While writing an English Paper

In the midst of writing an English paper I got a call from my dad telling me that my Grandma is really sick and coming to the end. He wasn't that abrupt, but I had a feeling he had something bad to say. He asked me what i was doing (homework), was i in my room or in the library (in my room), do i normally do homework in my room (yes), unimportant questions with an intensity behind them that implied he wasn't interested in the answers, and eventually he told me that Ro really wasn't doing to well, that she's really very sick, and that i should give her a call. He asked me to get a pen and paper, and I did. And he asked me to write down her number, which I also did. I was starting to feel really sleepy as i was writing, but I got it down and added a little note to call her first thing in the morning, because by the afternoon she's asleep.

Then he asked me what was new. "Not much," I said. I didn't really feel like talking anymore, but i humored him. I told him a little bit about my weekend, a midnight move i went to with Zombies and costumes and music, but I felt like getting off the phone. Then he asked me how easy is it to get to Providence Airport, because if Ro did die soon, Southwest flies out of Providence directly to Philly, and that'd be the easiest way to go to her funeral. I told him that I didn't know, but that I'd look in to it, and as soon as I could I got off the phone. I felt tired. I was too tired to carry on the conversation, almost too tired to say goodbye, too tired to tell my dad I loved him.

And as i'm writing there's a car alarm going off down on the street, and the sounds of the ROTC drill practice are flying through my window, and all i want is a little bit of silence, a symbol that something big is happening, and that the world is slowing down, fatiguing with me. But the world isn't slowing down, isn't tiring, won't slow down or stop because of my mood. Ro's death is something all of us have been expecting, actually something we expected to happen a long time ago. There've been countless times when my dad has told me that Ro's health isn't doing too well, and that this saturday we should probably go up to the hospital and see her. The subtext of these conversations was always that we should see her because it might be the last time. And as a family we would visit her in the hospital and have our 30 to 40 minutes of pretty superficial conversation with her, really meaningless stuff, conversation that, while we were having it, I would think "i'll kick myself if these really are the last words I say to my grandmother." I would always make sure, then, that I said "i love you," to her as I was leaving, as a way to counter the banal conversation before it.

But Ro would always get better, and she would bounce back. And then she would get sick again, and then we would have another visit, with more meaningless conversation, and I would always say I love you, and then she would get out of the hospital, and the whole series would start over again. I started getting annoyed at my dad when he would tell me on some particular day that Ro's health was declining, and that we should probably go visit her. I was annoyed because by repeatedly preparing myself for my Grandmother's death, I had over prepared for it. These announcements and the planned visits turned something that I always assumed would be spiritual and mysterious into something that was routine. These visits, though, there was a comfort in these visits, because I knew it wouldn't be the last one. We would go and talk and kiss goodbye and then she'd get better, and then there'd be another one later.

Now we're at the end of the road, and she's not going to get better. She sleeps a lot, my dad tells me. She's been put into hospice care, and when I went home last weekend I saw the my parents had taken a bunch of Ro's artwork that had originally been hanging in her house. And, like I said, my dad wants me to call her. He said "it only has to be for a few minutes, and you don't have to talk about anything really serious. Just let her know that you love her." But is that enough? Is five minutes really enough? How can I expect to say all that I want to say in a phone call that both of us know is for the sole purpose of talking to each other before she dies? I don't call my Grandmother. I don't think I've ever talked to her on the phone when I was the one who dialed her number. Isn't that obvious, this call, this out of the blue call to talk about nothing really serious, but to tell her i love her? I don't know what i want to say. In five minutes or an hour, I don't think my language has the capacity to capture the nuances of what I feel for someone I love who is about to die, the nervousness about talking too seriously, the guilt over talking too trivially, how you're feeling, what you're trying not to feel, and the ability to focus down exactly what you want to express about them, who they are, why you love them.

Maybe I can't say why, but I will tell her I love her. It's the one thing I've been able to tell her through all of this, the only thing I know I'm capable of saying. I love you Ro. But I can't call her today, though. I have an English paper to write, and a science lab. A million little pieces of things that won't disappear because you feel a certain way.

College Blog

I suppose it's now incorrect to call this the Gap Year of Power Blog. The first year of power? The Freshman Year of Power Blog? I've been at Boston University for two weeks now as a freshman, just another teenager at school. Having taken a year off has taught me a few things.

But first, what i did with the rest of my time.

I got back from New Orleans the 26th of May. The 27th of May was Lawrenceville's graduation. So my friends a year below me in high school graduate, who would become my same year in college in September. Realization number one. You're going to be old for your grade.

The beginnings of summer were spent soaking up a lazy homelife and seeing friends. I recall my first few days doing very little apart from watching movies and lying around. On June 6th i had to head up to Boston for a three day orientation. That may have been relevent a month ago, but now that i've been in college for two weeks, what would be the point of discussing orietnation? Then i went to north carolina for 10 days, and then i worked odd jobs for a while, but you know what, things didn't get really interesting until mid-july, when i went to England and Italy.

And some point during the end of New Orleans, or maybe even the beginning of my return, i decided i needed one more adventure before school. While in North Carolina i was randomly at a bar with my cousin, randomly talking to a friend of his, and randomly mentioned i wanted to go to italy this summer. Turns out the friend had just come back from a four month work exchange in italy, and she recommended a pretty killer site for me, called www.helpx.net. It's an online forum for work exchange opportunities. You pay a small (very small, like 10 dollars for two years of service) fee, and you get to browse, by country, available work exchange opportunities. It's extremely rare that you'll find something to pay you, but they will feed and shelter you for free. I found place to stay in italy, worked enough in the summer to have some spending money, and then headed for england july 19th. Flying to england from the states is the cheapest way to get in to Europe, and domestic flights out of england to other european countries are pretty inexpensive as well.

this was a letter i wrote to a friend on July 31st, after i left england and had been in italy for a few days. It talks about both places:




...but i do have five minutes now. right now i'm in Sinalunga, a small rural town in Tuscany. I'm working on a farmhouse there thats about 20 minutes from the city. its incredibly beautiful here, if not a ltitle primitive. but its exactly what you imagine a tuscan house to look like. spacious, high ceilings, terra cotta floors, a vineyard and olive grove, very rustic and nice. i went for a hike with my friend yesterday evening and we watched the sunset on a hilltop overlooking rolling hills and vineyears; it was the cliche Tuscan experience, but it was wonderful.

before this i was in England for a little over a week seeing friends and a lot of extended family. england, if you don't know, is unbelievably expensive. everything costs twice as much as it does in the us, because the pound is twice as much as the dollar, but the prices in England are all the same. So i burned a lot of my savings from my three days in London. But after that i went to the countryside and stayed with generous family who really didn't let me buy a thing with my own money. One person i saw was a guy named Julian, technically my second cousin, but i ignore the . he used to be in a pretty successful rock group in the UK called Toploader, so he has this keen music sensibility. The older i get the more fun it is to see him because we can relate more on artists and genres and the like. but hes gotten into music management now, and hes managing a few artists and trying to get them signed and booking tours, and its been a great experience to tag along with. one of the artists is really brilliant, his name is Paul Steel. its sort of psychadelic influenced british power pop, and if that's something you'd be interested in, i highly encourage you to check out his my space. hes only 20, but he's a very talented arranger, and extremely nice, and i hope he becomes famous.

a few interesting british facts:

the brits like to drink something they call "bitter beer," which is warm, flat, and bitter...beer. its gross. don't order it.

hard cider is extremely popular here, refreshing and alcoholic and carbonated, but you too can get this warm and flat. and its a little gross, but sort of like luke-warm apple juice, and considerably more alcohol than the carbonated version

when people smoke pot they mix it with tobacco, but noone really knows why. because "its the way weve always done it." right. anyway,

after that it was off to british countryside with the greenest grass ever and cows and lamb grazing around freely. i went to a traditional english pub and drank british beer and ate british bar food and had an amazing time, and the 27th i headed off to london to catch a plane to italy, and a day later i got here, and that's where i am now.

i met up with a friend in florence and we headed to Sinalunga and got picked up at the train station by Ugo, one of our hosts. Life has been really easy going here. we only work 4 or 5 hours a day for five days a week, and we take long siestas in the afternoon, get great food that barbara, ugos wife cooks, and drink plenty of wine that they make themselves on the vineyard. there are two other workers staying at the house right now, a couple from australia. She came to italy to visit him, but he's been traveling through europe for five months. after dinner we usually sit outside on the porch with a pitcher of wine and talk and drink till we're too tired to do either. the moons have been full and incredibly bright the past few days, which is pretty incredible because of how much light it generates, but frustrating because it washes out the stars, which apparently are pretty incredible in such a reclusive setting. but it's fine. last night i took an outdoor shower outside and the moon made it light enough to see relatively well. its a little unnerving at first to be bathing naked on a hilltop, but again, its one of those things that just really fits in with the tuscan image, bathing outside under the moonlight.

i know im being a bit obnoxious talking in such detail about the almost nauseatingly romantic details of this trip, but we dont have internet access there, and i havent been able to use a computer, or talk about this to anyone yet. so it had to be you, but it wont happen again.

life is going to be crazy when i get back home on the 22nd. im trying to plan a little trip back down to new orleans, but im really only giving myself a few days to completely prepare for college. dont we have to be there to move in on september 1st?

right. well. that's that. pllleeeease tell me what youve been up to, and also give me your home address so i can shoot you a post card.

mathias!


that was italy. i have all my pictures at home from the trip, and i'll be going home the weekend after next. so expect those.

and, now i'im in college. i got here september 1st. It was an interesting experience, at first, being in school after my year off. I was telling someone on the phone about a week ago that i think i'm in the extreme minority of college freshman by asserting that college is actually a more restricting lifestyle than life before college. I'm surrounded by kids who are awed by the freedoms that college presents them, and so most weekends are spent staying up way past what i'm sure was their bedtime, and going to frat parties to drink themselves silly. i'm not claiming to be straight-edge. i like to have a good time, but new orleans offered the wonderful pair of being able to go out and drink and see incredible music simultaneously.

More later. Things are good though. I'll talk about classes and friends in a future post.

ciao!

oh, and i'm taking italian.