Beyond the classroom's window, framed with mustard yellow curtains, past the playground, and the ceramic roof neighborhood, rolling hills flow like waves into the distance. They do not hold the answer. What do I want this journal to be? When I have returned to America and Cagli is once again an ocean away, what use will my diary have? I want it to help me remember. To see. To reflect. To analyze and record. This journal will be a collection of thoughts and moments of my journey abroad. Words will draw photographs, sentences will capture time. I want to take myself and all those who may read my journal across an ocean and back to this summer... to be able to sandwich a red poppy flower between the notebook's pages, describe its smell, beauty, movement, color... so that later, the dry and distant memories spring from the pages--- the bright crimson petals of the past begging to be touched.
My face slammed against the bus window as we rounded a sharp corner on the thin, unmarked road. Rome was hours away and so, I quickly realized, was any hint of the 21st century as I know it. Hills rolled like calm waves across the countryside and houses found themselves, like ships, at their peaks. On one side of every few hills, rows of grapevines, braided around their wire rope. We rounded another corner, another postcard image appeared. I wondered what lurked beneath those trees on the hillside, this seemingly untouched wilderness.
The roads got thinner. Passing cars grew less frequent. The hint of a town began to emerge. Two elderly men leaned against the side of a house as two women sat in chairs nearby. More people sprout from the land as if they were produced from it. Observing. Talking. Watching. Listening. Suddenly, the street turned to cobblestone. We had reached Cagli. No word I yet know fully describes this town. I feel like this place has been in a dream or a movie at times. But beauty, true beauty, mysteriously intoxicating beauty beams from the hidden life of Cagli. I have been here three days. A history that spans a timeline is hidden within these city walls. Cagli is a question and an answer.
$1.50 vino in a Dixie cup. An American Eagle towel on a rocky riverside. Poppies have replaced the yellow dandelions and the neighborhood pool is now a rushing river. An American in Italy.
I squint my eyes (note to self: bring sunglasses next time) to see the mountains that surround me and this town like a play pen, keeping me safe.
The Italian sky is quite indecisive. Thunder rolls... I remove my feet from the water and place them on the rocks. I don't want to go inside. The thunder, beating with a murmur... rolls in the clouds above. The creek trickles against the smooth rocks and pebbles. I think it's raining. But, I am soaking wet, drenched head to foot with a thin coat of mud, Italian grey-brown. So I sit. Safe. Sheltered by the trees that hang over the river. Thunder. I am not scared. I have been on an adventure. No storm can wash away that memory.
Determined to find a waterfall, Ryan and I found a small path, full of rusty poles and uneven stairs. The river was so beautiful, its infinite movement. A bend in the river ahead piqued our curiosity. We followed the traveling stream, rocks pushing into our bare feet. Surely our waterfall was beyond the next turn. I fell. He slipped. We laughed. We continued until we could go no further. Then, thunder. We had reached the end of our adventure... we would not be finding our waterfall today. Instead, we jumped in the water, blue green and too murky to see the bottom. Thunder rolled.
Cagli is a secret, and I am the eavesdropper. I will follow the whispering river to see what it has to say. Thunder, go away.
Ryan and I sit on a muddy hill... drinking wine out of gelato cups. The thunder has passed and the sun peers through the green foliage. We must go. A new friend. A new secret. Can this place be any more magical?
Crisp white sheets line the clotted mattress pad that barely covers bumpy springs. The Princess and the Pea. I'm in a room no bigger than a living room that holds seven single beds, all arranged in such a way that a single lane path swerves around---a comforting thing. I don't need to worry about random Swiss students crawling over me in the wee hours of the morning. My bed is wedged in the corner of the room... a right and left and right if you were to follow the path. My "Roman Holiday" --- four days with five friends at the Yellow Hostel... third floor, free Internet, and daily Happy Hours.
My feet have smeared a light dirt on the white sheets---they are calloused and dry---with blisters and cuts that will make tomorrow's extravagant walking a challenge itself. A long day... at Assisi, we grimaced at the number of tourist shops selling plastic rosaries for five euros and chubby Friar Tuck souvenir mugs. Here in Assisi, where animal loving St. Francis drew crowds with the Word of God, where a massive cathedral is erected over his grave, a peace can still be found, making my first blister well worth it.
Now, as the rustling quiets in the hostel, I will not say "Rome is a lot like New York City." Sure, there's speedy people, rushing cars and McDonald's. But, Rome still has its ancient beauty that enraptures any spectator. No history class lectures or travel guide books about Rome could have prepared me for its size and the strong urgency I felt to see it all.
Blister #2: Trevi Fountain tossing three coins over my shoulder. Rome, I will be back.
Blister #3: Finding dinner... sitting for a four course meal... molto bene.
Blister #4: Piazza Navona and a drink before walking the 45 minute trek back to bed only to have an hour conversation with five California students, intoxicated off Italian wine and Irish brew, who spent the semester in the Netherlands but would not let us leave until we had agreed to travel to Spain, "The best place ever!" as more than one had chanted (more than once).
My heart beat pulsates in my feet, a throbbing pain as if i had denied blood access to my toes all day. Dear, dear feet... I am so sorry. Me dispiace. Take me to the Vatican and Colosseum tomorrow and I promise I will never walk again (until morning). I delicately cover my rosy feet with socks. A couple battle wounds to travel around Italy is a small price to pay.
Another winding road. Another sunny day. Another gorgeous view. Another trip back to Cagli. I admit it. I over packed and I regret it. I had to bring the pants and the sleeved shirts to wear into the churches with their no short shorts and no tank top signs. Then, I needed to pack short shorts and tank tops for the 95 degree weather that Tony, our culture teacher, says gets trapped in the valley area of Florence. I brought tennis shoes for walking and flip flops just in case. I brought books with things to do and then a couple odds and ends as I tour Italy's city of Firenze. Packed my bag this morning with new souvenirs, artwork, t-shirts, and a stack of postcards that will probably never be sent.
I look out of my Bucci bus window. I think the clichéè is wrong... all roads lead to Cagli. Another bus ride. The land spreads like whipped butter as far as the eye can see... the land is quilted with patches of vineyards and corn, fields of poppies and silvery olive trees. Roads stitching the patchwork together. Another mountain. The sky is blue and the distant mountains seem to turn the same hue the farther back they go... greeting the sky as one. And the blue-green conifer trees look like feathers, so thin and fluffy, just stuck into the ground in rows. Another curve. Another road. I look at my poor feet.
It was a twenty-five minute walk to our hotel, a three bed apartment that Jason called a "porn star movie room." A huge mirror on the wall with a large bed beside it, a winding blue stair case took you to the loft to another bedroom. No AC. 30 Euros a night per person. A two minute walk to just about anywhere. The Duomo, a girlie pink, green, and white marbled church. The Ponte Vecchio and its glittery gold shops with the Italian and American girls alike glued to the glass. The Pitti Palace with floors of priceless paintings from Italy's finest. And once again, the cobblestone streets lined with street stalkers, vendors selling handmade crickets from palm leaves and cheap sunglasses to anyone who comes within their invisible store walls. And I loved it.
SHARP TURN. I feel like we are slowly winding around a hill. UP. DOWN. I need a seat belt.
Yesterday, Viareggio. 100 degrees Fahrenheit. I have never sweat so much in my life... the price you pay for lying out on the beautiful sandy beach on the Meditteranean. Plank 6. 4:30. Train from Viareggio back to Firenze. An hour and a half. Corn fields, eucalyptus, rolling hills, and mountain top towns. My "Top 10 Tuscany" book reported that this beach was "the Southernmost Riviera-style resort along the coast." Ceramic colored roofs with small backyard gardens. Green shudders, tiny trees. Looking out, a bell tower. Speed up, slow down.
We followed the crowd down the street at the Viareggio stop until the familiar umbrella beaches appeared. 29 Euros for four chairs and an umbrella. So much for the "private" beach... I was sand splashed, woke up, annoyed by the necklace sellers and towel merchants. For 29 Euros, I could have gotten a little fence to keep them all out. Small trees. A field of sunflowers. PACE flags on balconies. Another clock tower. Another town. "Firenze?" I ask, my eyes begin to droop. "Veinte minuti." says a gentleman sitting across the aisle, smiling, perhaps at my poor pronunciation or maybe my sun-blushed skin. Time to put my pen down. Time to close my eyes. Time to call it a day.
The city hall clock hands tick. 11 pm. I glance at my vino rosso swimming in a glass so large that I'm afraid my face might fall in. The piazza is illuminated by murky street lights and three lamp posts standing like the Vatican's Swiss guards along the side of Caffè del Commercio. A mist floats through the air, cigarrette smoke from the adjacent table, the only similar smell in America and Italian bars alike. Not much is going on tonight. In fact, not much goes on any night. La dolce de niente thrives in this town. As I stretch my legs out, feel the striped imprint the white plastic chairs have left on my thighs and realize that I have successfully been doing nothing as well for quite some time. I have been here for an hour. I have been here for days.
My pen has not moved from its spot on the white tablecloth beside an empty cappucino. My journal is open thirty pages deep. Warped sheets. Crumbled cover. Six weeks. Beach umbrellas. Rome. Euros. Florence. Italian mornings. Venice. Cappucino. Open markets. Gelato. Waterfalls. Vino. Cagli, of course. I am an American in Italy. My attempts at being an Italian have failed miserably. My journal is my defense. Weeks ago, we asked ourselves, "What sort of diary should I like mine to be?" I had no easy answer. Now, I write of the time passed, of Jake who serves my daily panino, and Mimi who makes me my morning cappucino. I am an American in Italy, searching for the words to describe moments and experiences that leave me speechless, with an awe no vocabulary sufficiently illustrates. I am out of place here. The lingering taste of wine will fade. Mornings filled with Italian whispers and street cleaners will be replaced with Starbucks coffee in styrofoam cups and the Weather Channel's classy elevator music. The outdated American songs blaring from the cafe's speakers will only be a distant tune in my head. All I will have is a bunch of words that serve as a memory of vanished moments... each page, each day... words arranged in sentences and sentences into thoughts to take me back, to help me remember.