year in review

After a whirlwind year of new jobs, new dances, a new cat, a new tattoo, traveling in Italy, traveling in Pennsylvania, painting, cooking, writing, photographing...a girl needs a break, and time to process the end of the past year and start making plans for the new one. I'm a sentimental sap and have never been a fan of New Year's Eve - save the spumante. And I especially despise the inevitable ritual of "New Year's resolutions": lose weight, eat healthier, save more money, be more positive...everyone makes the same promises to themselves and then breaks them by the time Valentine's Day rolls around. I didn't make a single resolution last year and I don't intend to do so this year. But I can rejoice in a beautiful year well spent full of positive energy, learning experiences, new experiences, love, joy, nurturing old friendships and cultivating new ones. To all of you the five of you who read my blog, I wish you a 2013 full of good stuff, peace and happiness.

Buon anno a tutti!

January, La Veneria Reale, Torino

February, Massimo makes necci at La Panca

April, Occupazione Farsesche, Teatro Puccini, Firenze

April, i bring warmth with Sharon Estacio, Firenze

May, Mr. Winston takes a nap, Firenze

Summer, "English Through Art", Mugello

July, Roberto Benigni Tutto Dante, Santa Croce, Firenze

September, laurel tree courtesy of Joshua Ross at Mind's Eye Tattoo, Emmaus, PA

September, Decameron at University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

October, chestnut season, Palazzuolo sul Senio, Tuscany

December, Christmas with Mom and Dad, Firenze

bite of autumn

Winnie guards this season's harvest

In honor of autumn, a favorite apple recipe.

Apple Spice Cake

Ingredients:
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
2 cups flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. cinnamon (or more...I'm heavy handed on the cinnamon)
1/2 tsp. ginger (dried is good, fresh is better)
3/4 tsp. salt
1 cup sugar
1 Tbsp. honey (I used chestnut honey, it's kick ass)
2 eggs
4 apples, diced (Granny Smith are good, but anything locally grown is even better!)

Preheat oven to 170 C (350 F). Butter and flour an 8 in. round cake pan.
In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda and powder, spices and salt; set aside.
In a large bowl, whisk together butter, sugar and eggs; fold in apples.
Add flour mixture slowly until just combined (don't over mix - it makes baked goods tough).
Pour into pan and bake for approx. 45 minutes. Cool and dust with powdered sugar.
Buon appetito! Enjoy this little bite of autumn.

divided: an expat's two homes

self-portrait, in progress

Being an American living abroad usually means that every so often, we head back to the "mother county" and pay a visit. I'm due for mine next week. Every trip back gets harder and harder - harder to say goodbye to my life here in Florence, harder to re-adjust to American culture, harder to fit back into a routine that hasn't changed much in my 24 years...it's just hard. 

After two years in Italy, I feel myself a woman divided, neither Italian nor completely American, living in a kind of limbo state. Don't get me wrong, I feel like my home is Italy and this is where I belong. But ever since my love affair with Italy began, about four years ago, I feel like wherever I go a part of me is missing. 

It's no surprise that my only close friends over here are expats themselves - it's obvious, we can relate to each other. We share the frustrations of having to spend 45 minutes in line at the post office, just to send one letter. We can snicker together at the irony of Florentine women, who on the outside look polished in their Ray-bans, high heeled Hogans and Gucci purses but as soon as they open their mouths sound like country bumpkins, cafoni. We hate how Italians will talk and talk and talk and talk about change, and then give up, lascia stare!, and go have an aperitivo. These friends of mine are from Maine, New York, Nantes and Lyon, but they are my Italian family in this mixed up world of "expatriatism"...yes, I just invented a word.

self-portrait, in progress

But I'm beginning to realize that even if I feel divided between two countries, those two countries are my homes. Two homes! I'm lucky really, with two families to love, two sets of friends to visit, two cultures to explore and enjoy, two parts of myself to cultivate. I always wanted to be a "global citizen" and I feel like I can finally call myself one. 

In the end, my home is where I make it. For now, I'll just have to lighten up and consider how fortunate I am to be a woman divided.

"I leave you my portrait so that you will have my presence all the days and nights that I am away from you."                  - Frida Kahlo

come on back

Consumed by children, summer camp, a new kitten, a new project, a new painting, The Blue Room has been abandoned for a month! But it's okay...there are pictures to sum it all up.

Sir Winston doing his homework

Sushi dinner in Via dei Cairoli

Mini-Matisse and her mamma

to the fates, of summer

Toes at Riotorto, Toscana

You know it's the start of summer in Florence when the air is so thick with jasmine that you feel drunk, giddily perfumed by the little white flowers. The days are hot and sunny, the nights are crisp and you grab a scarf for the bike ride home. Scarlet cherries, duroni, suddenly appear on the stands of fruttivendoli, and by Friday night most Florentines have evacuated our city, taking to their mountain retreats in the Maremma or to the sea in Cecina.

It's best to start the summer with a poem, I think - a prayer for a season of creativity and new experiences.
_________________________________________________________________

To the Fates

Grant me a single summer, you lords of all, 
A single autumn, for the fullgrown song, 
So that, with such sweet playing sated, 
Then my heart may die more willing.


The soul, in life robbed of its godly right, 
Rests not, even in Orcus down below; 
Yet should I once achieve my heart's
First holy concern, the poem,


Welcome then, O stillness of the shadow world!
Even if down I go without my
Music, I shall be satisfied; once
Like gods I shall have lived, more I need not.



- Friedrich Hölderlin (trans. Christopher Middleton)

site-specificity

Theater is a verb before it is a noun, an act before it is a place.  - Martha Graham

i bring warmth a site-specific dance performance by Sharon Estacio with Lauren MacLaughlin at Palazzo Pitti, Firenze - photo by Alberto Galligani

i bring warmth, Sharon Estacio and myself - photo by A. Galligani

trees in the forest

Among the trees, Monte Asinaio, Toscana

Two years ago from yesterday, I graduated from college. I'm known to be a sentimental sort of person who appreciates anniversaries, relishes in looking back on the past while reflecting on progress made. Nowadays, when universities are more expensive than ever and finding a job in your specific field of study is a job in and of itself, I think many college graduates are prone to take a look at their degree and think: did I do the right thing? Was it worth it? Everyone said, "Get an education and you'll get a good job" - where are those people when I'm up to my eyes in student loan debt and still living with my parents. Etc. etc. etc.
For me, the fleeting thought that passes through my mind is: "Am I wasting my education?"
I defiantly answer myself: "No! How dare you think that!" Four years at Pitt have taught me that post-grad life isn't so black and white.

For me, a college education isn't just a degree and the hope for decent employment or a decent paycheck, it's an experience that teaches who you are and who you want to be (dear reader, sorry for sounding so trite). I think that today, it might be hard for students to see the practical benefits of a college education - those promised jobs, promises for a stable future, a house, a family (the American dream, right?) have all but been dashed to the winds. Call me naive, but what if that's okay? What if we continue school just because we want to know ourselves better? Because we want to learn, to understand the world and relate to it? Is that so bad?! What if we say, "Fuck practical - I'm doing this for myself without ulterior motives for becoming Joe-College-Grad with his white collar job, SUV, wife and kids in suburbia heaven."

I think it's important, more than ever, for the class of 2012 to look forward to all the non-practical benefits of four more years in school: independence, abandoning your comfort zone, learning new things for the sheer joy of it, questioning others and yourself, demanding the truth, ending blind acceptance, making a contribution to the world, living! Living!

One of my favorite professors at Pitt once told me that "You have to see the forest for its trees." Whenever I feel consumed by details, all the small stuff, or like Dante in the selva oscura, "dark wood", I think of his words. So high school grads, college grads, take this advice and don't despair: you aren't wasting your education, you haven't wasted it and you won't, just as long as you see the forest for its trees.