|
i’m stealing sugar packets as souvenirs we make fun of the couples who fight on their honeymoon we had our fight in lake como, our second night there, before we ran from the bear down the alps. before we blazed past the chapels with the stations of the cross, nervous about not catching the ferry, about staying on this side of the lake overnight, blood rushing at the thought of being mauled by a wild animal, the roar ringing in our ears from our picnic by the abandoned monastery. before we cursed in front of a nun as we rounded a corner, our knee joints slamming into themselves on the hour-long downhill dash. we had enough time for a beer and a spritz at the cafe by the dock, turns out. chin chin to divine conflict resolution. ————————————————————————————————————————————————- we planned the trip wanting to be near “Sacred Spaces”. visions of existential contemplation by an old pile of rocks felt comforting. our summer became so crowded we didn’t have time to plan anything, despite knowing we’d be taking this trip for 2 years. films, families, weddings. dusty quit his full time job. technically we have no money to do this. we chose prague and italy by a trick of the hat. one saturday morning, a few weeks before we’re set to go to wherever we were going to go, hovering over our laptops like an oracle that would reveal something to us. the problem with built up anticipation is that it can rob you of the fun of it all. we needed something new and not-new. we were tired, a strange obligation felt to this last ritual of the celebration of our partnership. so the deciding factors became a cross section of affordability for last-minute flights and seeing familiar faces along the way. ————————————————————————————————————————————————- lake como, 2006: the place of my fondest memory in my teens, the last family trip we took while my parents were together, rainy. my dad speaking with his whole body to a speedo-clad australian man, both wading in the freezing water. wearing a swim cap at a pool on the lake. checkered floors in the hotel. rain spilling in through the shuttered windows. blazingly romantic. lake como, 2025: a hellscape of bachelorette parties, taylor swift’s lingering ghost and george clooney’s wake ———————————————————————————————————————————————— “ah - the churches. so many churches!” we notice the small golem on the counter at jack’s place in bologna. a sign of jewish mysticism. we toured the alchemy tunnels in prague, guarded by a painting of the rabbi and the golem. it is kitschy and the cadence of the english of the tour guide lulled me to sleep. peaks and mountains. i am thinking of the two little girls in pigtails on the tour. it is musty and dusty and small and there isn’t much to see but old bottles of brown liquid and the secrets of men escaping religious tyranny. i am always looking for the women. “when we went to prague, we went to the jewish cemetery, saw the small children’s suitcases and cried”, jack and cynthia say. i found Her in the legend of prague’s beginning. libuše, the prophetess, the queen, the founder of the City. at night i try to google a book to earmark for later to read more about her. search results: not found. dustys nights are spent wrestling sleep and browsing current city:reddit: “that man w a deer statue was a saint”. i look forward to waking up and getting the digest of info-bites for the day. as a kid, i used to carry around a mini encyclopedia in my pocket; now i have dusty, he reads buildings and city patterns like people read books, and he carries himself. papa jack grew up his whole life in brooklyn. the son of russian jewish immigrants who always yelled at each other. he left home at 16, got into photography, then production and directing commercials in new york and la. “it’s a toilet bowl industry” we’re at a restaurant nearby his new apartment in bologna where he is greeted warmly and the owners daughter who recently had a baby facetimes in to say hello. the tortellini in brodo was perfection. we talk about value. how it’s strange that when you over-value yourself, people take the bait. step right up! set your price! i’ll pay double! “jamie [his daughter, my stepmother], she calls me everyday and i used to not get it but i do now. she wants to make sure im ok. i’m just not used to it”, he says. i saw a video a few weeks ago of a woman on vacation during her luteal phase. i checked my calendar and knew i was bound to have my own tension and release at some point, like these porticoes. the interior, outside. going from prague to como to bologna was a squeeze. bologna: the most liberal city in italy, according to the internet, according to the history books, according to the fuck-you-mussolini assassination attempts, according to the effortlessly cool students crowded together hand rolling cigarettes, at least 3 of them always at a table, touching knees, passing books. graffiti everywhere, no mystery to decode: fuck off, fascists. all of the bookstores carrying antifascist literature. i wished my italian was better. wished i hadn’t skipped out on classes when i lived there. being in your early eeking, dripping 20s is a curse - it really is all fucking wasted on you. ————————————————————————————————————————————————- ultimately, it is strange to be going on a vacation, for whatever reason, while my city [chicago] is in turmoil. videos not far from my house of people being ripped from their lives. the bustling thoroughfare of lawrence st and it’s kebabs and salvadorean phone stores and turkish sweets and fresh sushi and el mercato and teddybearflowers all quiet now, i hear. but neighbors are pushing back. the alderman is holding trainings to defend and be informed. local businesses are forming coalitions. infrastructure of resistence. before we left, we had breakfast with dirt and jo and lizzy. i whisper to lizzy in the kitchen that it feels strange to leave the city right now but also how relieved and almost shocked i am to not be accountable to any work responsibilities for 3 full weeks. It hits me that i have not had more than a few days off in about 5 years. the tension is that the vacation i needed at that point was really just to rest, but instead we are plopped in these exciting cities with their own histories so once again i try to push my energy through. whoa is me. dusty is great to travel with because he is so interested in everything. but we are hoofing it all over the city and i start to get tired but there is another neighborhood we must see!! sleep when you’re dead? am i…. ————————————————————————————————————————————————- so we get to como and it’s this place that feels like it should be relaxing, but it’s not and it’s like the feeling when you’ve stayed too long at someone’s house and they want you gone but they won’t say so and you’re too dumb to catch on, really, because they keep telling you it’s fine! stay! but you feel this seeping resentment of your presence. that. i feel strangely foolish. i want to yell - i promise i’m not trying to be stanley tucci! do we go home? is that dumb, irresponsible? am i trying to be a pick-me to the italians? who cares?? i have a friend who goes by a mantra i’ve adopted: if it’s not fun, how do i make it fun, and if i can’t make it fun - how do i get out of here? i'm trying to fix it, to fix it but, a new location won’t really fix how we’re feeling because, as the old adage mocks: wherever you go - there you are. but the next night, after our “fight” (read: me being insecure about choosing such a lame place, and dusty being annoyed, rightfully so, about me being insecure about…you see how it goes) as we eat mediocre truffle pasta and an american bachelorette party whoos by, dusty proposes a thoughtful pilgrimage across the lake, hiking an ancient road that connects a convent and a monastery [ref: above to see how it went]. ———————————————————————————————————————————————— bologna is not really the italian city most americans think of to go to. i wouldn’t even have suggested we go to italy at all, but papa jack is living here and he’s 86 and on an adventure i’d like to get a glimpse of. being in bologna, it reminded me of new york and i understood why he chose here. he didn’t want to be out alone in a quiet village. he wanted stimulation. something that feels familiar and new all at once. it’s so inspiring. he brings up No Kings. he’s telling everyone about No Kings. “I’’ve been on facebook, trying to tell people about No Kings. I think it’s terrific - they have to go!” getting his new internet installed. “they can’t do anything quickly here, it’s so frustrating. i even offer to pay them on the spot! and they refuse! stupid! everything is such an ordeal here!” ————————————————————————————————————————————————- i told myself i wasn’t going to scroll instagram but here i am and i’m glad to know whats going on but it is truly blood boiling. tension and release ————————————————————————————————————————————————- “where have all the hooded eyes gone?”, headline. “god is whatever you believe in”, zuzana brabcová “i have your grandmothers grave in my chest”, zb ———————————————————————————————————————————————- “let’s pull a tarot card” - dusty on the terrace in como eight of cups - disappointment six of cups - nostalgia ———————————————————————————————————————————————- em said they don’t like autumn bc it’s too mired in nostalgia i think i used to like it for those reasons. and also, growing up in southern california it signified a break from the heat but now it makes me melancholy. and i don’t even like fall anymore. i think: BROWN and ORANGE and i hate that combination. sorry! i don’t like the colors of autumn leaves sue. me. —————————————————————————————————————————————- i’ve been thinking of it in terms of my cycle. luteal - autumn - period - winter though it’s hard there’s a type of release and a knowledge that it will be done - then arching towards new life. cycles - patterns - power - resistance resist i have not been on the ground doing any actual resisting, btw. just keeping tabs tension - the crowded streets release - vyšehrad ———————————————————————————————————————————————— the bartender with a center lip ring asks us every 10 minutes if he can have a smoke and drink his doppio espresso. i like his smile - it’s wiley. a wiley guy. i overhear him say: “i want to go to america to see the redwoods - the sequoias. it is one of our worlds wonders. but that is the only reason i would go to america”. ———————————————————————————————————————————————- the man alone at the corner table at beta’s restaurant gives us 3 medallions of the madonna of miracles. jack says he’s had 2 miracles in two months. 1) he has the flu and the antibiotics he had to take healed a swollen ankle he’s had for years (a miracle?). 2) he feel off a city bike in bologna and only had a few scratches and a fractured pinkie. “it’s a sign that even though i feel cuarenta, i am, in fact, 86” he takes beta’s son aside and slips him some money and promises to bring him back a t shirt from in-n-out. jack introduces us as amici. easier than “my daughters-husbands-daughter-and-her-husband”. he is someone who counts amici as close if not closer than family. I like that about him. he brings us to his favorite place, beta’s restaurant on the mountaintop. he gets to sit and enjoy the view for the first time. he’s usually driving. cynthia calls just as we’re leaving. we all say hello. “you look a mess” she says to jack. ————————————————————————————————————————————————— i send dusty a list of europe’s best cities i read about the fascist history of bologna. the 15 year old who attempted assassination of mussolini in 1928, missed and then was lynched. there were 3 other attempts on mussolini’s life. one was an irish woman: violet gibson. the bullet scratched his nose. there is a famous picture of him with a bandage over his nose. the fascists use these images as justification to increase their special police force and silence defectors. i read that violet is only recently being honored in ireland as a revolutionary. she served in prison in italy and then was sent to an insane asylum in her home country. it was easier to write her off as crazy than a woman with political conviction. ————————————————————————————————————————————————— libuše, i keep thinking about libuše. how i can’t find too much about her. men have History. women have Legend, have Myth, nothing Verified. can’t pass Go. there is not so much to read about her, disappointing. she was the youngest of three sisters (three sisters!) she had a gift of prophecy, her sisters were a magician and a healer. this is incredibly exciting to me. a totem, my own gollum, i keep in my pocket throughout the trip. vassilisa. trying to use it as some kind of light to hold up to everything else i see. she became queen, unmarried, had a prophetic vision of the city of prague and exactly where it would be founded. she built her own baths overlooking the vltava “wild water” river. she was beloved, but soon they were uncomfortable with her being unmarried (classic), and she was forced to choose a husband eventually. “find me a man making the best use of his teeth at lunchtime”: get me a man who worked. so a humble ploughman named premsyl became king. this period is now referred to in the history books as the premsylid dynasty. why are the women always disappearing? ————————————————————————————————————————————————- we are staying near the chapel of sant stefano. the current building was constructed in the 5th century, and it’s style was hodge-podge and scrapped together. crude figures etched in the stone. mis-matched mosaics. primal. comforting. the chiesa is built on the ruins of the temple of the goddess isis, of motherhood, magic, fertility, healing. the body of the bishop who founded the church was embalmed in a sepulchre there, which was opened every easter morning as the prostitutes of bologna would visit in the stead of mary magdalene and renounce their sins (whose idea was that?) pregnant women walk around the tomb 33 times and then go visit the fresco of the madonna. they know it was the temple of isis originally because of the fresh spring fountain, wild water. ——————————————————————————————————————————————- there are supposedly 3 medieval arrows stuck in the ceiling by jacks place. tours pass it multiple times a day, trying to find them. i couldn’t see any of them. “it’s stupid! who cares about arrows!”, he says. ——————————————————————————————————————————————- “there are some who consider this way of seeing, which is to say, focusing intently on the most minor details, like dust on the desk [after a bombing] or fly shit on a painting, as the only way to arrive at the truth and definitive proof of its existence. There are even art historians who make these claims…[making] a point of focusing on the least significant details, not the most significant ones, in order to determine, for example, whether a painting is an original or a copy” - minor details, adania shibli ———————————————————————————————————————————————- i am collecting paper. books prints i am collected paper ————————————————————————————————————————————————- every morning in bologna we were woken up by a fly buzzing directly in each of our ears, ——————————————————————————————————————————————— i am sitting in a sunny patch at the corner of the rupo in orvieto near the park where we painted the mysterious cave. i wanted to go into the church but they’ve already started the service. a well dressed woman was standing on the corner as I walked by, anxiously looking at her phone. i choose a sunny bench. polizia pull up right next to me, one has a long struck cigarette in his mouth - they are trying to manoeuvre through the tight narrow streets, like a clown car. the well-dressed woman comes running in her heels to them. they go around the corner and i can see only their shadows on the edges of the wall, effusively waving their hands. italians, are they always negotiating their emotions? ————————————————————————————————————————————————- i have been trying to escape from the concept of purity and yet i find myself in the labyrinthian circle of it always. the depths the caves the pozzo the well. i realize liberation from the abstract goal of purity, and then i turn around and find that i have followed the path too concerned with that ideal. purity tied to pleasing all audiences:all family members. the human experience is impure, inherently we are mud muddy, crooked golem alchemical tunnels musty riverbanks la chimera stardust etruscan ruins the wild water underneath it all. ————————————————————————————————————————————————— signal hill, long beach, ca. planned to be a park to rival golden gate park, then they found oil. dirty gold. ————————————————————————————————————————————————— the young men in suits with the shaved heads, flooding the corso in orvieto - graduating military school - are they multiplying? are the shrinking? are they refracting? are they one, my little men? always in hand: a gelato, a cigarette, a girlfriend. the server’s eyeliner is perfect hannah’s boys play like cats at our feet “but i am having anxious dreams only” i say to federico, when he speaks of the significance of dreams. to pay attention to them. “what does that mean?” “then stop” he says. and i believe him, i want to believe him. god is what you believe in, after all. and god is powerful thing. Hannah and federico speak of the friends their age - nearing their 40s “half of them are aimless. they have inherited property and their grandparents give them enough euros to make it through the month so why do they need to get a job, they think?” our lunch is three and a half hours. we are on the roof overlooking the hills outside orvieto terni. “i was afraid of returning” i said, “afraid of being mired in nostalgia” tension and release excavation descent ———————————————————————————————————————————————— i find myself in the few days there laying myself over the rupo walls. absorbing the warmth from the tufo. memorizing the patterns - watching the birds dip and dive from up top i don’t know what i’m trying to extract. nothing. i know it is not the same. i was wary of coming back without purpose. as just a tourist. i created so much meaning - reconstructed my soul, my spirituality, was introduced to Art, embodied community, ritual, relief. to go for a few days felt like pittance. freud used to come here, to orvieto, and excavate - squirreling away etruscan treasures for his own collection. little pervert. there is a plaque on the wall for him. perverts are always revered. ————————————————————————————————————————————————- matt’s sons are getting their italian citizenship - after doing nearly all of their childhood and schooling there. i remember when they were in the primary school in town! the duomo is still just as astounding. it truly is a marvel. i was always charmed by the striped sides. the stars of davids in stone on the ground just outside, like their own labyrinths, but mostly those striped sides. ————————————————————————————————————————————————- federico’s customers are mostly foreigners. he makes outstanding beautiful custom made shoes that take about 14 months to make. hannah now helps him in the shop, making bags. their shop is on the main corso now. i can tell they are exasperated by the change in demographic of who is in the town now. the tourists come in and touch everything with their sticky gelato hands. there is no more butcher shop because no one really lives in the village anymore, only travelers who come in for a day to gobble up photos and faux truffle oil, like little pigs. I remember from back then: hannah sneaking back into the apartment, smelling of cigarette smoke, hanging with federico and his friends, drinking at the hidden bar by the duomo so the students wouldn’t see them. I understood her desire to keep boundaries, respected it even, and loved to smell the remnants of knowing she was having fun. ———————————————————————————————————————————————- there is a pigeon in the walls in rome the greek girls tossing coins into the forum short red hair and pierced ears the squeaking sounds of shoes in the pantheon the girl in the joan of arc sexy bodysuit near the colliseum “the king of america is coming today, so it is busy”, the vatican steward misspoke. american vintage shops - yeehaw! spaghetti western sade coming from the car next to us in the taxi - a man hanging out the window w a cigarette and a bears shirt. the last day in rome, after 3 weeks of what felt like aimless and restless wandering, i escaped the tourist haze. stumbled on a lovely neighborhood. a cute girl invited me to her print show opening the next night, and i became so sad i was leaving. ————————————————————————————————————————————————- “whether it is the fault of the smog, of the vibrations, or just the effects of time, which, millennium after millennium, erodes everything to dust, the fact is that the presumed eternity of Roman remains has perhaps come to its twilight, and our fate will be to witness its end” - italo calvino, the narrative of trajan’s column ———————————————————————————————————————————————- it’s funny when you travel how you only become obsessed with home. not always homesickness but always measuring home with the new place. weighing things out “could we live here? what would it be like to live here? why is where we live shitty? why is where we so much live better?” to be american is to embrace a mash up of the rules you want to keep and those you want to toss. pros and cons but since lately i’ve been nothing but disgusted with our country, whenever i travel away i always end my trip feeling grateful for things about home monocultures (even ones that are increasingly becoming more diverse) feel so inflexible with the flow of human behavior and the many divergences we have my favorite meal this trip was at an amazing vietnamese restaurant on the outskirts of prague the international markets we have in the states are astounding the good stuff: good robust black cup of filtered coffee eggs for breakfast fresh vegetables green juice ——————————————————————————————————————————————— “don’t take the menu too seriously” - pietr from dany’s wine bar in prague don’t take too much too seriously, i try to remember. ——————————————————————————————————————————————— at the airport waiting to board the plane home, i see a meme about a girl saying her bf took 2 weeks alone in scotland to work on his masterpiece. it was a painting of a cat in a shakespearean hat with two glasses of wine in hand. it was profound to me. i think i cried thinking about doing something so dumb for 2 whole weeks. a relief - a freedom. i will be the boyfriend, one day. the threshold for happiness with a trip is 8 days, they say. i agree - more than that and you’ll be thinking much too much.
|
