet. i am currently on ilariaàs macbook with europe symbols and keyboard with which i am unfamiliar. wish me luck for the hostel tonight ' ps internet is not as easy to access as i thought and as my computer is broken, i will liekly not be responding as much as i thought i would. also i do not have cell phone service. though tmobile said i would.ù

very crazy! my hed feels wild like what have i done? i couldnt have prepared myself for this at all though i also know that i didnt even attempt to! a wild way, and here i go. i am already homesick but this is what i must do.


love you all very much.