Oh, Italy.

Today is gorgeous weather, and I'm at my basement desk cataloging periodicals from Italian art museums. All I've spent the day thinking about is my times spent wandering around Italy. The weather is mostly what is reminding me of it, I think. If I had pulled these books during the winter when it was dreary and gross outside, I doubt it would be affecting me quite so much. But, I go outside for lunch or to take a little walk, and bam, it's looks like Italy and it feels like it did each time I've been to Italy, only kind of disappointing, since I'm in mid-Missouri and the two don't really compare.

But, as I'm cataloging and living out my memories in my mind, I was trying to figure out the certain feeling that I get when I'm in Italy. It's some sort of comfortable laziness, or some sort of slowing of time that really appeals to me. That's always been the best part of going there. Things change there just like they do everywhere. I learned that last summer when I tried to go back to Perugia, where I'd lived when I was 20. It was different. Disappointingly so in some ways, but Italy itself was/is not a disappointment. It has a pace of life that is appealing and wonderful. People actually live there. I don't mean to say that they live on the edge, or they are all very adventurous or anything. I just mean they live. They do what they want without seemingly any care for what may or may not happen the next day, the next year, or even the next minute. They don't rush from pillar to post, and it's comfortable to live among them for a while. You quickly become accustomed to eating gelato and strolling down the street and stopping and sitting on an architectural detail of some centuries old building and people-watching for a while. If you're lucky enough to be able to stay in one city for a prolonged amount of time, you start to see the same people each night, and you start to become part of each other's worlds for as short a time as you are there. You are just passing through their world, but you know you are welcome and they are comfortable to have you nearby for as long as you can stay. It's so nice. I miss it. I think I was really lucky to be able to go someplace like that, without knowing anyone, and feel so comfortable and secure in the idea that I could do it on my own and I could feel comfortable, despite struggling through a language barrier. I haven't traveled all that extensively outside of the country yet, but I do think that in quickly deciding/applying to live abroad, I stumbled upon what may well be the place I feel most at home.

I tend to do things slowly. I go through grad school slowly, I eat slowly, I make decisions slowly, I get to know people slowly, etc. But, I don't always travel slowly. I'm rather impulsive when it comes to taking trips and you just have to go with an impulse and see what happens, sometimes, you know? It doesn't usually backfire when it comes to traveling, because even if things go wrong, the worst travel experiences still end up as interesting stories and I believe there is something truly worthwhile in seeing new places and learning how other people live. Even though I don't really feel as at home in the U.S. as I did in Italy, and even though the pace of life here is quicker than I'd like, the memories and knowledge of living for as short a time as I did in that better place is something that always will stick with me. I hope every person would get that experience sometime in their life.