i+alia a to z :: uzzzzzzz - urbano zanzara

as is her way, my friend [i like to call her an american curmudgeon abroad] points out the obvious in a way that makes it more obvious [she is a scientist after all]. and then we laugh.

we were waiting for a bus from certosa di pavia [beautiful! but out of the way. definitely worth a visit if you're ever in milan], trying to catch some shade in the heat. i started going over the letters that i have left in the alphabet - u, v, t, z, k, n...i... to which my friend begins listing italian words that start with these letters. it dawned on me that this is an alphabet, implying a discursive landscape. my friend assumed that i was doing an alphabet in italian, whereas i had approached this thing spatially, experientially but not necessarily linguistically.

so i thought it was about time i supplied some vocabulary.

urbano - adj. translates to urban.

zanzara - noun. translates to mosquito.

milano è piena di zanzare in estate, so make sure you buy some bug repellant. i really like the sc johnson stuff i found over here: autan. it smells great and isn't sticky.

i+alia a to z :: m - but what about matisse?

twice on this adventure the lyrical colors of matisse have alluded me and my companions. first at the vatican museum when our whirlwind tour of rome made for a bypass of the modern galleries for the sake of making it to the basilica. a second time at the tate museum in liverpool's city center. we missed him by a hair. we were there on the 13th, and his constellation was set to open on the 19th, along with arrangements orbiting the works of barbara hepworth, man ray, pablo picasso, and jackson pollock.

we did, however, get to see chagall, the tate's current special exhibit, and, i guess, through him, a bit of matisse's bold palette shading soft figures. being in the world of chagall, like matisse, is like being in a dream. and i thought how much i want to skip through these color bleeding streets and meadows of shapes arm in arm with my sister.

the exhibit focused mostly on his earlier work, which is full of hope [i think] and studies of union - love, marriage, human and nature, color and form, despair and transcendence, tradition and innovation, faith and life. and i thought, this is what i and my sister, my sister and i are to each other - color and form.

where i read stories - the author's, the picture's - she reads technique - how is the painter painting? i wanted to know how she would see these paintings, what she would say about the use of color, the choices between fluidity and rigidity, or shadow and what these observations might say about the bigger picture, the story behind the practice, the artist's values.

the promenade struck me especially for its allegorical rendering of the union between earth and sky, faith and food - and the joy in finding home in this union.

we often see things differently, my sister and i, me and her, but this difference is our great gift to each other. i remember basking in the glow of raphael's school of athens at the vatican museum, contemplating the philosophical arrangements and commentary, rereading plato and aristotle in my mind's eye, the union of ideal and practice, when all of a sudden i hear her gasp when our guide turned her attention to the left hand wall [that is if you are facing into the school].

i turned as my sister's eyes twitched over the image, and she chattered excitedly: 'see how he [raphael] creates a light within the pictures? look at the light reflecting off the armor. look at the moon. can you believe he achieved this affect in eight hours?'

and in her shading of my perception, i could see more clearly how hope visits us in the darkest recesses of our hearts. she is the companion to our most difficult trials. she leads us out, a beacon in the night, in her ingenuity, using all surfaces as a resource for increasing warmth.

my sister has this kind of ingenuity. she is the best kind of companion when all is lost. she finds a way into the cell of grief and out again, because that is more difficult, getting out of grief, leaving the cave. it is more difficult because it requires doing. my sister is a doer, and i am grateful for it.

here's to hoping that she and i, i and she will someday find matisse. together.

i+alia [via sco+land] a to z :: o - owl post

j.k. rowling wrote the philosopher's stone in edinburgh. i was unaware until dbr suggested we visit the cafe where rowling sat daily with a cup of coffee until she'd finished that first manuscript. her bio says she had so little then that the folks at the cafe were kind enough to refill her cup at no charge.

so we set out on our second morning to have breakfast there. however, the adventure went a bit 'diagon ally' on us (thanks to the favorite for this "life changing" insight about rowling language play).

we found it so easily.

only to discover that we were in the wrong place. 'you are looking for the elephant house.' we were at elephants and bagels. [????] the cafe keeper sent us on our way. i found that folks in scotland give directions in one of two ways. if they know where something is, they point in the general direction. if not, they seem to point in the direction that you're headed. [????] dbr seemed to understand this, as she stopped to ask folks for directional assurances every three blocks or so. i found this confounding.

we found it by and by.

now, a suggestion based on our experience. do not go to the elephant house for a hot breakfast. it was terrible. the coffee, however, is great. much appreciated in the quagmire of cappuccinos and/or instant coffee that pebbles my path through europa. so, go for coffee and a treat [they looked great too] but not breakfast - overpriced and bland.

and it is definitely worth the visit. our favorite part was the love notes written to harry and rowling and all manner of character on the bathroom walls.

i am reminded that this book series has become a defining moment for a generation, one related, i think to the the explosion of a genre that seeks another kind of world and the power to realize it. i recently read a blog about my age group [those born between 1975 and 1982] as being stuck between Gen X and gen-y/the-millenials. seems we are the in-be-tweeners.

anyway, a link perhaps among these classifications is the rise of post*apocalyptic youth fiction [and reality tv, but don't get me started]. we seem to be struggling to define something - ourselves, our values, meaning - despite the realization of a certain measure of powerlessness. we find ourselves in a very broken world and running low on the resources for trans*formation. so we are fascinated by extremes - blunt reality and fantasy, futility and superpowers, pornographic violence and the utopic. what does it all mean?

no harry potter novel would be complete without some wonder-full episode about the magic of owl post. so we bought some postcards at the elephant house and wandered another diagonal route to the post office. unfortunately, delivery via owl was not on the menu, but who knows what is hidden in between.

i+alia [via sco+land] a to z :: p - a picnic in princes street park

this is more a travel tip than a blog post, but this is a travel series after all. one of my favorite moments in the UK was very simple. on our first afternoon in edinburgh, don't-be-ridiculous (henceforth dbr) and i walked all over trying to decide what we might want to commit to eating. the haze of PCSM was heavy. inside was too hot. outside was crowded. one place was just strange. ugh.

then dbr had a stroke of genius: 'why don't we go to the grocery at marks & spencer's to get some dinner and sit outside.' marks & spencer is a department store (super affordable!) that also has a grocery section. it was like Whole Foods meets local bodega. we landed a feast of fresh and interesting salads, plus two sandwiches, plus two bottles of water, and a bag of crisps for under a tenner [spelling? this is an expression use for a ten-pound note]. amazing!!

then we settled down to eat under the trees of princes street gardens just across from the train station in edinburgh. it was cool and crowded enough for people watching but big enough for privacy. also, gorgeous flora.

so, travel tip: if you're in the UK and short on cash or just feeling something fresh and easy, visit marks & spencer, and weather permitting [folks kept telling me that its usually awful], plop yourself down for a picnic.

i+alia [via wa+erloo] a to z :: w - wa+erloo

waterloo - that is where don't-be-ridiculous' people live in liverpool. i didn't know that, however, when i arrived at manchester airport from rome. italy being very lax about tourist entries, i didn't even think to ask her for her family's address until i saw the UK entry form. and the customs officer gave me a scolding. all i knew was that she was picking me up and that i would be staying with her with her family in liverpool. 'do you have any idea what part of liverpool you're staying in? do you realize how big liverpool is? where do you live? florida? it would be like me coming to the US and saying that all i know is that i'm staying in florida [thinking: not exactly, but i take your point]. what if your friend doesn't show up? what will you do then? i'll let you through this time slamming the stamper down on my passport, but for your own safety traveling internationally, you should really know where you're going.'

she was there. she! my loverpudlian. and i was ready for some of what Old Single Mom calls "Pure, Cranium Smashing Magic." OSM has been in (or through?) the wars, as they say over here, and this mom says nothing less than PCSM will do for her to give up her single status again. a good rule i think.

and that is what she (not her) and i have - PCSM. if you're not sure if you have it, my experience says you probably don't. i am not the arbiter of anyone's 'magic,' but i now know the difference.

so, back in waterloo...she shared with me the best of things. we had her mom's roast dinner with mushy peas and carrots and potato mash and mint sauce [delicious! as was the company we shared it with]. we walked along the sea shore, counting the Iron Men, members of Antony Gormley's Another Place. these cast iron figures stagger the sand staring out into the horizon. they are unmoving but dynamic as they interact with the natural elements. they are submerged or emerging or naked depending on the tide and the sand build up. their presence draws one's gaze out to the sea scape, the colors rising and falling, and the other english sea shores which i've discovered host different kinds of customs, a panorama of the diversity and (im)possibilities within societies. this is perhaps part of what the customs officer had in mind.

she and i walked and talked, and i gazed out over this landscape where she became who she is and where we thought together about where we might want to go.

i+alia a to z :: r, X and [wh]y - remembering the roman right to die

most of what i am doing now is remembering. i have been from rome to waterloo to scotland to liverpool to milan with not much time for interruption. interruption defined as moments between moments, ruptures for thought, etc. trying to find the best way to define the prefix inter- i inadvertently came across the definition for inter: google definition, verb, 'place (a corpse) in a grave or tomb, typically with funeral rights.'

i thought, well isn't that coincidental since this chapter was meant for our experience at the catacombs of st. callixtus in rome, the first burial sites and worship spaces of Xians in the city. however, my rememberings of these things have been much disrupted of late by the perpetual internment of Black bodies seemingly for the sake of White society's safety. and now legal precedence offers young Black men the right to die if they coincidentally incite White terror. but 'we are a nation of laws' after all.

Hilaria (pronounced ee-lah-ree-ah), our guide at the catacombs, was careful to explain that the early Xians did not hide in these tombs. these were public spaces provided to the Xian communities for the burial of their dead. you see, it was not illegal to be a Xian. the empire prided itself on inclusivity and plurality. what was illegal was meeting in groups. the romans knew the danger of allowing people to organize.

anonymity ran deep in these early communities. the bone shelves were intermingled, citizen and slave, often marked with little more than a shell or first name. although, [important = wealthy] figures and families lay together in larger rooms providing enclosures for writing symbols and enacting sacrament. so, as Hilaria explained, Xians were not hiding their meetings - not that they were advertising them either. they were, rather, exercising their right to die if they were caught in violation of roman law, rome extended the right to die to citizens and enslaved alike: one may break the law, but in breaking the law, one opts for death. Xians chose martyrdom in the advent that they were caught with two or more gathered. Hilaria was careful to preserve this choice for the early Xians. hiding submits to persecution. anonymity affords agency. anonymity is a posture of survival.

but why is it that consent is required for martyrdom? isn't the absence of choice what distinguishes martyrdom from suicidal zealotry? and i thought, a hood then is an apt symbol for Xian identity in America today where the empire's right to die is still extended apparently.

but it matters who wears the hood and why doesn't it. race matters folks! it mattered in the martyrdom of Trayvon Martin. i say this because some have doubts, some smart people. even a review of the trial proceedings, however, cannot offer a complete picture, especially since the prosecution did a poor job and zimmerman DID NOT have a public defender. but 'we are a nation of laws,' and keeping race out of the courtroom (maybe gender too?) amounts to appointing an all White, all woman-identifying jury. w-t-FL?

White is a race just in case one hasn't read even just a little of the last several decades of race critical theory. a jury of zimmerman's peers? maybe. does a jury of one's peers beget justice? perhaps not, especially if that jury shares one's concerns for preserving privileges. why not a jury of Trayvon Martin's peers? let's just all be honest about the UN-likelihood of a Black, man and/or male identifying person being appointed to that jury. why not young people better equipped to identify with a young person's actions? Trayvon Martin was old enough to die.

there are A LOT and a lot better opinions that have hit the wires over this case for sure. and mine is an anonymous kind of voice. i don't expect to get much traffic. i don't want it either, lest i fall into the sin juror B37's capitalization on crucifixion. again, w-t-FL? please tell me that post*opportunism is grounds for a retrial because she has arguably called into question her credibility as a reasonable human being. oh, forgive me. we live in the empire where ambition and the tenacious protection of one's property outweigh reason every time.

there it is, the heart of the matter. it takes us back a little further in the Xian story to a Jew from Nazareth and the difference between citizen and slave, owner and usurper. as a member of the owning class, it will be very difficult for me to claim a Xian identity at the end of the day, like a camel trying to pass through the eye of a needle. i would have to give up all i hold dear and still, there is the recognition that i have that choice.

real martyrs do not have that choice. their lives are taken for the sake of things a hood will not cover. no, i do not need many to read this ramble. this is a statement of my preferential option for those who do not have their day in court. this is reminder for myself and hopefully for others who share my privilege to think twice about their neutrality, ambivalence, or worship of law when death is at hand.

i+alia a to z :: h - heartstones

"There are sermons in stones," said Hilda, thoughtfully smiling at Kenyon's morality; "and especially in the stones of Rome." from Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Marble Faun

another visual record...a couple of summers ago, i visited my very dear friend's lake house in michigan. this house reminded me so much of the house in Bethany Beach, Delaware where my mom and gran and sis and i spent my childhood summers. my gran and her friend jane called it 'willow green' for the willow trees that lined the property. moving around so much, the house at bethany was a constant. i store many of my most sacred memories there - waves towering over my head and crashing directly onto the sand (seemingly), the water and sand like steal under the late days' sun, twilight on the beach (my mom's favorite time), the outdoor shower and the burnt orange bathrobe assigned to me, hours spent in the attic playing little people, leba jane's daschund, kings in the corner, being too young to sleep in the 'the tackle box' which was the big boys' bunk house, purple spandex shorts, seven brides for seven brothers, and joseph and the amazing technicolor dream coat. jane's son was a teacher, like gran and jane, and one summer, i watched - over and over again - a video of the production that he directed at the middle school where he taught. you see, a girl played joseph. i was riveted.

all of these rememberings came back to me in my friend's house, as they come back to me now. i could tell that her heart lives there. i noticed a heart shaped stone that she had on one of her end tables. she showed me a book that was the inspiration for procuring such a treasure - josie iselin's heart stones. so this post is not entirely an original idea, but when is history ever that original?

i found a heart stone, well several, on my friend's beach. i came away with arms full of stones. i then proceeded to pass along this search to my family gifting them with heart stones and iselin's book the following valentine's day. it wasn't long on this summer holiday that we began to pick them up and slip them into each others' pockets. in assisi, i came upon a patch of heart stones growing wild. and in positano, while we worshipped the sun on a rock beach, my dad turned from the mediterranean shoreline and tossed me a beautiful gray rock with white veins - "for you babe." i remember it was cool from the water but dried fast and hot in my hand.

assisi

pompei

*walking the streets and baths and agora, even the red light district, thinking about this society's legacy to ours in ways of commerce and education, how these values can be oppressive, but also how the best of these traditions have been stunted (for example, the impending loss of physical education and the arts in U.S. education)

the coliseum, rome

*indestructible?

appia antica, rome

the pantheon, rome

*marriage venue of helena and the magisterium, raphael presiding

st. ignatius, rome

the vatican

*part of Arnoldo Pomodoro's Sphere Within Sphere representing the hope for a new world emergence out of the fracturing of the old

finding these love notes in the hard folds of ruin depends on a lens of hope. my heart now breaks for what the pillars of society and justice represent right now, then, always - the worship of law over the recognition of human dignity. our president says, "we are a nation of laws, and a jury has spoken." i say we should be a nation of people - intelligent, embodied, sacred. for my (mostly white) friends who keep espousing the importance of respecting the justice system, let's take a minute to remember who this system serves and who it does not. zimmerman has his day in court; trayvon martin does not. will he ever?

i+alia a to z :: l - lovely

getting into the visuals a little. this post is dedicated to my maternal grandmother who we belovingly call gran. she was not able to make the trip, but i kept a special record for her of a few of her favorite things, extra-but-ordinary reminders of the divine's loveliness and the divine's love for us. happy birthday gran! you are much on my mind.

at the villa

on the walk from manarola to corniglia, cinque terre

odds and ends in chianti

assisi

positano

princes street garden, edinburgh

xoxo

p.s. also, thinking how lovely it is to meet don't-be-ridiculous' LOVELY family, and to be able to celebrate birthdays with them while away from my gran on hers.

happy birthday to mandy and hayley!