We Miss You, Kevyn .. Tanti Auguri a Brad

We miss you Kevyn!

Today is Brad’s 64th birthday: we are humming the Beatles tune under our breath. 

We didn't do much, though, because I’ve just come off a week-long bout of stomach flu and I’m, well, drained … but, after dinner, we went to a wonderful little organ recital by Livia Mazzanti at a local church, Chiesa Santa Lucia del Gonfalone. 

Also, to over dramatize at bit, we’ve been in a multi-week period of second-guessing and disorientation. We miss our condo and our stuff. We miss our friends. Learning Italian is super slow, so we can’t talk with people or even ask for simple things when we go to a store. And tea time is now 16:00, I only weigh 70, and I don’t know much many quarter cups are in a bottle of milk.

I keep getting lost when I go out alone (a few weeks ago, it took me three hours to get home).

Physical therapy for my knee (and the preexisting hip instability that probably caused the injury) has also been slow and frustrating. It seems that I just need to move, walk, step, and stand a different way, that’s all … On the plus side, I can now traipse long distances with only the usual tourist leg-and-foot aches, thanks largely to my cheerful and patient trainer, Claudia, who is learning English very quickly!

No, Claudia, those are toes, not fingers on my feet ... 

The EU rules applicable to Brad are more complicated than we understood. We know, for example, that he has a right to stay in Rome with me (since I’m a EU citizen, being Irish-born). But we learned too late that, after his 90-day American tourist visa expired on December 10, he can’t travel by air to most European countries (the “Schengen” ones) without a final “carta di soggiorno” from Italy. He doesn’t even have his carta interview until late January, but we planned a trip to Vienna in late December with the kids. So now he’ll either have to take the overnight train (no, wait, the holiday trains are already booked!) or we’ll eat the expenses and just stay in Rome. (First world problems, I get that.)

It's also been a struggle to establish a routine or find what seems like the right balance between time-at-home and time-out-touring. And here I wanted to see every corner of Rome and blog about all of it and set up our finances perfectly and take up piano again and speak passable Italian and have a regular spiritual practice and row on the Tiber and …

The election still feels like such a shock (for most, but not all, Italians we meet too). We voted by email; took photos with our iPhones of filled-in ballots printed from the King County elections website and emailed them back. Washington state is liberal that way. I swapped my Clinton vote through TrumpTraders with a Stein-supporting hipster in Pennsylvania, meaning I voted for Jill and—I hope—Evan K voted for Hillary (although it is an honor system and his one vote didn't do anything). I also gave Jill money for the recount efforts ... have some second thoughts about that but I needed to do something. I’m going to scream if I read one more news piece comparing Trump to Berlusconi and now Renzi is out too … Right after the election, we joined a candlelight vigil outside the American embassy protesting Trump’s positions …

Not to mention that our condo tenants broke the lease (thankfully, the property management company we hired found a new tenant quickly), we had issues with mail delivery (the change of address we filed with USPS before we left Seattle didn’t take but thankfully Ger, my wonderful sister, offered to step in to have our mail forwarded to her for re-mailing to us), and it took forever to get faster internet service in the house (just happened about a week ago).

Worst of all, two weeks ago, our dear sister-in-law, Kevyn Love, died after a horrible reaction to an antibiotic she was taking after knee-replacement surgery. She had battled many health issues in recent years and always stayed strong, with the kindest and most generous spirit. She and Curtis (Brad’s brother) were very much in Iove. It is such a shocking blow for him and the whole family.

Have you had a time when nothing seemed to go right, and how did you handle it? I'm getting back onto a blogging schedule and have lots to tell you about, including the Brigidine nuns we happened upon one evening doing vespers, the Love exhibition at the Bramante museum, watching the super moon rise from the Gianicolo under the statue of Giuseppe Garibaldi, seeing Martin Scorcese at Mass, visiting the Jewish Ghetto, traveling to Puglia for a “sagra” in Noci and seeing the “trulli” in Alberobello, seeing Shahzia Sikander’s show at MAXXI, and so much more!

TramJazz!

Tonight we celebrated my 60th birthday with an evening on Tram Jazz, a historic tram car refurbished as a rolling dinner/jazz club. We started at Porta Maggiore, which I blogged about before, with appetizers and prosecco on the tram. 

Then we got started riding around Rome as the dinner continued.

We stopped outside at the National Gallery of Modern Art for the jazz performance.

Also later for people to get out and walk around at the Coliseum. 

Our tablemates were a couple from Fort Lauderdale, Harvey and Arlene Austin, who were planning a move to Medford, Oregon later in the fall. Both in their early 80s, they were in Rome on their honeymoon (with a two-week Mediterranean cruise to follow)! Harvey, it turns out, is a “conscious aging” proponent, familiar with the work of Reb Zalman, whose book, From Aging to Sageing, I’ve studied with the help of Pat Lewis, a friend who has done seminars and retreats on the subject for many years in Seattle. Turns out that Harvey has his own book and is also a speaker on the topic. We had a wonderful conversation about making changes and taking chances in life. There was a lot of “auguri” to go around!

Not a great photo given the low light but I wanted to remember them!

I had saved my birthday card from yesterday to open at the dinner.

But it was much more than a card. Brad has arranged a trip for us to Vienna in February for the opera season! We spent our honeymoon in that lovely little city and have often daydreamed about going back to attend one of the balls one day. (Ballare, to dance.) I felt so nostalgic and a little overwhelmed. When the couple sitting at the next table (originally from Pretoria, South Africa, where I have many cousins) overheard our discussion, they whipped out their cellphones to show us photos of themselves at the same ball two years ago. 

It was a wonderful and touching night. I love my husband so much!

Anita and Giuseppe

Before heading out to my birthday dinner, we finally hiked up the Gianicolo behind our house. It is one of the famous hills of Rome (Janiculum in English), and Brad wanted to catch the sunset there. I was my first attempt going up a steep hill after being off crutches (for two weeks).

 First we stopped at a lighthouse erected in the 1800s by Italians living in Argentina. It beams the colors of the Italian flag on national holidays.

           

Then we stopped at the monument to Anita Garibaldi. She was Giuseppe Garibaldi’s young, Brazilian wife, who fought alongside him. While they were fighting to establish a republic in southern Brazil, Anita was captured by opposing forces but escaped on horseback, brandishing her pistol, all while seven months pregnant! She died of malaria at age 28, pregnant with their fifth child, near Ravenna, Italy while fighting with Garibaldi in the cause of Italian Unification. Another nasty woman! (Two of her sons who joined their father in later battles have busts on the Gianicolo as well.)

We reached the top of Passeggiata del Gianicolo and the Piazza overlooking the city with Garibaldi’s enormous monument in the center. 

Had a glass of wine while we waited for the sunset.

We caught a glimpse of St. Peter’s through the umbrella pines on our way back down.