Long Summer Days

Derain, Andre Arbres-a-Collioure 1905

This painting is what summer means to me.

I was in a lot of pain the first three weeks after I fell and broke my foot – chronic, low-grade pain that never went away except when I slept. About a week ago, that pain finally dried up, and I immediately gave up the crutches the moment I could. Now I am limping everywhere, with my foot in a surgical shoe, but no ace bandage (God, is that thing hot in one hundred degree heat). I’m keeping my fingers crossed for August 20 (the six week mark) but I’m mentally trying to prepare for Sept 6 (I’m a slow healer.)

A month after I fell and broke my foot, I’m still trying to decide whether I was better off having this happen. There’s a lot of confusion in my mind over whether this was a blessing in disguise, or a total pain-in-the-ass misfortune - the real meaning of Jupiter/Chiron/Neptune on my MC in this year’s Solar Return, I suppose.

I had planned to work this summer, put some money in savings, upgrade my museum-piece cell phone, replace the digital camera that has been broken now for nine months, and pay off some bills. That didn’t happen. The economy is such a disaster here that it is impossible to find a job just for the summer that will accommodate the disability – I decided I would be better off reviewing chemistry, so that I can get ready to apply to public school teaching fellowships in the fall as a chemistry teacher. Still, there is a part of me that would really like a job, a part-time job, just to help me stay focused. But it’s a full time job to find a part-time job, so…maybe after I’ve gotten some other things done.

There’s been oodles of time on my hands this summer. Time to read – Maile Meloy’s short story collection, “Both Ways Is The Only Way I Want It”, which was wonderful. Time to read “Eat, Pray, Love” by Elizabeth Gilbert - she’s a good writer, and it was an interesting book. She is also an annoying, one-hit-wonder kind of writer. She trashed Bali for everyone who has to go there after she did – Lonely Planet Bali even did a boxed inset titled, “That Damn Book”, in their section on Ubud.

She appears to have done the same thing with “Committed”, the book she published after her blockbuster. “Committed” is 250+ pages of her trashing marriage after she just got remarried herself. (Let me be the one to admit that I only skimmed it briefly, and didn’t want to devote the time to read it.) But at least I had the time to read whatever “struck me fancy” while hanging out at the Border Books in Frederick, MD (where I have spent an inordinate amount of time since breaking my foot). Like that would have happened if I had been working this summer.

There’s been time to daydream. I liked the section on Italy in Elizabeth Gilbert’s book a lot. If I can get the job I want in the Emirates a couple of years from now, and if the dollar stays reasonably strong against the Euro,I could totally see myself spending a month or more in Italy during my first free summer. I’ll have the money to do it – it’s a short, convenient flight from the Emirates. I started reading guidebooks, and planning a grown-up vacation (in fact, my first real grown-up vacation someplace outside the U.S.), instead of the backpacker kind I did the last time I was in Italy as a college student twenty years ago, (and I was only there for a week, nowhere near enough time for Italy).

Of course, July and August are high season in Italy, and the place would be overrun with tourists. I’d have to reserve everything far in advance. I’d have to put up with a lot of aggravation. And while I would hop flights from northern to southern Italy to save time (something I could not afford when I was younger), I would still be using trains to get around, because I don’t want to have to drive there – it’s the parking nightmare that boils my blood pressure, and not the steep, twisty roads.

I’ve always dreamed of going to Sicily – my grandmother’s parents were from there. The guidebooks inform me that Sicily will be a tourist madhouse in July or August, and the heat could be about as bad as it is in the Emirates.So maybe I could swing it, and maybe I couldn’t. But at least I could get as far south as Naples, with its amazing pizza and gelato, and not have to worry about my weight at all – I can eat whatever I want with a net loss when I ditch the car for a month or so. And maybe I could just relax on some of those little islands off the coast of Naples if I didn’t have the energy to make it all the way to Sicily.

When I was in Rome twenty years ago, I arrived on New Year’s Eve, and had everything stolen on the platform as soon as I got off the train (Rome was awful on crime twenty years ago – I understand things have really changed). My money was in a money belt underneath my padded plaid jacket, but I had nothing else left. I made my way to the American embassy, only to find out that it would be closed for several days over New Year’s. Outside the embassy, I remember standing there and crying, and this priest who spoke good English came along and felt sorry for me. He let me stay for free in his monastery some place near the church with the statue of St. Teresa of Avila for the long weekend – twenty years later, the only thing I remember is that he took me to see St. Teresa of Avila, and I stood there, like, forever - absolutely bowled over by it. [Just googled it, it is the Bernini statue and the church is Santa Maria della Vittoria - wish I could remember the monastery, it was right nearby].

But I digress…ah yes, Italy is on the brain. I’ve been multi-tasking as I write this blog, and checking out the agricultural B&B’s online at the same time. This is the one I really like,Casa del Grivio . It is in Friuli, that forgotten northeast corner of Italy on the border of Austria and Slovenia. The owners have a sweet, non-native way of expressing themselves in English that is charming (or else I’m a sucker for it). They seem like really nice people. I’m going to remember this one, particularly since tourists don't bother much with Friuli.

I came to Border’s to do chemistry today. But I haven’t spoken with the mother of my god-daughter in awhile, so maybe today would be a good day to call her. I still have to learn that short rows technique for the sweater I am trying to finish, which means I should call Christy and find a convenient time to go hang out in her shop a little while. Man, I love summer, and I love having it to myself without having to work an extra job. There’s no way I would be a teacher if I didn’t get my two months of summer vacation – I’ve got no problem admitting it either.