Scattered Latter Memories

6.19.12

5:59 am

Home. Solidly home. I got a letter from Carl yesterday that described how he took the time to write out all sorts of memories from Oxford, so he wouldn't forget.
So this morning, I'm doing that too. Not all necessarily good or proper memories, but memories. 

Dinner on the Terrazza, that last week. Luke sang made up things on the guitar while we were waiting to pray, about Jack's black shoes and white socks, and Dave's white shoes and black socks. Finally when we realized we were only waiting for him (Luke), someone suggested that he sing the prayer. He did, and it was beautiful and very binding. It felt like we had formed something then. 

Kate reading her fairytale Tuesday night. Hiding under her hair. She'd made banana bread, nutella cookies, and PB cookies. She read marvelously and we loved discovering people's characters: Federico the Magical Cobbler giving Hannah shoes and distracting her. Dov being sullen, giving neither advice nor encouragement - "For you, my only name is Death". Seeing "Hetha", "Clara", and "Audra" respond girlishly when their characters appeared. Schuyler trying to make llama eyes at Olivia when the Skylark appeared. Erin and Luke finally needing each other. 

Several weeks ago, a few days after Heary, Erin hugging me tight in the studio and not letting me go. Saying, "I love you so much. I really, really love you." 
Getting her mullet trimmed.

Emily exclaiming "Poop!" multiple times in the studio. Saying, "Kay-tee Joy" to ask me a question or just to say my name. Bailey getting blue and yellow ink in her hair. 
Claire saying "Bedazzled" and loving gold leaf. 
"Slippery slope"
"No pressure situation"
"Do do do do do"
"Go team!" 
"Friends".

Bringing gluten free cookies and a box of candy, rocks, wax, etc. to the Dolls'. 

Singing in the Palazzo chapel for the last time. With Heather. On blankets, on the floor. 

Eating Charlie's pizza for our last (Weds night) showing of Fantastic Mr. Fox. Leaving almost all my crust. Cornflake cookies. 

Prof Doll's artist talk last Saturday morning. Talking about how tough some of the people he loved had been to him. "Doll, in the last four years you've amounted to nothing." Showing birthday/Christmas cards. Robin Hood, Princess, Narnia, Superheroes...

On that last night at the Dolls', Chiara stepping in the soup before Heidi could stop her. Dave and me pushing Ronan back and forth across the floor in the cardboard box the shirts came in. 

As I left the Terrazza after stargazing, hugging everyone and finally saying, "I love you". Pachebel's Canon playing from somewhere behind the convent, the most beautiful I've ever heard. Emily weeping, asking, "Can you breathe?" 

Olivia and me sharing those several times of truth. Olivia massaging Schuyler's head at the Dolls' that last night. Michela scratching his head at the airport the next day. 

I should wear blue more often. Gray more often. Pink more often. And not become a nun. 

Gelato outside Wednesday afternoon, at Pasqualetti's by the Duomo. Prof Doll and Chiara, Anna Lardani and Maria, showing up. Jack wiping ice cream off my purse. Dave and Paul riding Prof Doll's bike across the piazza. Paul falling with style. The wind. Oh! It was windy. I was glad to be wearing Jasmine pants. 

Dany just standing there and looking at me while I danced. Not joining. The older boys writing threats or just strange letters, "If you want to eat the chicken, come..." to drop in people's mailboxes. 

The old woman and her daughter. Her other daughter, who asked on our last week if we could give her Cambridge son English lessons. The note I left on the door before we left, 

Pace & bene a il nostri prossimi. Grazie voi. 

Con affetto, 
Gli Studentesse Americane

The very little girl who would go around the streets with her grandmother at night, look in shop windows, greet people. Both with kerchiefs on their heads. 

Yellow flowers growing under the ledge at the park behind San Giovenale. Friday evening, picking some for Emily and me. Putting them in each other's hair. Mine I pinned to the 1 Cor. 13 banner, in Via Postierla. 

Alyssa saying she's seen the hedgehog, and wishing she'd been Rachael for that moment. 

I am glad I am me. I wouldn't want to be anyone else. Thank You for that, Jesus.



P.S. Silas: "They're leaving? Great. I don't want them to leave for 900 years."

At Anna's Apt.

I saw this on Pinterest today.  It was titled "A delicious unicorn snack." I think it's just marshmallows and sprinkles.  Sounds delicious to me!

The Gordon Potluck

Wishing that we could have all been there. But it was so, so good.
(These pics before Bailey and Michela arrived).

Palazzo Needs

The Last Unicorn

So I posted this on facebook...but I felt like it really needed to go on the blog too. This is an actual movie that I watch a little bit of and it made me think of all of you.

Back Again

May this also be a wish for all of you as you begin the new school year:

And Back Again

It is almost time to go back again. Wind’s shhh sound through pines is visible on a contoured field. Light bends around blue mountains, their familiar shapes appearing now in dreams, now in a chance pebble. This has become the textured boarder of our life.

At the center of Dante’s paradise there’s an ordered rose, complex, structured, beautiful, but we find God in small, jumbled moments—in soccer and sweat and wordless songs. We venture out like forest creatures into a new day or night without answers, but with stories. We speak to each other and God simply with small words—sincerely.

We feel the dust of our mortality in Rome, in farming, in ancient tombs, our faces painted, in chapels, domes, street corners, shop window glass. We find our shapes proportional in space—a landscape, cathedral; we are small and grand.

Were we overawed by trumpets and fire and gold—on nights of contagious laughter, on nights of twisting pain? We grew together in cracked places.

It is almost time to go back again. Do not fear familiarity or strangeness, a place too small to contain you. God is in the miniscule and vast. We carry a world within which can never be lost. In a world of noise and traffic and half-price deals or plate glass and death and fear, we hold together. We sit silent. We listen, and once or twice or three or four or over and over, little by little, piano, piano, we do right to one another. 

{you are all simultaneously in my thoughts and affections}