Whispering Forgotten Words

Come la mia anima piange per le parole dimenticate del mio viaggio.
How my soul weeps for the forgotten words of my journey.

Although I kept a travel journal with me at all times throughout my time in Europe, small glimpses of forgotten conversations between myself and my butcher Massimo or the beggar woman outside of the post office, come back to me, catching me unaware and causing my heart to catch in my chest.  Even though I tried to be meticulous about the events, people, and encounters I experienced, life can only be captured like light in a child's small hands--held closely for inspection, until light fades with the crossing of the sun in the sky. 

I'm curious if when I am able to return to Italy, how much of the Italian I learned will spring back to my memory. The other day, a friend who also recently returned from Italy, attempted to hold a conversation with me in Italian. It is safe to say that I understood about 80% of what he was saying (the 20% was all really BIG words that I never ever learned of course) but could not formulate a response. But hey, that is still something that I can still understand spoken Italian--now just figure in the different dialects and I'm back to square one. I think the solution to my problem is watching lots and lots of Italian movies (with subtitles on of course--how else will I learn those BIG Italian words?!?) 

Certain Italian words, my favorites, whisper to me as I sit at my desk daydreaming about Viterbo: farfalla, libellula, mezzanotte...

Sun in my Soul

We live in succession, in division, in parts, in particles. Meantime within man is the soul of the whole; the wise silence; the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related, the eternal ONE. And this deep power in which we exist and whose beatitude is all accessible to us, is not only self-sufficing and perfect in every hour, but the act of seeing and the thing seen, the seer and the spectacle, the subject and the object, are one. We see the world piece by piece, as the sun, the moon, the animal, the tree; but the whole, of which these are shining parts, is the soul.-Emerson

Road trips generally provide me with a time of self reflection. This last Saturday, driving back from a wonderful weekend with my family, I was escorted by the setting sun and my inner thoughts all the way home. The large, burning orb in the sky made me feel more spiritual than I have felt in a while. As I contemplated her beauty, she spread her warmth through my body like the warmth of hot chocolate on a chilly day. 

Since returning from traveling through Europe, I find my soul journeying on without me. In its quest for something else, I have begun to look at the world through “slower” eyes. In the past, I was wired to function on an American time schedule where my ambition did push-ups while I slept. Now, I take every day as it comes, appreciating the small things as often as I can. Sometimes those small things still go unnoticed; I am still human after all and not perfect.

The power of the above sunset has stayed with me for two days now.  And I am still feeling the resonance of its power. 

Everything is a cycle. Everything is connected. I want to feel connected.

Recently I was watching Shanghai Noon with my family and was reminded of one of the film’s more powerful quotes: “This is the West, not the East. And the sun may rise where I come from, but here is where it sets.” I saw many beautiful sunrises when I was in Italy (East), but now that I am home, I can’t help but to focus on the setting sun. Perhaps this is a sign that a new chapter of my life has begun, while another has closed.