Dull

Dull, dull, everything's dull. It was raining and now the dull nebulous skies are admiring themselves in milky puddles. The streetlights are on and warbling to the tune of her soaked shoe soles. Click, smash, splash, warble. The knees lifting up and smashing down through the pools collected in the spaces between the warped cobblestones. The still bodies split. The water shoots up about her heel like a liquid dove's wings spreading, lifting about her ankles. She's flying on her heels through the white sea like an aquatic Achilles and the dull world parts for her. A split sea, warbling water, warbling lights, dull, dull... It's evening and everything's dull. She's walking home through the clouds and God is leading the way...


Written in March 2009 by me after a particularly dull night walking home via O'Connell street in Dublin, Ireland.

a blog

he didn't keep writing for me. he stopped. he erased what he had written. and with it, what little I know of him.

Write

so they said "write"
so, I think i'll do that.
but what is it?
exposure.
honesty.
vulnerability.

maybe it's all the wine.
the red, strong wine.
but that isn't honesty.

so I can't write.
so I won't.

Fitzgerald.

Per quello che vale, non è mai troppo tardi, o nel mio caso troppo presto, per essere quello che vuoi essere. Non c'è limite di tempo, comincia quando vuoi, puoi cambiare o rimanere come sei, non esiste una regola in questo. Possiamo vivere ogni cosa al meglio o al peggio, spero che tu viva tutto al meglio, spero che tu possa vedere cose sorprendenti, spero che tu possa avere emozioni sempre nuove, spero che tu possa incontrare gente con punti di vista diversi, spero che tu possa essere orgogliosa della tua vita e se ti accorgi di non esserlo, spero che tu trovi la forza di ricominciare da zero. (FSG)

Of Time and Direction

I like to think of the face of a watch like a compass. Instead of minutes, seconds, hours, months and years ticking away, it's directions. North for awhile becomes increasingly north-east, becomes east tending always towards southeast. At south you are halfway there, but you feel like you are at the bottom, and north seems so far away, and so much better. Falling from North to South was easy, but from down here you realize how long it's going to take to reach north again, how hard it's going to be, fighting gravity all the way up again. But the seconds tick on, the minutes go by and, driven by some unseen force you head on. South becomes southwest, becomes west. North is in sight again. Eventually you make it back to North, and you realize that this is not your destination, but only where you started. The hour hand, the minute hand, the second hand all dance in an endless, perfect waltz around the poles, trying to find their way. Punctually, they meet, at destined times and places, and cross paths, over and over again. Sometimes, its love. Others, friendship. Many times a distinct moment determining a crossing of paths uneventful, but necessary to move ahead. I like to think of the face of a watch like a compass. I'd like for it to tell me, not how long it has been since when, or how long is left, but only where there is to go. And there is only one way to go. Onward in time.

A Life Now

Have you ever watched the hands of a ticking clock, trying to observe the movement of the minute hand? Wasn't it subtle? What about the hour hand? If you thought that was slow, imagine that every day, Mid-Atlantic ridge spreads it's rocky thighs a further .007 centimeters. The Himalayas grow, swelling with pride from below at a rate of 2.4 inches every year and Mount Everest is moving about 27 millimeters northeast in the same time.

The point?

Mountains will move, but it's going to take awhile and you won't be able to watch.

And me. Me, well. I'm moving at a rate somewhere between the hour hand and Everest, waiting for someone, anyone to turn their head long enough to look back to see me gone...

Reach

I wait for you everywhere.
The underside of the cork
Beneath the stubborn lid
Behind the heavy door
and up
On the very top shelf

the end of a book
or a day
or a happy life
is where you'll find me.

the warm corner of the couch
asleep between the sheets
dreaming

but

there's a space
between me
and all this
where you exist

without you every space is empty.
unsurpassable.
nothing belongs to me.

Kenya - The Arrivals Terminal of Moi International Airport

"What happened to your passport?"

This wasn't the first time I had been asked this.

"I bring it with me everywhere, it's my only identification so it just got a little... ruined" I retorted, looking hopefully at the Immigrations officer holding my embarassingly frayed and battered Italian passport, with the picture page divided nearly in two.

"This is not valid. I can't stamp this."

I let this digest for a minute.

"I'm sorry -- what are you saying?"

"I can't let you in this country with this, this..." he said dramatically, holding my poor passport up in front of him between the tips of his thumb and index finger, to stress the fact that the state of my passport utterly disgusted him.

Then came the ringer.

"We have to send you back."

Panic sets in.

Back!? 8 hours of flight? My dream of going to Africa? The months of planning that went into this trip?

"No. That's impossible..." I state "I can't go back."

My eyes welled up with tears.

The immigrations officer looked unnerved.

"Step aside"

I was brought into the immigrations office and asked to sit.

The "Immigrations Office" at MOI international airport is two small, dingy, rooms, one inhabited by my disgusted immigrations officer, and the other by someone else, which must do the other half of the work involved here, because they looked awfully short staffed. But then again, I thought -- they only have one runway.

My immigrations officer is rummaging around the room for something and not paying much attention to me.

"There must be something we can do..." I plead, and try to convey through my eyes somehow that fact that I have many EURO notes in my pocket and he would be welcome to as many of them as he would like if he would just stamp my goddamn crappy passport and let me spend my 8 planned days in Kenya. I had never bribed someone in my life, and frankly, I was a little nervous as to how to go about it, as this man looked awfully proud.

He sat down and glanced at me, unconcerned -- then fiddled around his desk for a pen. In his hand I saw a piece of paper with the following line, written in English, across the top:

"NOTICE TO PROHIBITED IMMIGRANT"

I started to get desperate. I can't go home, I say. I can't -- I'd do anything.

I choked a little on the word "anything" -- and Jacopo, my boyfriend who was sitting next to me uncomfortably through all of this (his passport, of course, was brand new and perfectly valid) -- shot me a look of "What?" as well. Later Jacopo would tell me that he noticed the immigrations guy casting long glaring stares at the pair of mirrored Ray-Bans dangling from his shirt collar.

The officer considered us for a moment -- made a great show of comparing mine and Jacopo's passports -- then, with a grunt, began crossing out nearly half of the lines on the "Notice to Prohibited Immigrant" and writing in several lines of his own.

"They should have never given you an entrance visa, otherwise I would not be able to help you. Now I am obliged to help you."

A bit of backstory here. I had purchased my Kenyan entrance visa at the airport in Rome. The Kenyan Embassy had set up a desk in the departures terminal, right next to our tour operators desk -- and it just seemed more convenient to get it done there, before leaving.

Thank, GOD. I think. Thank God we purchased that Visa before leaving.

Jacopo and I were then escorted back to Customs, where we were informed the the passport-checker-guy would "do what he could" for us.

The guy looked me in the eye, stamped the NOTICE OF PROHIBITED IMMIGRANT sheet with an entrance stamp (my passport was too unacceptable to stamp) and said, rather authoritatively,

"Give me 20 euros".

And that's how I was able to pay my way onto Kenyan soil, and Jacopo was able to walk away from the mess with his Ray-Bans intact. Soon I would find out that to get just about anywhere in this country would involve paying, and that 8 days later I would leave this country with my pockets entirely empty.

As we walked out of the airport, two men offered to carry our bags to the bus. Thinking they worked for our tour operator, I gratefully obliged.

Ten feet later, one of the men turns to us, with the big, broad classic Kenyan smile, and asks (in italian, mind you):

"MANCIA?"
("TIP?")

2010

So.

1. We found a cleaning lady, and she started three days ago. I'm still trying to get over the fact that I believe she used our "cat shampoo wipes" to clean the dining room table, and have plans to hide them next time.
2. Kenya is booked, we leave the 16th at night are arrive back in Rome Christmas eve. Happy doesn't even begin to describe.

2010 is pending, arriving, creeping up. In these days where I feel like I spend much more time waiting for than doing -- i'm looking to the turn in year to begin a life more decided, more active, more foreward (make sense?).

So i'm going to plan trip B to exotic and less trodden location, i'm going to ask for a raise, i'm going to start looking for a bigger house, with a terrace, i'm going to become an auntie (jac's sister is pregnant), i'm going to cook more for jac (banana bread on the cooling rack as I type), i'm going to get my spanish (language) back, i'm going to live in Barcelona for a year, i'm going to go out more on the weekends.

But first of all, i'm going to Kenya.

Jac is on the couch with Yin and Yang (respectively, my nicknames for our white and black cats) watching a soccer game -- and it's not cold yet, and 2010 is almost here.

Pessime

Not to sound like a pessimist but:

1. There is still no cleaning lady.
2. Kenya isn't booked yet and may be postponed to December.

But i've got to look at the bright side, we may be back sailing this weekend, Nerone has learned to sleep in the bed at night without biting/kicking/scratching and otherwise damaging habits.

Now if only Jac would learn that when you arrive to work at 09:00, generally it's a good idea to be out by 06:00. It's 07:30 and i'm still waiting for him to finish.

6:30 PM

Orange labels on empty plastic tea bottles.
Cold cappuccino high from the late afternoon winding down.
My desk. And its many papers.
Start button. Shut Down. But not yet.
I would not like to Restart my System.
It's 6:23.
P.
M.
The shades are already down.
The server is down.
The air conditioner isn't down.
Yet.
7 minutes pass.
The number you have dialed cannot be reached.

I cannot be reached.