Sunday Sensibilities

This past Sunday was the second Sunday in a row that I set aside to spend with myself.  Although I’ve been here for almost two months already I am still settling in.  Adjusting is a time consuming and challenging process.  Expanding your comfort zone, allowing new people, norms, flavors and customs into it, is not the easiest thing in the world for people to do.  So I have started to make Sundays Emilia days.  I take a whole day to aimlessly wander the city, to get in touch with myself, gather my thoughts, and emotionally prepare myself for the week ahead. 

It was a beautiful day, unseasonably warm, and so I thought about returning to the Boboli Gardens.  I took my time walking from my house to the other side of the river, making sure to find things or faces I hadn’t seen before.  I think this is an important activity- taking the time to look for new things on the street I walk down every single day.  It keeps me alert and it keeps me curious.  Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it’s also the reason that the human race has figured out gravity, outer space, a lot of stuff about past civilizations, various medical advances, the list goes on.  I’m not saying that I’m going to find the cure for cancer or some never before seen Etruscan ruins on Borgo la Croce, but honing and fine tuning my curiosity is important for my intellectual survival.  I will never be capable of such a discovery, and certainly never be capable of achieving my personal intellectual goals, without a keen sense of curiosity.   Curiosity keeps us intellectually necessary.

Anyway, when I made it to the other side of the river I stopped in a little bar and got un panino per portare via, and made the short walk to Palazzo Pitti.  It was at this point that I remembered the walk I’d have to take to the scenic and relaxing part of the Boboli gardens is completely uphill, and I was wearing loafers.  So instead of entering the gardens, I sat outside Palazzo Pitti.  The Palazzo is at the top of a small hill, really more of an incline, and there are always people there sitting and chatting.  I’m often worried about doing touristy things, but most of the people I was surrounded by were Italian.  So I sat down, ate my panino, and observed my surroundings.  This week I brought my journal with me, and after eating I began writing.  Nothing, really.  I literally wrote OBSERVATIONS/THOUGHTS and made a list below that.  Some deep, some, well, shallow.  (Like comments on peoples’ outfits).  But mostly somewhere in the middle.  I’ve learned that trying to be profound doesn’t really work.  Whatever you write sounds like you’re trying too hard.  You sound desperate. Fake, maybe.  Sad.  Or sometimes you just sound like an asshole.   Profundity should come effortlessly. 

I’d like to some of these thoughts with you.   I’m calling it Sunday Sensibilities.  Sensibilities meaning emotions, intuitions, judgments, observations, perceptions.  I should preface my thoughts by letting you know that I’m not trying to be anything or anyone I’m not, and I’m not trying to sound a certain way.  Just trying to be as honest as possible.  (And let my parents know what I’m up to).  The words in italics are the places I was sitting when I wrote the thoughts beneath them.       

Palazzo Pitti

1. Italians don’t seem to get restless.  They’ve mastered the art of relaxing, taking it easy.  I need to learn this from them.  Even sitting here, calmly, my mind is still racing.  I couldn’t possibly fit it all on paper.  I’m not sure I’d want to even if I could.  But here people don’t worry and hold on to negative things, especially not about things that are out of their control.  I’m pretty sure life expectancy here is longer.  I’m sure the two are related.  (Note: I looked it up when I got home.  According to the CIA world factbook, Italy has the 10^th highest life expectancy in the world.  The US has the 51^st highest.  Science will probably blame diet.  I blame anxiety).

2. Italy is known for high fashion, but it doesn’t seem to trickle down to the masses…

3. What should I do with my life?  Oh, here I go again…

4. The laughter of children is the most uniquely beautiful sound.   

Steps of La Chiesa dei Santi Michele e Gaetano

1. Sitting on the steps of churches is usually a thing here.  Not this church, though.  Perhaps it’s the neighborhood? Or the time of day?

2. Sundays are my favorite day of the week here.  Quieter.  I think the tourists know a lot of places tend to be closed and the Florentines, well, are closed.

3. I will never understand pleather leggings.

Inside La Chiesa dei Santi Michele e Gaetano 

1. I’m sorry, God, if I shouldn’t be writing right now!  You know I don’t know all the rules.

2. Dilemma: numerous bible stories about giving up possessions, riches.  May religious orders take vows of poverty.  Teach charity, alms giving.  And yet these churches are SO decorated, ornate, RICH looking.  This particular church is across the street from Hermes and down the block from Prada.

3. Other traditions/cultures kept their churches simple so that parishioners could really focus on uplifting their minds and spirits to God without distraction.  The Italians, on the other hand, felt that the senses need to be stimulated and engaged before you could get your mind and spirit to the right place.  That, and the Protestants never had a Michelangelo.

All of these thoughts are copied just as I wrote them in my journal.  I didn’t share them all with you-there were some I decided for a variety of reasons to keep to and for myself.  Walking around the city and writing my thoughts, feelings, observations made me feel good.  Really good.  My head is a strange but active, and recently a quite tumultuous, place.  Organizing my thoughts into a shareable manner (ie this blog) make it a little bit easier for me to decipher myself.  It might be a little cheesy, but what’s life without cheese! (And wine, of course).