At Loose Ends

If you're wondering where I've been, the answer is...nowhere.   I am at sort of at loose ends with several things.  I heard back from the Japan summer trip.  It's a no-go.  I still haven't heard anything from Turkey; I'm afraid to be optimistic.  I want it so much, more every time I go on Pinterest (I've set up a board there just for stuff about Turkey).

It's more than just that, though.  I keep feeling like it's time to make some kind of change, but I don't know what kind of change to make.  Should I change jobs?  Hairstyles?  The type of yogurt I have for lunch?  Should I learn another language?  How to crochet?  How to rebuild an engine?

I feel a vague dissatisfaction with everything, and I don't know why.  Nothing is terrible now.  I mean, of course, my car is still screwing up and leaving me stranded.  And I still have work stress.  Migraines.

I don't know what to do about any of this, though.  Is there even a way to make it better?  Isn't this what life is just made of?  I'm trying to stay focused on good things.  Into every life a little crap must fall but that doesn't mean it's all crap all the time.

Maybe it's just spring, that time of new beginnings.  Sometimes it fills the air and makes me want to bloom with the daffodils and the dogwoods.  I wish I knew what I needed to bloom myself.

Like French-Fried Hell

The past three days, I've been fighting off a migraine.  The weather has been rocking and rolling.  There has been stress of varying kinds.  Today, I lost the fight.

I made it to my off period.  I intended to find a way to defeat the headache so I could finish my day.  How silly of me.  Within 45 minutes, I was literally sobbing, head-on-desk, as the room spun and evil little psychos with spiky shoes jumped up and down  inside my brain.

I vaguely remember stumbling downstairs and telling my administrator something.  My head principal heard her talking on the walkie-talkies trying to call a sub, and I will forever be grateful for the fact that he told me (through her) to go on home.  They had it.

I sort of remember struggling to get my stuff together, literally and figuratively.  I sort of remember my administrator following me out to my car to make sure I made it.  I remember far too little of the drive home.

I do remember saying something over and over as I drove.  I became aware that it was the "To Be or Not to Be" soliloquy at some point.  I suppose there are some people who recite a poem or a psalm in times of distress.  Apparently, and probably not unexpectedly, I turn to Hamlet....

When I got home, I struggled to walk the dogs.  Then I lay down to hear them erupt into insane barking.  I dragged myself up and went to the door where a guy from EMEPA and I scared the living bejeezus out of each other.  He and another guy had come to replace my power meter.  He kept saying, "It will only take about 5 seconds.  Your power will only be off 5 seconds."  To be honest, I wouldn't have cared if it were off for a half day if it meant I could get my dogs to shut up and let me lie back down.  I muttered something at him and nodded a lot, he walked off, I closed the door, and by the time I managed to fall down again, I heard the microwave give its excited "I-have-life-and-meaning-again" beep.  One of my last coherent thoughts was, "Huh.  It really was five seconds."

Then I remember nothing until Roux was suddenly leaping on the bed and burrowing her nose under my arm and Chewie was dancing around us both.

I still feel like french-fried hell.  I just looked up to see there is still daylight.  Well, it can just get along without me.  I'm going back to bed soon. Maybe tomorrow will be better.

Darling, You're Boring Me

Ever have that moment when someone who interested you just stops being worth fooling with?  The connection is there, and suddenly, like a flipped switch, it ends.  It's like the exact moment an opened Diet Mountain Dew loses its cool and its carbonation.  When that happens, you're left with a sweetish, citrusy something, but that magic fizz is gone forever.  

I had that moment this week.

It's a shame, I guess, but probably it was bound to happen.  It's not that either of us has undergone a transformative life experience or some such jazz.  What happened wasn't particularly reprehensible or cringe-worthy, but it was something so...I don't know...trite and cliched that I couldn't stand it.  I just wanted to respond, "Really?  You're going with THAT?  You couldn't find any other useless worn-out stereotype to embrace? What's left to say after THAT?"

Everybody is ordinary.  Everybody has unloveliness to them.  I don't mean to sound like a snob.  I have a channel of quiet a mile wide that likely borders on bone dull of a Monday night.  Maybe others have had that same experience with me.  

I also support the idea that boredom comes from a boring mind.  I've said that quote hundreds of times.  Maybe that's true of me.  I wouldn't tend to think it's dull up there, but I do measure things by my own system....and that tends to be neither the metric nor the English unit.

Really, we don't owe each other the courtesy of living up to expectations.  Staying true to what we believe is much more important.  We need to do the things that make us happy as long as we aren't harming anybody else.  I'm just not sure that what I saw is actually the pursuit of some high ideal.  I could have respected that.  Instead, it seemed more like something somebody was doing because they couldn't come up with anything better to occupy the time....  

Despite all that philosophical maneuvering  I can't help but feel a tiny touch sad.  It's a little like thinking something was an original only to find it's a cheap knock-off.  Is it my fault for not being able to tell the difference?  Probably.  It's disappointing nonetheless.

The Bridge of Sighs

Beautiful, isn't it?  Clean white limestone shining above the canal.  Graceful arches, delicate carvings.  Yes, this is the famous Bridge of Sighs, one of the great sights in Venice.  The name sounds like a dream, like a place where lovers go to repine over unreturned affection.  The reality of it is somewhat less glamorous.

The Bridge of Sighs connects the official rooms of the Doge's Palace to the prisons.  It took its rather fanciful name from the fact that the last sight of the free world for most of those who crossed it was out the intricate metal lattice of its windows.  The prisoner could see the beauty of free Venice and give one last sigh of regret and loss before the darkness to come swallowed them.

While I was in Venice, I got to tour the Doge's Palace, now a museum.  It's more than a little overwhelming, which was its original intent.  All who came to the Doge's Palace were to feel the wealth and the power of the city-state of Venice pressing down upon them as they traveled through the government offices.  Ceilings of rare woods covered in plaster relief and pure gold compete with paintings and frescoes by known masters.  Sculptures and bronzes stand in pools of light from Murano glass windows.

This excess of ornamentation is only one part of the Doge's power in Venice.  As the tour progressed, we saw the rest of it.  The dungeon prison cells of the palace are windowless, cold, small.  They do not face each other, so although there are some cells with walls of woven iron bars,  there could have been no possibility of the simple comfort of finding a human face nearby.  The lower the floor for the cells, the less space and air they provided.

It was cold on the day we visited, yet it could not be called deepest winter.  Venice also floods on a regular basis, the street level being submerged under enough water to cause walkways high enough to serve as seats for tired tourists when the water isn't up.  Just thinking of that as I walked through those cells made me shiver with something that had nothing to do with the chill in the air.  Suddenly, the idea of being in those stone walls with water rising was a claustrophobic hand around my throat.

One of the last parts of the tour was a walk over the Bridge of Sighs itself.  I was still mentally in the jail cells when I walked up the short staircase onto it.  I glanced out a window and saw the canal.  Suddenly, I realized where I was.  I stood for a long time, running the tips of my fingers against the smooth cold stone walls.  All I could think of was how many people never made the journey I was making, how many only took the trip in the other direction.  How could it carry any other name?

Another short set of steps led back down into opulence.  I walked over to one of the many windows that spilled light and air into the chamber and stared out at the short expanse of stone upon which I'd just been standing.  Eventually, I turned away and followed the sparse crowd to another part of the museum.  Even after I was walking in the spotty sunlight of Saint Mark's Square, some shadow of that limestone passage lingered.

Three Italian Guys

(thus begin the blogs from Italy)

On my recent trip to Italy, I learned more about famous Italian philosophers, artists, and saints.  Here's a look at three and why I think they're fabulous.

Dante

Dante isn't new to me.  Likely, he's not new to you, either.  Even if all you know is the image of a guy touring hell, Dante is one of those all-pervasive writers.  Last time we were in Florence, I saw the reconstruction of his house.  We visited the tiny square where it stands this time, as well.  Images of him are all over Florence, and a statue of him stands tall outside the church of Santa Croce where his tomb is visited by tourists from all over the world.

He's the favorite son of Florence.  Everybody seems to overlook the uncomfortable fact that once upon a time, Florence kicked him right out.

Dante has my heart for two reasons.  First, the Divine Comedy is the first work to be written in the language of the common man.  Dante chose "vulgar Italian" instead of Latin for his work because he believed in the beauty and value of his own language.  This makes him brother to Chaucer, an educated man who elevated and celebrated his own dialect.  

The second reason I love him is because he got the best of all possible revenges.  He sent everyone who ticked him off or exiled him straight to hell, and they've been there ever since.  He filled his Inferno with creative punishments for those who he found offensive.  I can just imagine his satisfaction as he penned their torments.  I imagine, or at least I hope, that it was highly therapeutic.  This brings me to my second artist...

Michelangelo

Again, he's not new to anyone, but I think he gets caricatured or reduced.  He's a famous name, one highly likely to be recalled if someone is looking for an artist.  The thing about Michelangelo is that he lived according to the artistic vision in his head and was unwilling to compromise.  He saw the human body as an expression of divine beauty.  He broke the law to do secret dissections to understand the inner workings of muscle, bone, and tendon.  He turned his knowledge into such grace and splendor, and he refused to see anything "dirty" in what he created.  

This trip, I got to go to see the David at the Accademia del Arte.  Everybody has seen images of the David.  It's one of the great cliched pieces of world art, and I wasn't actually expecting that much.  I spent about thirty minutes waiting to get in to the museum passing souvenir carts full of images of the statue, including boxer shorts depicting its groin, postcards of zoom shots of that same region, and various other tacky items.  When we got in, I heard several people comment on just one aspect of the statue:  his exposed genitals.  

I couldn't help but be exasperated by that.  The David is famous for a reason.  It is, quite simply, astonishing.  Forget the cheap imitations.  Forget the touristy trinkets.  Everybody should see it.  While I didn't have the heart-stopping reaction my best friend did when she saw it after so many years of waiting, I did feel a catch in my breath, that little "Oh" reaction.  Even on a cloudy Florentine day, the light spilling across the marble from the simple dome above was the only adornment it could possibly have needed.  We walked forward slowly, sat down to take it all in.  Every curve, every tendon, every delineation of vein or hollow of muscle was beautiful.  The longer one looks at the David, the more spectacular it becomes.  How can anyone be so crass as to reduce it to that one component, to make a dirty joke of something profoundly pure?

Unlike so many others, Michelangelo never perceived the body as a source of wickedness.  If you look at his paintings, he celebrates the wonder that every person should feel when the intricacies of our bodies are considered.  The body for him seems to have been its own form of art with nothing prurient implied in it.  Too bad more people can't take that opinion.  Too bad more people can't see the beauty that he did.

And his contemporaries missed it over and over, really.  I didn't know until this trip that the figures in the Sistine Chapel had been painted as nudes.  All of mankind was naked and perfect before its creator.  He felt that this was perfection.  Of course, people being what they are, he was accused of painting pornography on the walls of the Vatican by one of the cardinals, the official censor.  He denied this and to get revenge for the criticism, he painted the man in hell in the great scene of the last judgment.  Not only did he publicly condemn his critic, Michelangelo also stripped him down and had him tortured for eternity by having a giant serpent wrap around him and devour the very portion of his anatomy that seemed to lead the cardinal's thinking.  Irony is a wonderful thing. 

Of course, his critics got the last word.  About three years after he died (while working on the mosaics of Saint Peter's), the powers that be forced one of his students to come in and add seco drapes to the original frescoes in the Sistine Chapel.  That snake still buries his fangs into the cardinal though.  I guess you can learn from this and from Dante that offending the artist is, to say the least, unwise....

Saint Francis of Assisi

As with the other two, I can't imagine many people haven't at least seen the image of St. Francis.  The gentle brown-robed figure so often depicted with birds or beasts is common even outside the Catholic church.  I have a concrete figure of him standing watch in a bed full of day lilies near my bird feeders.

We actually got to go to Assisi this time, and for the first time, that concrete icon became a real person.  At the great basilica of Saint Francis, we met Brother Michael, a Franciscan priest.  He was one of those rare people who just radiates that type of holy serenity.  There was nothing rigid or formal about him.  He was totally welcoming of us without knowing us at all.  One of the things he said as we stood outside the doors of the lower basilica that I will probably never forget was that the basilica had been built with us in mind.  Not that the people who started it some seven or eight centuries ago knew us personally, but that they knew travelers would come from all over the world to their doors, and they wanted us all, people from every place and in every time, to feel peace and hospitality when we arrived.

The great basilica itself has three levels.  We started in the lower basilica, and I have never seen a place with such beautiful art.  Most of it was done by or is in the school of Giotto, the "father of the Renaissance."  The dark blue ceiling curves protectively overhead, and a sense of absolute serenity enfolded me as we entered.  After looking at the features of the architecture, we were sent downstairs to the crypt. By this point, we had seen lots of "saints-in-a-box," as I have come to think of the displayed remains of the deceased holy.  There was nothing ostentatious about Saint Francis's tomb.  The sarcophagus wasn't showy marble or glass-sided.  It was simple stone surrounded by the limestone foundations of the great church above.  For all its lack of ornamentation, it was the most moving of all of such things I saw.

I think it was because of what we were told about Saint Francis himself.  He had everything, wealth, privilege, the status of the oldest son which meant more property and power would come his way when his merchant father died.  He tried to find meaning in excess, in reveling in the things his money could get him, but he found it hollow.  He tried next to find it in service to his country, joining the military and winding up as a prisoner of war.  When he came home, he turned to God after a spectacular conversion including a vision that ordered him to rebuild the church.  He did this literally and with his own hands, but he came to understand that it wasn't physical labor that he was meant to do.  His father tried to stop him, thought him insane, and after a massive and public confrontation, disowned him.  Francis took this in stride, and went on to give up everything in order to do that which he felt he had been called to do.

I admire Francis because in his own way, he was every bit as misunderstood and rebellious as Michelangelo and Dante.  While to the best of my knowledge, he was much more about the forgiveness than the eternal revenge, the austere life of service he chose was just as much against the grain of his society, the medieval church, as were the lives of the other two.  The church of his day was full of greed, materialism, and politics.  Everything in his past fitted him for pursuit of these things, but he knew just how little actual fulfillment was to be had from them, so he chose another way:  putting the needs of others first.  He had wisdom and dedication, and apparently, he also kept his humor.  Today, he still inspires people to live with such tremendous care for others and kindness.  

Even the symbols associated with Saint Francis are compelling to me.  The Tau cross he chose as his personal emblem sums it up.  According to what I was told, he picked it because it was the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, connecting to the idea of giving up the old and transitioning to the new, ending one life and starting another.  I think no matter what your spiritual beliefs, there comes a time when the idea of leaving something broken behind in search of something else is important.

There are lessons to be taken from all three of these revolutionaries.  I cannot help but feel that even though they were such different people, all of them were great because all of them were somehow able to transcend themselves, escape the narrow focus that enfolds so many of us.  They are an inspiration to pursue the heart's great desire no matter what obstacles arise.  They overcame banishment, censorship, and the disapproval of those closest to them to do the thing they knew they had to do, the thing they were meant to do.  If in any way I can manage to emulate this, while I know any sort of eternal greatness is not portioned for me, perhaps I can avoid mediocrity.

Previously Recorded

(written in Pisa 3/11/13)

I suppose everybody has a “bucket list,” although to be honest I hate that term. Mine includes visiting several places, mostly because I can’t believe they’re real until I see them for myself. Today, I was able to check another of those locations off my list, but as usual with such idealistic goals, it didn’t turn out exactly the way I’d imagined.

We got up early, loaded our faithful tour bus, and headed out for a short trip (read: two hours) to Pisa. The weather started out totally foul, rainy and cold complete with spectacular displays of lightning popping the mountain tops. The nearer we came to Pisa, however, the brighter the day became, and by the time we arrived at the bus parking lot, clear, brilliant sun had emerged to bathe the scene before us. We stepped out, stretched and sighed, and were immediately attacked by umbrella vendors.

I’ve never seen anything like it anywhere else I’ve been. There must have been fifteen guys with cheap umbrellas and knock-off RayBans just waiting for each bus of tourists to arrive. Then, like a flock of vultures with a fresh kill handy, they would converge. Even if you had an umbrella in hand, they tried to sell you an umbrella.

They were simply everywhere. It became a running joke. One of the guys said, “I’m kind of afraid to go into the bathroom. I’m scared some guy is going to pop out and ask me if I want to buy some toilet tissue.” And really, I’m not sure this was an absurd notion….

We braved the gauntlet and got to the square of Pisa. It was lovely. I have seen pictures of the tower all my life, but for some reason, I never noticed how oddly delicate and lovely it really is. I took about a million photographs, including the ubiquitous holding-up-the-tower one, and sat for a while just looking up at it. Our guide told us a lot about the restoration efforts over the centuries, and I had even more respect for the structure that Pisa just refuses to let fall. There is something admirable about that kind of stubbornness to me.

Another part of our tour was inside the cathedral for which the Tower serves as a bell tower. It was simple, austere, and lovely. The Pisan Romanesque style is simpler, cleaner, and although the Florentine Gothic is beautiful, something about the Moorish arches inside this Pisa church pleased me. We walked through and saw wonder everywhere. One part of the church held a saint in his green-marble-and-glass coffin. Although I have taught Chaucer for years and explained people coming to Canterbury to worship the remains of St. Thomas a Beckett each time, I have never actually seen what I couldn’t help thinking of as a “saint in a box.” I took pictures of him to show next time I teach Chaucer.

As unexpected as all that was, the real shocker of the day came when we left the cathedral. One hundred days before the final exam for high school students, kids from all around Tuscany gather in Pisa to walk around the monuments for luck. Actually, what they do is mass up, fill the area, drink, fight, smoke, “get to know each other well,” grope perfect strangers, and play football. Enter American tour group us to this mix.

Yeah. It was like that.

In the time it took us to cross from the cathedral to its baptistery, we were separated numerous times, inspected physically by people we didn’t know, yelled at, invited to frolic, greeted in broken English, jostled, and generally roughed up. By the time we got from the baptistery to the exit, some fool had put his hands on me without written permission (a thing that will get you killed), and one of the college girls on our trip had been surrounded by a horde of five guys who proceeded to be altogether too free with their hands.

We made it out and got to the bus stop only to be assailed by that location’s team of intrepid umbrella sellers. They were the most persistent of any we were to encounter. At one point, all of us were chorusing “NO! NO!” every time they offered an umbrella. They remained undaunted, circling us until the blessed arrival of public transportation.

Even though elements I had not expected were introduced, nothing can take away the beauty of Pisa. Maybe the umbrella men and the idiot teenagers somehow make it even better. We all survived. We all got to see and enjoy the sights. We have a tale to take away. It truly was a “bucket list” moment, memorable in every way.

This Broadcast Was Taped Before a Live Audience

(written in Venice 3/8/13 but delayed due to lack of wi-fi)

For a very long time, I have wanted to visit Venice. It has always seemed totally unreal to me, like a set somebody in Hollywood conjured and other people took as reality. I’ve seen it in tons of movies, read about it in countless books, but I have never believed I would ever get to see the real place.

We came in last night after a day full of flight hell, and by the time we got to our hotel here in the mainland suburbs, rain was falling, everyone was too exhausted to care, and our only goal was to fall down as expeditiously as possible.

Today, I visited Venice.

Our journey toward the city of 118 islands started a little oddly. As we were loading our water taxi, a smaller boat nearby was loading a corpse in a body bag. We all sort of stared, looked away, and shuffled our feet, not quite sure what to do with that. Welcome to the place where every sort of activity is done on the water, ladies and gentlemen.

We started in a glass-blowing factory on a small island off the coast of Venice proper. We watched a man make an entire horse in under two minutes. It was considered to be “impure” and was recycled after we left. It was pretty awesome to us. The tour continued, as is the way of such things on these trips, with a journey through their showroom. I had wanted to buy a Murano glass ball to go with the one I was given in Brazil, but since I am not able to shell out a couple of hundred dollars for a paperweight, no matter how lovely, I bought a few other small things instead.

Then we came to the city itself. We started with a walking tour, and I was immediately struck by the previously-mentioned unreality of Venice. The tiny canals everywhere were filled with boats, the tourist gondolas, some guy moving from one place to another, water taxis, everything, everything slipping quietly by. I kept feeling as though I would look up at one of the palazzo windows and see an Animatronic figure singing “It’s a Small World” at any moment.

The colors and textures, the smells and the stones, the curiously lovely blue-green of the quiet water, all were lovely. The thing that takes the breath away, though, is the architecture. We came to Campo San Marco, and while the façade of the square is lovely, Basilica San Marco is one of the loveliest churches I have ever seen. Every inch of the ceiling and much of the external façade is covered in mosaics made of tiny colored glass pieces and gold. I think that one could easily sit and stare at the front of that building for weeks, maybe months, and still find new details to delight the eyes. Inside its dim hushed domes, mosaics made of marble from every corner of the world form geometric perfection.

Our trip to Venice had three true highpoints for me. The first was a gondola ride. Who doesn’t associate the gondola with Venice? It’s one of those stereotypical and iconic cultural icons that comes almost automatically. When I found out that I was coming here, one of my first thoughts was “gondola ride.” After a walking tour, we assembled at one of the canals, divided up into small groups, and clambered aboard the sleek black ships awaiting us.

It was amazing. After I stopped being scared I’d flip the boat, I relaxed somewhat into the plush red upholstery and looked around. Every bridge we passed seemed to have something charming carved into it. I wondered if that was just to delight the eye of the water-bourne passenger. Everywhere, there were gondolas full of tourists. Nobody was loud or yelling even though many of the boats were filled with teenagers. A certain hush seemed to fall. Nobody wanted to break it, and even talking to groups in other boats was done quietly.

We slid past ancient water-doors, over submerged stone and marble steps, and the true face of the city emerged. Everywhere tiny piers jutted out into the canals. Here and there, an iron gate closed off access to what had been a main entrance to the commercial part of the old palazzos.

The journey was everything I had hoped it would be. I took a picture of myself in the gondola, and I’m smiling like crazy in it. I will use it for my new FB picture, and each time I see it, I will remember how good it felt.

The second highpoint of the day came while I was touring Saint Mark’s Basilica. Almost as soon as we walked in, the sound of the cathedral organ filled the air. I held my breath, fearing that I would hear only tuning or practice runs as I had the day we were in the Duomo in Florence two years ago, but instead, the mighty voice of the instrument soared, rebounded, and filled the golden-domed space with beauty. It actually brought tears to my eyes. I looked around the upper galleries, knowing one of them held the organist, and finally, I found a space in which I could see him. I watched him play, reveling in the tactile nature of the deep notes of a great organ. He played two or three songs before I could bring myself to wander on. Another great wish of mine, to hear a cathedral organ played, had been granted.

The final gift from Venice came in the form of a tiny china cup of espresso. When we arrived in Venice, our guide had told us about Café Florian, the first public coffee house in Europe. She told us that it was COSTLY, but the ambiance wasn’t to be missed. After we left San Marco, we decided to go try out the coffee in the place where revolutions, coups, and operas had been cobbled together. I had an espresso and a piece of ricotta cheesecake. It did turn out to be VERY expensive. However, sitting in the great square of Venice sipping one of the best cups of coffee I’ve ever had and watching the world stroll by was worth every single euro.

Tomorrow, we leave here headed for Florence. I know that returning to that beautiful city will bring another set of highpoints. I can only say that I look forward to meeting them as they come.

The Sincerest Form of Flattery

Listening, not imitation, may be the sincerest form of flattery.
~ Dr. Joyce Brothers

Airstream Dream

Last night, I had a nightmare.  The details wouldn't mean a thing to you.  The monsters involved have been hanging around a long time.  I woke up from it disconcerted.  That icky feeling that lingers after something stirs up the sediment of the subconscious persisted through a flying early morning trip to the central post office, drug store, and (God help me) Wal-Mart.  When I got home, I went outside and filled up all my bird feeders, came in, watched Singing in the Rain, and played a lot, and I do mean A LOT, on Pinterest.

While I was avoiding reality online, I searched Pinterest for stuff about Airstreams.  Then three hours of my life disappeared.  There are a million pins about vintage travel trailers.  Some are restorations while others are total makeovers.  All of them made me yearn.  Oh, how very, very much I want an Airstream.

I want to fit it up with vintage colors and cool old stuff, much of which I probably could take from right here in the house.  I want to give it a clever name painted right on the outside, install solar panels on the roof, hook up an old Chevy pickup to it, load up you and the dogs (Chewie and Roux, at least), and head out.

We could start with small trips, I guess, but what I really want to do is head down the road with sort of an end goal, maybe California or Seattle in three weeks, but nothing in the middle nailed down.  I want to stop on the side of the road and take pictures of old neon signs.  I want to stand on the edge of the Grand Canyon and have my breath taken away.  I want to a cook meal of dubious quality on equipment older than both of us and pray it comes out okay, find a place to stop if it doesn't.

I want to stand outside with you silently in the starlight somewhere that isn't here and look up into the sky until the majesty of it fills me up.  I want to fight with you over something stupid like the stereo or the shower or the inevitable flat tire or the dog walking or the washing-up (as would be bound to happen if we were really trapped together for three weeks in something so small as a truck and my theoretical Airstream) and after, find a way to tape it all back together again, understand each other better through it.  I want to sleep on a bed that we have to set up together, shoo large dogs off, and put away again in the morning.  I want to pour you coffee from my grandfather's stove percolator into a white milkglass Fire King mug I found years ago on eBay.

Ah, today, my gypsy feet are itching, itching, and sometimes lately I think I could happily take only what would fit into this imaginary caravan I'm creating in my mind and not look back.  It's a crazy sort of wide-awake dream, I suppose, but it helps to counter the darkness left behind by the other kind.  It won't hurt either of us if I indulge it just a little bit longer.