WEDNESDAY

It was 1:43am and I had long given up trying to sleep. I had tried counting everything, focusing on releasing energy, meditating, all of it. My brain was so preoccupied I didn’t even realize I’d left my hallway door open and Chewy had slipped into my bedroom. This normally would be met with a swift rebuke, but I hardly noticed until I changed my position from staring at the ceiling to surveying the clutter in my bedroom and my eyes locked on Chewy, who was half concealed in the jeans I’d stepped out of earlier. For a second, I believed I was only in a strange dream about not being able to sleep and Chewy was some symbolic representation I’d have to decipher once awake. When I raised my head slightly, Chewy saw this as an invitation and stood at the edge of the mattress whining to be petted and played with. I glanced at the clock again and figured a walk would do both Chewy and I some good. Chewy was overjoyed of course; unexpected walk to a dog is like hitting 5 numbers on the 6 number lottery.

Outside I tried calming myself down, willing myself to relax. It didn’t really help. I was seeing her tomorrow. It was the first time I’d seen her since I told her to leave. She wanted to stay, fought to stay, but I fought harder to keep my eyes sealed and heart cold. It’s been a lifetime since I’ve looked into her eyes and I’d get to see her on Wednesday. My insecurities were playing horror films on the screen of my psyche about how it would play out. I had the jitters like a recovering addict in a room full of powdery temptation.

After I emerged from my depression cave and basked in the light, reacquainting myself with the colors of the world, my heart literally called her name, asked for her. But, there was no answer. You can’t expect a person not to listen when you tell them to go so many times. Rarely does reality match our expectations. My reality? She has a new boyfriend who she cares for very much. She feels he could be the one. More importantly, she wants him to be. I went into Wednesday fully aware of that. Still, I was walking Chewy at 2:30am because the thought of sitting across from her sent copious amounts of adrenaline surging directly to my gut, my soul was aflame.

Wednesday. She looked breathtaking. Interesting the things you fail to see with your eyes closed. I saw her for her, this incredible woman who I love incredibly. Memory is not only stored in the brain. I believe other body parts can hold memories and ache at loss. My fingertips longed to caress her jaw line, be run through the length of her dark hair, trace the contours of her full lips. But in her eyes, I saw another. Her love is hers to give as she pleases and she has decided. I wanted to tell her so much, but “I must have rehearsed my lines, a thousand times, but when I see you they don’t come out right..” I was so dumb struck. What I wanted to say was, “Even in my darkest moments, I was still drawn to you. Even when I fought so hard to make you leave, you loved me. I was numb when I let you walk out of my apartment. Yet, the moment my heart began to sing again, it was your name it sang clear and sweet. I thought loving you made me weak when in actuality it makes me more powerful than I ever thought possible. Even if you are not here with me, I am finally not afraid to say I love you.”

I could go on, but this is a blog, not a book. You know what was so great about that Wednesday? I stopped being afraid. I learned the hard way many years ago you can’t make someone your destination, your motive or your inspiration for aspiring to change. If the ending you’ve created in your dreams doesn’t come true, you become even more bitter and disillusioned than before. I’m not afraid because I know what is in my heart is true and real. I’m on a journey, a lifelong journey. Maybe my path and this amazing woman who captured my heart will run parallel again in the future, then we might be ready to continue on together. If life has other plans, I’m not even worried. Love is energy and it cannot be destroyed, only changed. Like her, it is my love to give and I may choose and decide anytime I wish. I have an entire life of Wednesdays awaiting me. Day 19 and still going…

OBSERVATIONS OF ITALY

These observations are not of Italy as an entire country, but just the places I saw while employed for a company while Teaching English. The first place was a small village called Colli del Tronto which is close to Pescara if you want to look at a map of Italy. The second place I was located was Cagliari, Sardinia. So these are observations of these particular places, maybe they apply to all Italians, but I hate to make generalizations.

 

1.) Italian women are gorgeous! I am sorry ladies, but it is the first thing you notice when you step off the plane. I don’t mean pretty, I don’t mean lovely, but strikingly beautiful. So many women have model looks...They have these striking features which really draw your attention. To me however, their looks made me more so want to look and admire rather have an urge to see them naked. I know, I know it sounds like something a Neanderthal would say, but it was the truth. The women are beautiful, but having that sort of sex appeal that makes me say, “Daaaaaaaaaaaaaamn!” They didn’t have it in my opinion... And I think I know why.

 

1a.) Second observation of Italian women is they have no ass! I mean, none, non-existent, no where to be found, someone crept up and just chopped their ass off, no ass. It was so disappointing!  In Sardinia, which is closer to North Africa, I thought it had to be different since the reason why Southern Italians are darker is the mix of African blood in their lineage...Well it was only slightly better. Seems the only part of the genes they got were the darker skin and the propensity to never be on time. I have been in some pretty white countries in my life...New Zealand, England and Latvia to name a few, in those countries I saw more ass than I did in Italy. What is that about!? If you were going to name a country in Europe where you would think the women would have nice asses, I am sure Italy would be in the top 3..top 5 at the LEAST. It was almost like it was bred out of them, some sort of genetic experiment gone awry. How else could people with African lineage, yes a while ago but still, have just no ass as an entire race of people?? One of the saddest realizations in my travels to date...Italian women on average don’t have nice asses.

 

2.) Will someone PLEASE tell Italians that there is such a thing as skin cancer Oh my lord do these people tan! I mean they do that old skool tanning where they rub butter on their skins and stay out in the sun for hours upon hours. Alright, I’m black so I don’t tan, maybe it isn’t butter they rub on themselves, but since it seemed like they were cooking themselves to death, butter is what I am going to say. Seriously though, even people in their 70's were in bikinis and Speedo laying out like their skin didn’t look like a leather wallet. Yes Italians have olive skin, but I saw people damn near my completion and you could tell it was from tanning and not from being born with dark skin. If Italy had the same hole in the ozone has New Zealand and Australia, half the population of Italy would have skin cancer I swear. I bet you if I had thrown on a blonde wig and walked around the beach, people would have come up to me telling me Italian that my tan was lovely. I would have just fit in. I don’t know what medical info they get, but it can not be the same as the rest of the world. Every where is taking steps to prevent skin cancer, and Italians are just baking themselves in the sun like they are Superman and it has no effect on them.

 

3.) Ok, after having been in Italy now, having lived in Central America, Spain and France and visited Portugal...Italian is the sexiest language out there. Everything about it is just sensual, the cadence of their speech, how they roll their r’s, the inflection on the words....I HATE how Spaniards say my name. My name is only one syllable, but the way Spaniards say it they make it sound like a cough, or a dog bark. They say it so it sounds like it’s 2 letters long and make the r and the l sound like one letter. I hate telling people my name in Spain because of how ugly they make Carl sound. It’s not a sexy name anyway then to destroy it like that? Hurt’s a man’s pride! But in Italy!?! Oh man, they say my name like it’s 17 letters long and it’s a wave coming in at high tide. Caarrrrrrrrrrrrrl. They roll the r sooo long and really softly. I was teaching young kids in Italy, usually teaching kids in foreign countries  you get tired of them always saying your name wrong. In Italy I would pretend not to hear them so they would just keep on saying my name over and over. Who in the hell ever put Castellano (Spanish in Spain) with Italian? They need to be shot! In Spain, they have a lisp. They literally speak with a lisp, the entire country, it’s part of the accent. So the Cs and Zs make the TH sound. So, someone says to you in Castellano, Hola, mi nombre es Gonzalo y soy de Zaragoza. (Hello, my name is Gonzalo and I am from Zaragoza) Zaragoza is a fairly large city north of Madrid. Anywho, it would sound like this...Hola, mi nombre es Gonthalo y soy de Tharagotha. Throw in that they make the J sound like they are clearing their throat and it’s not a turn on to me...How can you compare that to Italian! You don’t need to understand a word they are saying, the rhythm of the sound just gets to you. No wonder Italian men get so much play! Tourists go to Italy and Italian men are telling them, “Yes, I am 34 and I still live with my mother. I am in a band..but for money I deliver pizzas. I think a woman should be in the home cooking all the time...” But he says it in Italian and women throw their panties at him! I’m learning Italian dammit!

 

4.) As beautiful as Italian is...why does no one in Italy speak any other language?? Everyone always talks about Americans and how monolingual country. Ha! Italy is by far the worst. It is a lovely language, don’t get me wrong, but where else do they speak Italian?? You speak French you can go to France of course, but also to Belgium, Switzerland, West Africa, Haiti and a few other countries where French is the official language. You speak Spanish and you have almost an entire continent of Spanish speakers. But Italian? Only in Italy folks. And Italians are quick to go to other countries boy to live! Ever been to NYC? Did you know Argentina has a very large Italian population?? Australia the same..So you would think that the people still in Italy would kinda learn some other languages. Doesn’t have to be just English, but something different. Outside of the airports you are pretty much on your own with your Italian phrase book I’ll tell you that.

 

5.) The food. I know, I know, I know I was in Italy, but I still did not expect them to eat so much pasta! They eat pasta like Latin Americans eat beans and rice..All the damn time! For lunch, pasta. For dinner, pasta. Pasta, pasta, pasta. Oh it was good. No doubt about that Italians know their pasta, but EVERYDAY twice a day for all your life? Good lord man there can’t be that many ways to fix pasta can there?? I am going to say no cause the teachers were served certain types of pasta more than once while there. Yes, I have read the research that says olive oil is great for your health. I think, that the study wasn’t translated properly into Italian and they think it said, if you replace your blood with olive oil you will live longer. Lord almighty do they drown EVERYTHING in olive oil! I am not exaggerating either. If they brought you a salad, or a plate of vegetables, they were just doing the backstroke in olive oil. I am lactose intolerant, well, we can add drown in olive oil intolerant to that list of intolerants. Oh man my stomach was hurt up eating all that soaked food. Olive oil is an oil, i.e. lubricant...and that’s all I am going to say on that subject. Ok, you say Italy and you think of wine, pasta and pizza. To be honest, Italian pizza isn’t all that great. It’s rather boring. They just have normal pizzas, like mushrooms, or tomatoes, or ham...I never saw a place advertising apricot chicken pizza. Yuuuuuumm!! Or, BBQ pizza, or Hawaiian lovers pizza. Really surprising..But one thing they did have that the world needs to know about is GELATO. Gelato is Italian ice cream. I’m sure many of you have had gelato, I myself have had gelato numerous times, but until you have had gelato in Italy you are not living! The stuff is amazing! I am lactose intolerant and was having the stuff twice a day. They have these huge mounds of it in the shops that look like works of art. You almost feel guilty having the people dig into the mounds to give you a scoop, or two.....ok three. So sue me! I was in Italy for Pete’s sake! The flavors they had...No preservatives or fake stuff people...If it was strawberry, it had REAL strawberries. If it was fruit of the forest, there was real fruit from the forest! Eating that stuff was like, it was like, it was like making love to an old lover that you haven’t seen in a long time, but who still remembered all the spots to hit to make your eyes roll back in your head. Yes, it was THAT good.

 

6.) Italians without a doubt the nicest people I have met in Europe. I was in a small village on the mainland, but I was in the capital in Sardinia. People would drop by where we were staying and bring wine and ice cream randomly. They would take us out to dinner, take us to festivals and pay for everything! It was great! Walking around in Sardinia, I went into this store, and the guy working there in 10 minutes gave me his number, told me about the café his girlfriend worked at, told me her name so I could get the hookup when I got there AND showed me where he lived if I ever needed anything. Being from the states I was wary, if some guy working in a store did all of that for me in St. Petersburg..I’m thinking he and his girlfriend are swingers and they want me to join in. American men don’t go around giving other men their numbers and telling them where their girlfriends work. Just not done. My flight to Sardinia from Italy left super early in the morning. The village was pretty far away from the airport, I had to take a train to the city where the flight was from. Someone from the village, woke up at 4:30am to take me to catch a train to catch my flight. The guy wasn’t even associated with the program! He just volunteered. Man Italians are nice. In saying that, what in the hell is wrong with Italians in New York and Boston!? Why are they so racist when Italians treated me like a long lost son! Will someone tell them that Italians, especially southern Italians are super nice and treat people of color just as well as they treat everyone else.