A conglomerate update from a trip to Venice

Sorry it's been ages, life is busy.
I just got back from a conference in Venice (yes, that Venice)! Here are several short little blurb descriptions and some pictures so you don't feel like you're missing out.

Day 1
In some ways it feels like home. Slowed down to a crawl, and without the comfort of constant interaction, I am forced to also slow down. Breathe the cigarette wafts of air and immerse myself in the buzz of languages bouncing around the piazza. It's a Friday night. The students are coraling in their frequent hang outs, laughing away the mess of a week. The couples' groups find their friends and recollect the busy tourist games of the day. The funny part is when I recognize the language. It sounds less musical. The twang of Midwestern resonance don't hold the same charm as they do over rolling hills. Here the music is in the pure vowels skipping over the canals. They run all of them together in a kind of jubilant out pouring. It contrasts the languid pace of the days end. A renewed energy bubbling up from the base of the piazza fountain. With the cacophony of bells, just 17 minutes after the hour, then lights turn on and the pocket of children chasing each other on scooters herds the universal parental call for home. The whine, "cincho minuti mama!" But that trick has worn thin. Home they trudge, wheels clacking over stone slabs.
Rick Steves' followers sit next to me. Recognizable from the pocket guide more to hand than a phone. "But not next to someone smoking," don't we all have dreams. They shuffle with their fleece catalogue jackets and intentionally broken-in tennis shoes. Ready for the walk. They have come from Indiana, or Ohio, or Michigan, looking for the empty nest filler. It is not here, but it could be. Only just around the corner. Maybe over there. Perhaps in a nice set of earrings or a real glass of wine.
People, couples mostly, stop by to look at the menu. Looking back to each other before deciding in mumbled tones the next move. Some families, with children exhausted from the day of walking pull at arms and beg to sleep. Not yet, the night begins late here. Much past your bedtime, enjoy the temporal leniency.
I too have walked. Over cobbled slabs, past wrong turns and over bridges older than my country. A woman alone squeaks by narrow paths and gets looks at the restaurants; "solo uno". A city of love for one porfavore. No worries, a waiter, courageous enough to try out his English gets my number without mocking my Italian. A drink? No, jet lagged is not a good scent. Tomorrow. Or at least maybe tomorrow. It is still a place I can find my way home from, that wins the bet.

Day 2
Now a reunion takes place in front of me. Squeals and hugs, a King Charles spaniel twirled around in the mix too. I care not for the reunited friends and more for the pawed companion who speaks an international language of ear scratches and belly rubs. The damp chill sneaks up on you at this hour. It begs for warm food and booze. Something warm.



Day 3 Murano
When I'm happily divorced and on a sabbatical, my goal is to convince the department I'm working for to pay for a writing vacation in Murano. Venice will do, but Murano is the goal. There in true mama Mia fashion I will have a lurid affair with some glass maker and it will become a best selling slush almost-fiction novel to sell to my other newly divorced friends. In the movie remake, Amy Adams will play me, naturally, and someone who has recently earned the silver fox title (maybe Ryan gosling) will play the sophisticated but goofy love interest. Remember that scene from Ghost with Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze? That except glass instead of pottery. It will be a middling movie; but the rights alone will make more than my salary for several years.

Of course I will have become mostly fluent in Italian, using my inevitable mistakes as a charming interlude to making friends. Because who doesn't love someone who tries? At some point, I will begin to understand the catholic traditions, but mainly attend church for the social function and to look at the art. I will spend what little money I do have on sheek clothing and nice jackets. I'll do some research before hand and sign up to lead exclusively English tours where I will be tipped because of my terrible puns and fun jokes that made all the old people laugh. It will inevitably test my patience, so I'll only work part time. Tourists are terrible in large quantities.

Day 5
I am sitting across the aisle on the vaporetto (water bus) from two elderly women. They greet each other in a familiar way though they got on on different stops. As if they always find each other on this route at this time. Returning from some geriatric adventure. One styles nylons and the other patterned pants, but they find their commonality by pulling up pictures of grand children on their smart phones. Of my limited vocabulary, I hear "piccolo filio" or youngest boy, and "bello bello" in constant refrain. They coo over each image before standing and tapping another member of their club on the shoulder as they debark.

To replace them, a recently engaged couple on a trip stares at a map across from me. They have been affectionately staring at each other and tapping legs and hands. Now she is tired, resting her head on his shoulder as he continues to scan the tourist map, pen in hand ready for the next notation. She might fall asleep here, comfortable in the private nook of their public respite. It has been a long day.

My friend Isabel has left my side to look at the sights. We are both ready for dinner though I have selected the slowest possible route home- though I defend that position rather than standing in the cold. Instead, I people watch, and wait. She scrolls through maps and makes plans with the other Spanish speakers. I do not blame her, and I have stayed to my plan.

The couple has both closed their eyes. I am afraid to wake them as they look so peaceful here I. This crowded space. With the jingle of souvenir bells and the jostle of strangers that they find such peace is stunning. I surreptitiously take a picture. It does not do the intimacy justice, though I am grateful to have witnessed an instant of what must be a refreshingly new adventure to a familiar love story.

Delays

My phone has reminded me that it's been over 100 days since my last blog post. In those hundred days I completed my first year of PhD land- and didn't fail, I taught 9 kids in a summer course at the crack of dawn, I flew home, taught speech children, got a cat, and started year 2. Some of them may be milestones, in other ways it's more of the same. Teach class, take class, read, pet cat and try not to think about the other things on your to do list.
But let's focus (now 4 weeks into the new semester) on the fun things: new cat! Burke is his name and he is absurdly fluffy. He's two and was rescued by a woman who noticed he didn't have any front claws of the strays she was feeding. So home he came with my parents (who are suckers for pretty cats) and then he and I flew all the way to Phoenix. He's 15 pounds of furrball who enjoys chewing on bones, playing with anything that has feathers, and long cat naps on top of my dresser. It's been fun teaching him to do tricks. So far he knows how to sit, beg, turn around, and high five (my favorite). And with that update, I need to go clean my apartment to minimize the catastrophic amount of hair (see what I did there?).

Fin.

Thus ends my first year of PhD stuff. I'm pretry sure I blinked and it was all over. This morning I saw posts from friends at my masters program talking about the final they administered and I cannot believe that it was a year ago I did the same. It's been quite the ride.

If I were to extract one thing from this year it would be as follows: make time for the rest of you. Sure, in your studies, your professors care about what kinds of knowledge goes in and comes out of your brain, but there are other parts of you- not just a brain on a stick. And sometimes that brain needs other stuff to do instead of contemplate theory or wrestle with the big issues. Read some fiction. Read some poetry, watch a movie, dance. Do something that keeps the rest of your body up to speed and content.

For me that's reading non-academic work on my commute. In a semester I've read 10 books, and the people at the library have begun to recognize me.

Now I make my way to my summer class and begin my dawn treck every morning to campus. At least the desert doesn't feel like puddles of sweat this time of day.

Stories

This past week I called and talked to my grandmother for an hour. Now in her 90s and in an assisted living facility, she had words to burn, telling me stories about not being able to find wedding clothes after the war, or having her mother make a dress that smelled terrible when wet. While she forgets names here and there, I keep thinking these are not names from yesterday, these are names from 60 years ago. She can describe in detail a train ride to Memphis or a makeshift alter for the first church service she attended in town, or the pink buttons on that smelly dress. She called my dad a pain for crying all the time before he went to first grade, she described bundling my then 8month old aunt up to go out, and the ten sets of identicle bake ware she got for her wedding that was the only suitable wedding gift in town.

She sits every day in the same room, her cat curled up on top of the chair by her head, and it only took me an hour to call.

She might talk about yhat conversation for another 2 weeks- her granddaughter getting her PhD in Arizona called for a chat.

Kittens

Kitten: a baby cat.
Likely adorable and fluffy, draperate for attention.
See also: dagger claws.

I'm a cat person. I like dogs ans pretty much all mammal pets, but my favorites are cats. They're independent, don't care if you're desperate for their attention or not, and kind of like dealing with cuter adults. Some friends in the cohort rescued and bottle fed a kitten that was abandoned in a construction site. Yesterday, I went over to visit said kitten, and she's so big! Compared to when I saw her last, she's active and fluffy and chases anything. I bear the scars of hand chasing which she was enthused by for hours last night. She eventually made up for it by falling asleep on my stomach and purring. So we're even.

Tonight, I attempted yet again to make friends with the apartment calico. She's beautiful, but terribly cautious of me. I talk to her every time I go get my mail and she is ok with that until I get about 6 feet away. Then she runs. When I went to drop off some letters tonight, I tried again, but she bolted. As I walked away, a new stray, a little teenager who is black and white with a little black splotch on his nose, came up to me begging for pets. So I knelt down to oblige, and within minutes, the pretty calico came almost close enough for me to pet her. We didn't quite bridge that gap, but she seemed to think that if I was nice to that cat, I'd be her friend too. With any luck, that little kitten's blessing will make me more cat friends.

Speech Christmas

After returning from the Land of Lincoln, I'm struck by how comforted I felt from being around long time friends. The way that speech usually works is that you get to know people over years and much of the time (as in my case) they stick around longer than their four years of eligibility. That means that the people from around the country that I "grew up with" in the activity all come back a few times a year to reconnect and judge the new crop of kids. It honestly feels like coming home to a family that has been waiting for you all this time. Open arms and honestly glad you made it. It had been a year since I put pen to ballot, and I have been so drenched in school that I forgot how good it feels to smile because you see a familiar face.

It's not common enough that people who know and appreciate each other welcome one another with open arms. Next time you see someone you genuinely appreciate, tell them, welcome them home.

Have you had a dance break today?

It's the end of the weekend, and by my clock it looks like it's probably officially Monday. But in your stressful week ahead, especially for you speech kids looking at nationals, I have a suggestion: take a dance break. It sounds silly I know, but trust me. Put on some of your favorite tunes, something with a beat and flail your body. Don't worry about "looking good" whatever that means, and instead shake out all of the tension. Jump up and down, do some crazy kick move, shake your booty, flap your arms around- what ever it takes to make you laugh at yourself for doing this alone in your living room or with friends. After a song or two, rehydrate and get back to work.

I can't tell you the number of times I have used this when those stressful points of the year come up. It's like slipping back into childhood for a few minutes to regain some energy, get your creative juices flowing again, and to bring some levity to the situation that looks insurmountable.

So, have you had your dance break today?

Happy in green

After a spontaneous social night on Friday I climbed back on the train to go home. Typically at 11 at night, the comfort of being in a public location place especially on one of the drunk holidays. But I entered the train to see a young family bouncing a beautiful one year old girl with a full head of hair. It was late and clearly she was awake for the excitement, but they were still trying to get her to sleep. Right after I walked on, three people who carried most of their belongings with them followed too. They quietly sat on the parallel bench to where the family stood. One man, carrying a dozen peach colored roses and wearing a green beaded tie looked at the family. In his bright blue eyes, you could watch flashes of nostalgia, maybe thinking of his own family or children. When the little girl turned to look at him, he grinned, showing all the gaps in his smile. Her mom turned to see who she was looking at and old her to wave. The familiar exchange of "can you say hi?" And an eager other party making faces and waving back in encouragement ensued. Later when the little girl dropped her stuffed animal as they were about to exit, the humility of the gap-smiled man to pick it up and hand it to her was precious. The family left, waving to the three on the bench seat, dragging the wagon behind them.
The three exited a few stops later, toting a dozen roses and whispers of memories with them.

Flash from the past

I'm one of those people who remembers movement and mannerisms. If the timing's right I can even mimic them which makes me fun to have a parties. What I didn't know until this past week is that I remember those movements somewhere deeper in my brain than regular things.

On Friday, my parents came into town and we went to a spring training game. Because some of the tickets they bought were going to be unused, we invited one of my high school classmates to join. He lives in the area and our parents are close. About the middle of the third inning, mom and I were getting some concessions and I see a guy I haven't seen in 6 years walking- there he is. I didn't remember him by his face as he was walking away from me, but I remembered the way that he walked. Which when I say it like that sounds really creepy. Oops. It's almost that even as we graduate and in his case grow into our bodies, the way they move doesn't change, just they way the display. His mannerisms were all the same, how he crossed his arms over his chest, his anxious foot tapping hadn't changed from high school. In that way he was still so familiar. Coming from years of sharing classes, and choirs, and game nights- to a baseball game in another state. The movements were the most second nature piece to the puzzle.

Little toes

Last week I was on the train.
It was late, nearly 10 by public transportation standards.
a woman pushed a stroller in to the car carrying her two little girls. One was about 2, the other maybe 4-5 months.
The oldest had an adult leather jacket wrapped around her back, and the youngest some footie pajamas.
For half the ride, the young mother pulled the littlest from her seat and held her to face her sister. They giggled. After 15 minutes, mom put the littlest one back, and pulled out a book. A few moments of quiet.
Her oldest started screeching for attention, hold on a few more minutes. Some quiet moments.
Kicking her dirt crusted feet against the durable kid-proof plastic.

Friends-iversary

This weekend we celebrated welcoming the potential new cohort to campus. With happy hours and lectures for all the would be scholars, we had a jolly time. Moments of laughter and good cheer not to mention snooty jokes flitted around the room. At one point I found myself sitting in the middle of a two person bench sandwiched between members of my cohort. With my arms wrapped around either side I thought about how it had been one year since I met these strange, quirky nitwits and how grateful I am to be surrounded by such a terrific group. They are supportive and kind, while still being able to give and take a little dish. When there are two types of academics: the know it alls who live and die by research and proving how brilliant they are; and then there are those who know they are smart enough to play the smart kid games and appreciate the others in the room as part of a larger contribution. Lucky for me, my cohort friends are the second group of people- the ones that make the drudgery of academia amusing and doable. I wouldn't have liked a program that stuck too close to the high browed snobbery of the ivory tower.

So of all the things that welcome weekend reminds me of, it's a simple phrase tossed around the office regularly:

I love my friends.

Cooking relief

I'm typically the person in the department who does a lot of stress baking. But lately I've not been so stressed as in previous semesters. Today I was closer to bored than anything. I went to the grocery store, picked up plenty of groceries for the week, and came back to bake pumpkin bread. It's a wonder what little habits come back and give purpose again. Sure, it's exhausting, but now the apartment smells great, I've completely drained the lingering stress from my body. Little habits that happen to be both productive and stress relieving.

Keep cooking friends.

AFI top 100 list

After far too long, I have finally finished watching all of the films listed on both the 1997 and 2007 edition of the American Film Institute's top 100 movies. There were some hilights, there were some low moments.

Low moments: the really long epics especially the ones with racist overtones. Even for it's historic value, Birth of a Nation doesn't stay in the category of 'overtones' and instead just blatant. Plus, the 3 hours with intertitles was a bit much. Not much of a fan of the highly ranked Lawrence of Arabia. Especially the part where women were on screen for less than 30 seconds of the ghastly long production featuring many sand dunes.

Highlights: there were lots of magical actors with tons of repeat performances. Meryl Streep, Dustin Hoffman, Jimmy Stewart, Jack Nicholson, Kate Hepburn and crew all had some remarkable performances. So worth it in that capactity.

If you need a year long (or if you're me- 2 year) project, stick with the 2007 list. It cuts some of the eeek moments from the 1997 version, and keeps things a little more modern for you young at hearts.

Night at the opera

After many years of waiting to be in the same place as a production of Madame Butterfly, tonight the stars aligned. Knowing that I'm a nerd of a different generation and no significant other to bribe/seduce into seeing a 3 hour opera, I took myself on a date and sat admists the families and elderly couples. I cried (of course I did- what did you expect?), and it was totally worth it.

Here's what I've learned in grad school: sometimes you have great friends and you do great things together. Sometimes you have great friends with other priorities and that can't stop you from doing what you want to do. So look yourself in the mirror and say, I'm an independent woman, and I'm dressing up and taking myself on a date to the oper because I can. And it really is rewarding to be so totally self reliant that no one can sneeze at you making your own decisions- nor can they complain to you about making them go do something they didn't want to do.

(PS: Pinkerton is a jerkface and the whole audience was so peeved at his character that they booed his curtain call. Sure, nice tenor, but what a terrible human.)

Out of place alumni

You have to understand that I graduated from very small schools. My college bears a name that is almost unpronounceable to anyone who lives outside the state. But up there, to see a sweatshirt with my alma mater emblazoned across the front is a semi regular occurrence. Somebody or their mother knows somebody else who went there. Or so they think.

Everywhere else- it's got to be a microscopic fraction of a percentage point to see a similarly designed sweatshirt in this state. I mean sure, me and my great aunt and uncle went there and they live not too far away. But that sight is a long way from home.

On Monday, I was sitting in class, and I gazed across the room to see a student I'd not seen in previous weeks. And what was he wearing but a big college lettered sweatshirt with a familiar mash of syllables. I did a double take. My first thought- oh I haven't seen that design. Followed by- wait a second, you don't live there anymore. Turns out, new guy also shares my alma mater and graduated only a few months before I arrived on campus. We know similar people, we've walked the same halls, and the likelihood of 2 people in a 12 person class at a mega university sharing a minuscule alma mater 30 hours away is almost nothing.

And yet, Walt Disney's famous tea cup theme song plays sheepishly in the corner:

It's a small world after all.

Don't sleep on the train

A few nights ago, I got on the train to head home to see a man sleeping on the floor loomed over by two of the transportation security guards. The man was clearly in the aisle and making the crowded train more uncomfortable, but wasn't hurting anyone. Two men seated behind me kept talking about how the security team was probably really frustrated that this guy kept going back to sleep and that no one would listen to them. Their conversation morphed into how or what to do for people who only have warmth and relative security on public transportation. They made some jokes, but subtly acknowledged how complicated the problem was for homeless populations. As the train slowed to a stop, a man who was sitting next to them rose to exit and said,

"Ya, it's easy to crack jokes, but it's actually pretty sad when you think about it."

It's a complicated problem. More dire and complex than any one person falling asleep on the floor and being removed from the train. And two days later, it's still sad and I'm still thinking about it.

Small kindnesses

Today I got onto the train to the singing and chattering of a fellow passenger. She seemed to be talking to her reflection, no conversation topic off limits. Before the train took off, the conductor asked her if she was ok, to no response. She sang about Jesus and the directions for a bit until a family with 5 kids most of whom in strollers. The gentleman talking to the parents catalogued all of their ages as the woman singing to her reflection stopped singing to pass out Rice Krispie treats to the kids. Without faltering, without deliberation of what she had or what she saved. She saw some kids on the train, and gave them a treat. So simple, and so kind.

Resolution.

I don't typically make a lot of New Years resolutions, but here's one that's pertinent if you read this blog (by chance. I don't want to make you do anything that collides with your own new year promises). I'm going to make an effort to post at least weekly. Hell, I even set a weekly reminder on my phone. So here is the first. Week 1/52: ✅

Enough of the chipper stuff. If you are looking for some way to perk up your mood for the year and maybe alter some of that negative goop that keeps following you around, here's something I've tried for each school year (adaptable for your traditional calendar-minded folk): try a joy jar.

Sure it sounds silly. Here's the pitch. Every time there is an event, a moment, a thought, or conversation that brought you joy, write it down on a little slip of paper and put it in a little decorative jar. I have a yarn-wrapped Mason jar that I can't find a lid to. It doesn't have to be every moment (though some of you are naturally perky and ambitious), but maybe one thing. It might not happen every day, and there's no pressure if it doesn't. But at the end of the year, pour out your jar and read all the moments you've catalogued of your happiness. It's less time intensive than a journal, and honestly really rewarding at the end.

I tried this the last year of my master's program and found so much laughter in remembering the little things. Stuff like my niece saying something odd, or a conversation that made me laugh so hard I cried, or a teaching moment I was proud of.

Good luck with your first week of resolutions. Check one off the calendar.