Craptitude

(N.B. I am posting this today, after having gone to the doctor for a new round of antibiotics for...that's right, another case of strep throat.  This, after having thought I'd won the last bout two weeks ago...and before that, stomach flu.  And my phone was stolen on a crowded tram two days ago. Brace yourselves: this is a gripe post, and I'm not apologizing). 

As October was ending and the month of November approached, I began to think about authoring daily blog entries about gratitude. It has long been a social media thing, hasn't it? Daily statements about single things for which my objective and humble gratitude should be expressed.  The range could be infinite, really, from small things like a change in temperatures with the advent of the season (which began, technically, on September 21, but it was still plenty hot) to bigger things, like continuing to live - albeit still temporarily - in Rome, Italy, to even bigger things, like my basically intact health, which becomes a more important piece of life as you grow older.

If you want to see the layers of Rome in mostly one place, go here.  San Clemente offers a tremendously well-excavated series of spaces below, dating back to the 1st century AD. 

I began to craft a mental list this past Tuesday, as I rode a city bus to meet my students at San Clemente, an old church located near the Colosseum.  I had timed things so well that morning that I had what the sports bar staff colleagues from my graduate school years called 'Lombardi time.'  I could spend a generous twenty minutes at the site before students arrived on time. I had midterms to hand back to them. I could revisit my lecture notes. I could enjoy a little morning sun without sweating, as the air was nice and cool. I could tick off a series of gratitude boxes from just those twenty minutes. That's saying a lot.

And the morning went fairly well: we concluded our morning itinerary with a few minutes to spare, and I had designed it to end near a cluster of tram stops so we would have a variety of ways to get to our next appointments. The weather had stayed sunny.

A student making her presentation in the first level (of three) below San Clemente, where the 4th century church pillars and some frescoes remain. 

This day's itinerary takes us from San Clemente to St. John Lateran - Rome's major basilica. Here, a student is presenting on the unique doors to the church, which came from Julius Caesar's version of the Senate Curia at the Forum. They had to be enlarged to fit the doorway of the basilica, and they were festooned with the Chigi stars so that Pope Alexander VII's family coat of arms would forever be referenced on them, but a Roman coin found within them confirms the dating of these heavy bronze doors. 

We then go to Santa Croce en Gerusalemme...a church founded on the remains of the home of St. Helena, Constantine's mother, who brought important relics with her from Jerusalem and back to Rome - including soil from the Holy Land, which was mixed with the dirt underneath her home. 

It just so happens that this cluster of tram stops referenced in this post is near Porta Maggiore - a major thoroughfare into and out of ancient Rome, marked by this still standing double-arched gate. 

And it just so happens that the ancient ruins of the Tomb of the Baker is located between those two arches. 

Eurysaces - a freedman, a former slave turned baker - positioned the tomb for himself and his wife near a major thoroughfare on purpose.  He wanted to be remembered for what he did for Rome, which was, essentially, feed it. The frieze near the top of the monument depicts figures in the act of baking bread. The circular/cylindrical shapes below evoke grain storage units. The Tomb of the Baker has always figured importantly in my classes because I think of it as the quintessential example of the Roman fixation with commemoration and identity.  In a museum is located a cinerary urn shaped like a bread basket, which is thought to have possibly been intended for holding the remains of the Baker's wife.

And yes, for my class scavenger hunt, students have to take selfies with key works of art and architecture.  I feel strongly that there is immense enjoyment to be had from taking photos of people taking selfies. They are fascinating and often hilarious.

 The trams weren't really running in a timely fashion, but this is Rome. They rarely do. Italian time is a mystery.
My throat felt scratchy, but I had done a lot of talking and walking.  I sometimes forget to drink enough water.  Gotta remember to drink more water.
There had been a major transportation and garbage collection strike on the preceding Friday, and so by Tuesday of the following week, overflowing city bins were pretty bad. I fought what seemed like a swarm of really bothersome flies as I waited and waited for the tram that would get me closer to home.
And as I boarded and sat down for a ride that would take about thirty minutes, I mentally suppressed the growing awareness that getting back to my apartment would take a collective hour, with the combination of wait and transit times. I would not have the time I had hoped for in advance of the class I am taking in the late afternoon.  I would not have enough time to complete my assignment.
Stop fretting, I told myself.  You are taking this class for the enjoyment of learning, more than anything else.  You're not even technically doing this for a grade. You're doing it for you.

And who knows, the transit system could run faster than you anticipate.  You've been surprised before.

Forgive me for not supplying an authentic shot of this particularly fun day on a long tram ride.  Clearly, people are in shirt sleeves, so this was late August.

On my ride - with numerous Italians, swathed in scarves and jackets because it was late October and they therefore feel compulsorily cold, regardless of the actual temperature (which was 72 F) - I reflected on how a friend-who-is-no-longer-a-friend once told me that I am a super judgmental person. Nevermind the irony of being judged for being judgey, of course. Part of me is inclined to simply accept this as my reality, as an artist, an art historian, and an academician. On a number of levels, I am valued and even paid for being judgmental. And I am, I will maintain, possibly my most amusing self when I am being sarcastically judgmental.

But another part of me thinks that plenty of people don't like sarcasm, or being judged, or being amused by people like me.  They want uplifting messaging, particularly in a world that seems to be lacking, quite a lot lately, in positivity.

Enter gratitude, I think, as I wiped my brow inside the hot, airless tram (don't dare open a window, as an Italian will have an apoplectic fit over the prospect of cool air hitting any part of their body).  I just have to try to strike the right note on this, because I should still sound like myself. And I will also need, I realized, to spare time every day to write these shorter blog entries. But if I kept them short, I could surely pull it off. And besides, I was Being Positive. I would be Making A Difference.

The tram dropped me off at a bus stop.  About 10 minutes later, I boarded a bus bound for my street. It seemed hotter than the tram did. My throat still felt dry and scratchy. As I was listening to music on my headphones, I thought I heard a strange sound come from underneath the back left side of the bus. We stopped at Piazza Venezia, one of the more famous, central roundabouts in Rome, and the engine cut off. This is not surprising, as these buses often do that and the driver simply has to restart the engine.  He did, but when he pressed the accelerator, the bus did not move. He jumped out of his seat, walked around the wheel wells of the bus peering underneath, eventually shrugged his shoulders and called into the bus at the riders: Guasto! Broken. We disembarked. I thought about how I was fortunate to be dumped out at a stop for several buses, so I had multiple options to continue my journey. I wasn't stranded at a stop where only one bus was due in 30 minutes.

Yet, another 15 minutes went by while I waited for another bus to take me home. The time cushion I had hoped for to complete my assignment in advance of class - gone.

Token image of a Roman bus...but it bears mentioning that the bus system is proud to report that this year's number of buses which have burst into flames (nope - not kidding - not even a little) is down by 18% from last year's.  If that's not positive, I don't know what is.

At home, I ate lunch and grabbed another bag with my supplies for class.  I had to catch another bus, for which I waited about 12 minutes. After disembarking the bus and walking the requisite two blocks to campus, I arrived at the building that hosted my class with about an hour to spare before critique time. I got busy.

The classroom space is in a humid basement.  All the waiting and walking and hustling = me sweating. And my throat felt no better. In fact, it felt worse. I felt like I was moving through quicksand.  I worked, but inexplicably slowly.  Class time arrived and I was not as fully prepared as I wanted to be.

I took a class on basic intaglio printmaking, which will receive it's own, later post. Here, my instructor polishes a zinc plate.

And here, the finer points of 'stopping out' or blocking areas of a metal plate from the acid bath into which the plate will later be immersed. The instructor is really great in every way, but when your head is pounding and your throat is on fire and you want to lie down and can't...it's tough to sustain an attention span. That's right, current and former students, I personally know your version of hell.

I also sensed that the sore throat was a signal that I was becoming sick. I stuck it out through two and half hours of class - because I am paying for the experience and, let's not forget, it's for me - and then walked to another bus stop to wait 15 minutes before boarding to go home.

I felt irritable, tired and a nagging apprehension about the remainder of the week.  I had to tell The Spouse that I needed to not be asked a bunch of questions, as it hurt to talk. 

I decided to feel grateful that I had some antibiotics on standby, as my Achilles heel is strep throat, and the symptoms of onset were announcing themselves with clarity, I thought. Also in the gratitude column belongs the unique painkiller for throats that I have never seen in the States, but also have on standby: granules in a pouch, poured on the tongue, needing no water.  Rather like Pop Rocks, but without so much sugar.  The stuff works instantaneously.

By Wednesday, a day I had mentally set aside to go back to campus and work more on my unfinished project, I felt pretty terrible. I awoke to feed kitties because the Spouse was off on a work trip, and then returned to bed for a couple hours. I went through the whole day in sleeping and waking episodes, pretty much despising being awake. The sore throat was replaced by inflamed, clogged sinus passages and a choking cough due to drainage. I never bothered to check for fever; I usually run below normal anyway (the cruel joke here is that I always FEEL hot, despite never registering as such). The antibiotics were of no use.

Students were leaving anguished emails about midterm tests and evaluated paper drafts. The cats were up to their usual hooliganism (crash! bang! *wide eyes* "Hi Mom! We don't look guilty, do we?'), and I felt as if I was just existing to open cans, scoop litter, clean forks, squint at blister packs of meds for dosage instructions, shuffle through the apartment and fall back into bed.  Lather, rinse, repeat.

By Halloween, I resolved to attend the class in which I am enrolled as a student, despite not being completely ready for critique. The choking cough made my eyes water and kept me from finishing sentences.  I felt like Typhoid Mary (as I more or less was): gross and socially unwelcome. I wound up waiting an eternity for the bus to go home.

I can still begin my gratitude blog entry tomorrow, I vaguely thought.  As I teacher, I routinely give myself assignments, and often hold myself accountable for them.  November 1st is still 24 hours long.

I remember maybe 8 of those hours, actually. The rest were spent in bed or on the sofa. Miserable. No blog writing occurred. November 1 is an Italian holiday, I reasoned, so I should rest.

I laid in bed with a cat on my stomach, grooming himself as if he had a hot date arriving any minute, and I thought, there are no blog RULES, really.  I can write a cluster of gratitude entries and post them that way.  If I can't write EVERY DAY, no big deal.

The cat pounced on my foot as I moved it under the sheet.  Everything is a toy to him. You have to lie absolutely still or he will never let up.

I arose on November 2nd, feeling a tad bit more human but pretty much done with the 48 hour headache I'd had while the weather tried to decide if it would rain or simply continue to threaten via the soft measures of excessive humidity, gray skies and little else. I needed to procure groceries because The Spouse was returning from his work trip the following day. I showered.  Made a list. Bundled up my ecologically mindful grocery bags.  Checked the weather forecast and elected to leave behind the umbrella.

The grocery store is two long blocks from my apartment. I wove my way through slow-moving tourist groups to then shop inside, among even more tourists, stopping in the narrow aisles to have conversations in a myriad of tongues, totally unaware of themselves as obstacles.

My favorite apples? No longer available. The Greek yogurt I always buy? There was no place for it in and among all of the other yogurt brands. The paper towels we needed? Empty shelf.

It was as if my evil doppelganger had gone shopping just before me in time, and set me up for one disappointment after another. Like clockwork, the checkout clerk asked me in Italian if I wanted a bag for my goods. I politely declined.  She put a bag down with my groceries (you bag your own, here) anyway and charged me the requisite 10 cents for it after watching me place my groceries inside my own cloth bags. I had to confront her on that 10 cents because dammit. I then walked outside.

And a soaking rain was falling. The soaking rain that was predicted to happen three hours later.

I tried to walk quickly home, weaving again through tourists in cheap, street-vendor supplied plastic ponchos, holding tilted umbrellas that soaked me even further as I moved, Frogger-style, back to my apartment. I pushed my way through tourists standing under the eave and in front of my building's locked door, as they tried to avoid the fat, drenching water drops.

I changed clothes after coming inside, stored my groceries and commenced slicing and seeding peppers for roasting. The cats see a person working at the kitchen counter and say 'dinner!' repeatedly regardless of the actual time. The headache was slowly abating because it was finally raining. Those infernally irritating pepper seeds stuck to my fingers, my cutting board, my knife, the counter and the floor.  The sliced onion fumes sharply stung my eyes.  As I was firing up the broiler to roast the still lovely peppers, I tripped a breaker for the kitchen.  But the breaker didn't trip because I was running a dozen other appliances at the same time.  I was running exactly zero other appliances. The breaker tripped because Italy and because broiler is a big power suck (?) and because electricity in Italian domestic spaces is meager and, it turns out, not Italian to begin with. 

Readers, I'd like to say that I'm working on my gratitude.  But honestly, sometimes it's all craptitude.

I'm not saying that I'm not lucky to be here or have my health or any of the other things on a long list that I know (and truly appreciate) far more thoroughly than you know. I'm not saying that anyone should feel a shred of sorry for me or my lousy week. Sinus infection? So what? Mass transit woes every day of living here? Overflowing garbage bins due to a labor strike? A swarm of flies at the transit stop? Electricity cuts off without explanation? It's still in this place, and at least one of you will readily tell me to shut my yap about a crummy experience here or there because Italy.

Let me gently say: save your words. The reality is that your voices are already in my head, and they chant - every day - lookwhereyouliveisn'titamazingandbeautifulandexoticandthefoodandthewineandtheartaren'tyouinheavenrightnowsomepeoplenevergettoseeorexperiencethesethingsandYOULIVETHEREandYOUARELIVINGMYDREAMDON'TYOULOVEIT?

Sometimes, though, sometimes you have a crappy day - or five plus - in a row. Sometimes you're waiting for the seemingly non-existent bus 628 while you see FOUR 81 buses in row because no one here seems compelled to consider how to intentionally space the things out in time. Sometimes you get a little testy with the security cop on the street who won't let you even briefly stop (NOT fully park) your still idling car in front of your building so you can unload some damned groceries because the space is allegedly reserved for Italian Senate members on a...Sunday, when they're not at work (but on Saturday, you walk out the front door and see every parking space occupied by ordinary vehicles with no special tags or stickers)??? Sometimes you have to fight to get that 10 cents back from the unapologetically nonobservant cashier who has already asked you if you have two euros and fifty cents so that she does not have to make change on your purchase because her till is never properly stocked to make change...and the store she works in is next door to a bank. Sometimes you reach your limits with city visitors who stand stock still in the middle of busy pedestrian thoroughfares with zero regard for traffic or - totally unaware of their surroundings and looking the other way - thrust a pointing finger within centimeters of your naked eye. Sometimes, you want to be able to actually use the free time (or money, or any other valuable resource) you're lucky enough to foresee coming your way.

Sometimes, all of these things and more come crashing into your sphere at the same time, so it's a special kind of hell.

Sometimes you don't want to have to struggle quite so much to experience that gratitude from which everyone wants to extract social media capital. And sometimes, you want to be able to just openly talk about it without reprisal.

Before I moved here, I would obediently respond to co-workers' inquiries about my immediate future, divulging the new address, describing the situation and the machinations we were undergoing in order to make it a reality. I didn't talk much about the struggles to sell a house or combine the streamlined remains of two households (for about four years, the Spouse and I lived separately M-F so he could sleep in the same city in which he worked), the immense anxiety of packing up two very old cats to take along on a 10 hour flight after going through security in the busiest airport in the world, the extremely disorienting feeling of walking away from a perfectly good job at a workplace I had served for twenty years and with zero prospects of walking into another job elsewhere, the nervous awareness that we were going to live in a place where we had no friends and did not know our neighbors (or much of the language, which is a whole other can of worms)...and so on.  I did not chronicle arguments with The Spouse - the kinds that happen when stress is unavoidable and there is just Too Much going on. I did not widely share about that set of a few days in which I thought my beloved Salvador would have to be put down before we moved because he experienced a brief health crisis. I did not broadcast how Habitat for Humanity bypassed me (and never phoned to notify me) on the only day I had available for a very necessary, pre-scheduled pick-up of used furniture. I did not spell out for others how we left our residence without knowing whether we could successfully rent it while we were gone. I did not talk much at all about how I did not know what the heck I would be DOING WITH MY TIME.

And here I am now, having emerged from all of those trials and tribulations - for better or worse, but most assuredly, mostly better. But just so you know that it's not all wine and roses and gelato (or whatever you imagine is the blissful life here)....

At the time I was putting the finishing touches on this entry, I visited my Italian bank branch at the U.S. Embassy.  I needed to break a 50 euro note.

The teller - working at the branch on Embassy grounds (so let's be clear, her job is to deal all day with American citizens and the Italians employed at the Embassy)- insisted to me, exclusively in Italian (because she spoke zero English) - that I had to deposit the fifty euros into my bank account in order to break that sum into smaller portions. Incredibly, there was no other option. I had to go through the motions of making a bonafide deposit, including signing two different, full-sized sheets of paper that documented the deposit and withdrawal of the same fifty euros, in order to leave with three tens and a twenty...which is actually not the breakdown that I asked for in the first place. I was not allowed to get the three tens and four fives I sought.

Why didn't I just go to a grocery store and ask for change, you might ask. Anyone living here would laugh out loud at this prospect. Every cash drawer in this country is somehow configured with not enough change to handle a day's worth of transactions. Every operator of every drawer shakes down every customer for exact change: do you have a euro? two euros? fifty cents?

We can all rest assured that I would simply be told that I could not break my fifty euro note at the grocery store. As you can see, one has to be selective about how and when to waste one's energy.

CRAPTITUDE is sometimes all I can come up with, dear readers. Perhaps you can identify.

The gratitude will come in another post.

(p.s. or at the end of this one, if we consider that while it was a mere inconvenience to have to go to the closest store for my cellular carrier and learn that I could not suspend my account - since my phone was stolen - without a police report <this requirement being, allegedly and ironically, for the sake of 'security purposes'> in hand...I did find that the carabinieri were pleasant, efficient and professional in their handling of the report I filed, which is an astounding finding when you consider the infuriating prospect of most bureaucratic operations in this country. Furthermore, I'm not beside myself over the loss of the phone.  Sure, I can't look up the arrival time for a bus while waiting at a stop, but knowing an arrival time never made the bus come any faster anyway. And I'm forced to become more in tune with my surroundings, with no music to listen to, no news to read <or become utterly depressed by>...so there's that.
See? A little gratitude!)

Light

During the season of the shortest days and longest nights...

So many of us long for more daylight, and celebrate the winter solstice because it signifies the advent of longer days. 

(I'm not one of those people, but it's pretty clear I've got frigid blood and the capability to see well in the dark - probably courtesy of my ancestors)

I grew up in a relatively small town. Some traditional holiday lights installed in the even smaller center of that town were all I ever saw. And in the American cities I subsequently lived in from young adulthood and onward, some areas of those cities might have had some pedestrian areas, but they were never as pedestrian-oriented as similar areas in European cities. 

So while I'm not a Christmas fiend by any stretch of imagination, I have come to appreciate the holiday lights that appear here and elsewhere. It's a time when artists are invited to help make cities appear creatively festive. It enables evening shoppers to literally see better as they prepare for gift giving and gatherings.

I've also come to appreciate the Christmas markets of (mostly European) cities. Against the rare occasion of my childhood, involving a church holiday sale or a gathering where people made apple butter, the holiday markets of my adulthood are really enjoyable - even when the offerings are lame or tacky or otherwise completely inappropriate for you. Even though I lost Whamaggedon before the month of December began, I still enjoyed participating in a holiday market.  I was rather struck by the enlightenment of some shoppers who appreciated my abstract work...when has that ever happened before? Never.

First up, Amsterdam.

We were there for a concert performed by The Spouse's favorite band, but we had some time to explore other things.  

A cute little holiday market near the Rijksmuseum.

Lights strung up in trees bordering a canal...

....or like so many ornaments. Sure it was rainy, but wet surfaces at night only reflect more light.

And at the concert?
Light pulses over this crowd, teeming with restrained movement...rather like an organism.

In nearby Leiden, there was the filtered, cool light on a windy walk to the town's holiday market.

That same light reflects off the canals, permeating the place with gray.

Until you reach the market, floating on a long canal boat, with music and twinkling lights...

And, heaven help us, churros?!

There is the dim light in the cathedral of Leiden. 

And the dwindling, blue light falling on holiday shoppers as we walk back to the train.

And back in Rome....the first event for lighting was the turning on of holiday lights over the famous shopping street, Via Condotti.  To herald this event, the Roman carabinieri band marches and plays. 

The lights are so bright that we are quite well lit at 9pm, honestly. 

In this case, lights are designed to delight both adult and young children.

On what is considered by some to be one of the top ten most beautiful shopping streets in the world - Via Cornari - quite near my apartment, more lights...

In Trastevere:

In the weak winter light under a loggia, my holiday market table:

I still can't quite believe that I actually sold things.

In Turin, artists descend on the city and provide light displays that are quite unique.

Of course, more traditional lights in select piazzas appear during our chocolate tasting tour.

Light reflecting off of shiny foil wrappers.

There is the light glinting off a spoon, or filtered through a glass handle on a hot mug.

There is the light of discovery: hot, dark chocolate with orange, so thick that it almost doesn't qualify as a drink...wonderful. 

More light installations by artists.

The light of constellations...

Then there is the glow from a Roman holiday market puppet show.

Honey bees, working in the dark.

Yeah - more fried dough.

Thanks to Rome's decision to replace its more romantic yellow streetlight bulbs with cooler, whiter bulbs, there's enough light to be amused by some street art.

Lights are strung onto climbing plants that help festoon a restaurant's facade.

There are no independent ideas in Rome at this point in the year...everyone is out, at nighttime hours, also taking in the scenery.

And lights point the path, like an airport runway, to the seat of Western Christendom.

A walk on the via Appia Antica, which was once lined with tomb monuments for ancient Romans, is actually a good independent idea, as the crowds were a bit lessened.  It was great to see the hiker types of Rome and its environs, taking in the sights on an absolutely straight, Roman road on a crisp, clear day.

And cafes and osterias, too.  We had passable lasagna in the late afternoon light.

This cafe's building walls were covered in a kind of masonry that could only happen in place like this - comprised of roughly hewn rocks and marble fragments from now-disappeared tombs. Seen through dappled light filtered through trees...

On the Appia Antica way, there is the tomb of Cecilia Metella. It is the third largest in Rome (after Hadrian's and Augustus' tombs). It is also circular in shape with a large oculus, allowing for light to grace the mortuary level far below.

OK. I have decided. 

This year is the year that I work on managing light: figuring out when to let it in, shining it in darkness when it's beneficial to do so (discerning the benefits are the tricky bits), seeking the kind of enlightenment that informs balance between learning and making and earning. 

I have never really done that very well, before. 

Perhaps this is my real chance, even it it isn't, I might as well act as if it is.