Time

Alright so I am just going to admit that I am really bad at this blog thing. I am really sorry everyone. Despite my lack of efforts to keep everyone in the loop, I want to share some of my favorite moments that have been happening and maybe share some thoughts I have been having. Some of these memories and sights have dates, some I just remember where I was. So.. here we go.

10/12 Today I was supposed to go farming but it rained so we went to the market instead. I got a 1 euro sweater!! So happy that my thrifting skill can get exercised here. Then I had a restful afternoon and made cookie pizza for everyone which was sugar cookies with fresh fruit and fresh whipped cream on top. I love when we have dinner in the convent. I feel most at home then.

10/13 Today was lovely. Slept in. Morgan Hannah and I decided we just needed to be cozy so we made a few different types of cookies and watched Disney's Robin Hood on Morgan's bed. We did Zumba again and went to Maramao with Thais and Linnet. Got to talk to Tamsin!

10/14 Beautiful day out! Zumba again and then a great facetime talk with Dad.

10/18 Assisi. SO many words about this place. WOw..just wow
Unknown dates:
Monday- trip to Orvieto underground, Zumba for 3rd day in a row then a dance party. We danced in front of the light from the computer and it cast large shadows of us dancing on the wall. It reminded me of Where the Wild Things Are or Peter Pan.
Tuesday- great walk with Brianna around the city. Gorgeous scenery. I went to hug Shannon and just as we were about to embrace theatrical music started to play from someone's computer
Wednesday-Made bunting for Morgan's birthday. Karen cried after everyone shared something they love about Morgan. Walked on the street with our arms linked and Hannah and I made funny beats with our mouths and tried to get everyone to join

Went farming at Roberta's. So incredible to see the fog dissipate throughout the morning as we harvested her crops

11/1 Great talk with Aunt Kim! Really cool paper making demo with Emily
11/2 Was able to take pictures of Amanda's boyfriend surprising her by coming to visit
11/3 Incredible day in Arezzo antique shoppin! Wow what a therapeutic day. My soul is so peaceful.
11/4 Watched a lightning and thunder storm from a window

These are just some of my favorite things that have been happening. The people here in this place are really something special. At times I take for granted their presence and have longings for home and the familiar but I have to snap myself out of that way of thinking and when I can't do it myself, God does in pretty miraculous ways. Living here in this convent with all these people is more than I can every have hoped for. Because I was never living with either of my brothers for extended periods of time, I really feel as though I have been raised as an only child. Coming here and thinking about my friends at home and getting to know my friends here, I have really realized that they are all my brothers and sisters. And not just in the cheesy Christian term but as in my "we are living life together" way.  We are a community<-- that word is really used often here. I fell like that I not a strong enough word. I feel like these people are my family now and I want that to grow deeper still. I want to contemplate my time here and the lessons I am learning but also invest my time and energy into these 19 people that I am living with. We have barely 6 weeks left! I need to get myself in gear and really process all of what this life is and what I want it to be. I don't want to fall into a routine here necessarily because when I do that I feel as thought time flies by and I don't remember anything that happened. Not only do we live together here in this incredible space, but we are living in this wonderful town! It is really sinking in that I need to take advantage of this place. It is so easy to be comfortable inside now that it is getting colder but I don't want to be inside! I want to keep exploring and spend time in the places that I have come to love here because soon it will all be a memory. Alright, I suppose that is a good chunk for you all to take in right now. This week I will set an alarm for myself to remember to write. If you happen to think of me or pray for me you can pray for these things:
1) That I stay devout in my time with God and am not distracted by daily tasks and schoolwork
2) That I love these people deeper than I myself can in a way that is clearly Jesus' perfect love
3) That I have the stamina to push through and continue to enjoy the little things and record every detail
4) That I will be transformed by this experience and time here in every way possible

I miss you all but am loving life here and can't wait to share stories with you. Ps. Start thinking of questions to ask me because the basic " How's Italy " doesn't cut it or nearly scratch the surface
<3 peace and love

Time in Assisi

OK.. I promise that I will write more. I will try to make a post every week so that events don’t pile up and I forget to write about them. So last Friday we took an excursion to Assisi. That’s right, land of St. Francis and St. Clair. Now before I went I really knew nothing of these two people except for the fact that my stepdad and stepbrother’s conformation name is Francis and I’m pretty sure he is the saint that loves the animals..? Yea I think that was all I knew about him. I was raised in Christian schooling my whole life which I am so grateful for but one thing that bothers me is that we were never taught about these amazing servants of God! I’ll go on about that in a bit. So we get to Assisi and our first stop was visiting San Damiano, which is a church/monastery. It was here that St. Francis heard God’s voice coming from the crucifix at the front of the dilapidated chapel tell him to restore his church three times. I could go on and on about the life of St. Francis so I will narrow it down to a few of my favorites.  He is such an inspiration to me because he was so young when he started the Franciscan order! He was probably in his early 20’s or so and totally added this new radical element to the church. He believed that creatures were important and deserved to be loved because God loved them first. When St. Clare went to St. Francis and said that she wanted to be a part of this movement he was starting, she was only 18. She was from a very well off family and decided that none of that mattered but what did matter was helping those in need and serving the Lord and the brothers in prayer and service. Another one of my favorite parts was visiting the caves that St. Francis and his companions would retreat toin times when they needed solitude. You had to imagine the place without the modern facilities that are there now and realize that they were just caves in the mountainside; no electricity, running water, none of that. They needed that time alone to pray and get away from their surroundings. That space in general was just incredible. So serene and beautiful. Moss was dripping from every rock and the small space where he would pray was so perfect to me. A final place that was really remarkable was the small chapel that St. Francis built called Porziuncola. This was really the heart of the Franciscan order. This little chapel was built with the stones of the land and was surrounded by the little huts that the brothers lived in. I tried with all my might to imagine this little chapel in the woods with the huts, but now it is inside the Basilica si Santa Maria degli Angeli. They built this massive basilica to protect this little gem.  Another favorite moment was when we walked up this hill and sat in an olive grove that overlooked the city. We sat and sang songs and played instruments and just had a beautiful time in the sun singing to God. Moments like those give me the chills because it makes me see a little bit of what heaven will be like.

Prayer for Peace

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace, Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy; O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

The book

Ok, so I know that I havent written anything in quite some time, so sorry about that. Life here is just spectacular. it is a transforming experience that continues to surprise me. We just finished our first class and that is mind blowing to say the least. We went to Rome for 4 days over a week ago and just finished our final project for the designo class. We had to choose between creating a large scale drawing of a location here in town or make a book. I chose to make the book. It is definitely not the kind of book you would expect though. We had to write a 1001 or less character text based on the writing style in the book Invisible Cities by Calvino. We had to create a concept based on the city or a specific place and create a book that correlates with our text. We had to pick a specific part of the book to incorporate in our own text as well. So that is just the writing aspect. The book itself was made out of recycling our previous drawings (if we wanted to) and had to be 400 cm long folded accordion style creating 40 total squares, 20 on each side. We then had to go about the town and find naturally occurring letters. Meaning something that makes the letter A, B, C, D etc but was not meant to be read or seen as a letter. Those pictures (26 in total) were then scaled to be squares 1 inch by 1 inch. Next we transferred the image to pieces of linoleum (that we cut to size) and carved out the letters to make stamps. We had to decide how we wanted our text to appear in our book. It did not have to be ligible or seen (things could be put over top of them eventually) but we had to put them on somehow. We had to stamp our every letter to every work to every sentence... that is just part 1 and two basically. We then had to create a visual counterpart to our text that when you look at it hung, you can correlate what you read or hear from the text with the book. It was an exhausting project that just got more intense as you worked. It was the most obscure blank canvas I ever worked with but I am so excited that I did it and made a piece that has so much meaning. Here is my text
   "When you arrive at the city on a hill, it is hard to distinguish its form immediately. Its multiple layers shift from black and white to color. It takes time to get to know the city. A visitor who stays for a short time may only uncover the obvious attractions: the gardens, wine bars, architecture and ceramics. You have to be willing to explore, open hidden pockets, unfold the stop signs, and slide the broken door aside in the ally way to find the vibrant details that make up the city. The secret is that the forms within are black and white and will only be seen in color of one chooses to uncover what is beneath. It is the mood of the beholder which gives the city of Orvieto its form. Sometimes two people will look at the same unfolded sight and have two different perceptions of what they see. The beauty of the city will be revealed to those who are in the mood to discover it."
 I will post pictures soon of the final result. It was a long and tedious project but was so fun to create. I learned so much about myself and the city as I created it.

The Sense of the Ineffable yb A.J Heschel

The power of expression is not the monopoly of man. Expression and communication are, to some degree, something of which animals are capable. What characterizes man is not only his ability to develop words and symbols, but also his being compelled to draw a distinction between the utterable and the unutterable, to be stunned by that which is but cannot be put into words.
   It is the sense of the sublime that we have to regard as the root of man's creative activities in art, thought and noble living. Just as no flora has ever fully displayed the hidden vitality of the earth, so has no work of art ever brought to expression the depth of the unutterable, in the sight of which the souls of saints, poets and philosophers live. The attempt to convey what we see and cannot say is the everlasting theme of mankind;s unfinished symphony, a venture in which adequacy is never achieved. Only those who live on borrowed words believe in their gift of expression. A sensitive person knows that the intrinsic, the most essential, is never expressed. Most and often best of what foes on in us is our own secret; we have to wrestle with it ourselves. The stirring in our hearts when watching the star studded sky is something no language can declare. What smites us with unquenchable amazement is no that which we grasp and are able to convey but that which lies within our reach but beyond our grasp; not the quantitative aspect of nature but something qualitative; not what is beyond our range in time and space but the true meaning, source and end of being, in other words, the ineffable.

Drawing

So we have begun our class which is technically a drawing class but involves so much more than just drawing. Our first assignment was to "go draw something." At first I felt like I was missing something but Prof. Doll did not give any more instructions than that which I fount exciting. It was so wonderful to see everyone's interpretation of that assignment. Some used charcoal, pastel, pen, conte and pencil. From realistic to gestural. Everyone one of us has so many things that we are bringing to the table. We have different personalities, styles, temperaments, experience. Diversity is so beautiful. And that's just here within ourselves in our program!! Now are living in this new foreign city all together through ups and downs. Both in and our of the studio we are here together and have to push through and push each other. I want to think about the phrase "wake up" for the next few days... I'll be back with the results. Peace and love

Infine - finally

I am finally going to write a bit about the adventures I have been having and now the life I am living here in Orvieto, Italy. I did not write anything the week that my mom was here with me so those stories will come in time. I had such an amazing time with her exploring Rome and seeing almost every huge monument/attraction in the city. It is relieving to know that I will be returning to Rome with my class because I did not process each site as much as I needed to. I was definitely viewing them mostly from a tourist eye and I am excited to now learn more about each site and spend time as an artist in each space.

I definitely started off my time here comparing things to what I am familiar with back home and even from my time spent in Ecuador. Comparing Ecuador and home was in a way easier because we used the same currency so it was easier to tell how different the prices were from each other, but also, Ecuador is a third world country so I knew that life was going to be very different from what I am used to in the states. I did not really know what to expect when I came here because I have nothing to compare it to.

SOoooo this is it! I am here. Finally. Here in the program with my piers, in our new home. I knoew I have been here for a week already but now that everyone has arrived it seems more real. Every time I fall asleep I forget where I am. Just as adjusting to the time has been a chance in reality, so is every day life. Sleeping seems more of a reality sometimes than my daily activities here in this wonderful place. When everyone arrived last night it was just so great to be all together finally. The little I know about this incredible city blows me away. Here even compared to Rome is so different. Rome is a typical city with drives of people and cars but around every corner is an ancient site or old building, older than our countries existence. But here in Orvieto it is different in so many ways. We are literally a city on a hill oberlooking the glorious rolling hilss of the Italian countryside with farm after farm in view creating a quilt of land scapes as far as you can see. 9/2 Today we woke up early and went on a small tour of the town. We walked down to one of the side walls and talked about how the organic and the man made work in harmony here. There are underground caves and tunnels under almost every home. The rock is dug up to create the house above it and in turn is then used as a cellar of sorts. I took a tour with my mom and we went to a few of the caves that were found that link together. Some were used for oil presses and others were used for dove coves. The small winding stone carved stairs with low ceilings were so incredible to me. The tufo rock that makes up the caves  is very easy to carve and crumbles away easily because it is volcanic rick. There is so much to even think about that I find it hard to write because seeing and feeling and tasting and smelling all of this is so hard to translate into words.

So walking around these little streets is like a dream. It seems like a movie set or something from Epcot, but it is a million times better because it is the real deal. Every meal is fantastic and even the instant coffee the one morning was good. So our meal plan is set up with a local restaurant called Locanda del Lupo. We will eat lunch (pranzo) and dinner (cena) there except for on the weekends when a lovely local named Mimma will cook. Her first meal that she made us was this amazing egplant parm dish and tirimisu (which means pick me up). Wow. SO amazing. I am skipping some things to share at another time but a few more words...if you're still with me, bravo, thank you for reading.

This is going to be such an amazing time to learn, slow down, and become engulfed by new exciting things. This town is still so connected to its medieval roots so it's almost like stepping back in time. Life is at a slower pace and I am loving it. I had my first experience drawing in public here and it certainly was an interesting one. I don't mind the glances from onlookers and people watching but this dude was all up in my grill. Too close for comfort. Then his friend took a picture of us. Really odd. Thankfully he didn't stay too long but if it had been longer I was going to move and glare at him. I am excited to dive into getting to know every nook and cranny of this place and get to know locals and even the other students here! So many things. So many things and thoughts and prayers.

One final thing to share for now, just one of the beautiful sights I saw and wrote down was noticing the older men in town strolling along with their hands behind their backs, walking, thinking, taking life as it comes. Life is beautiful.