Slow Trains, Love Strains

So far, the train rides through Italian country side have been some of my favorite times on this trip. For one thing, they give me the chance to write these posts, and for another, they allow me to try out some of my questionable Italian language skills. To clarify, I don't actually speak Italian, but thanks to some skills picked up singing in Italian and Latin and playing music for years, along with a little pre-trip coaching from Aaron, I'm able to carry on a respectable conversation as long as I have my little Italian phrasebook (which Aaron bought and had shipped right before I left). I've met some interesting people! Of course, on these trains there are also lots of people from all over the world—I mean, who doesn't want to visit Italy sometime in their life? It's fun to meet young people traveling through Europe on their own with backpacks (I kind of envy them—what a great breaking-into-the-world experience to have!), honeymooners coming from all over the globe: Germany, Egypt, Argentina, older couples taking advantage of their empty-nesting years, just about everything you can think of! They all have little nuggets of knowledge and advice about where to go and what to eat. It's marvelous!

So, today's train ride took us from Milan to Venice. Along the way, I put together the last few blog posts, chatted with my dad about his mild obsession with "what color personality are you and my own little obsession with "what this trip means" in his life and in my life. Haha, we're so deep.

Anyway, on this particular voyage to that most romantic of destinations, the city on the sea, Venice, I had a chance to think a little about the love in my own life. And basically it comes to this: I am so lucky! I literally can't imagine a more wonderful person or partner than Aaron. We have such grand adventures. It's so fun to talk into the night about music, about life, about our kids. But we have our tricky spots and quarrels too. So often we get caught up in trying to fix each other, and unlike many couples, we're both relatively willing to be fixed—after all, we don't want to be stuck in bad habits that make each other or ourselves unhappy in the long-term. We have this weirdly symbiotic relationship, where nagging is sometimes encouragement (both ways on this! I promise!), and where we both really want to reach a better place, even if we sometimes struggle to find the right road to reach it. This voyage has given me a new perspective on how lucky I am. I can't imagine that there are many (any?) other men in the world who would not only be willing at the drop of the hat (this trip was literally planned and executed in a matter of weeks) to take on all four kids alone alongside their own work schedules, and then, beyond all that, to plan the details of their wife's trip including places to stay, tickets to museums and events, and trains from city to city right down to directions to and from train stations. I'm the mom, and I assure you that I haven't been so solicitous when Aaron has traveled. I've sort of been awed by all this, to be honest. And it's come with the sort of sad realization that I'm not always at the top of my game as far as being a good partner is concerned. My desire to be better has been inspired! So one of the many, many (but possibly the most important) things that I am taking home from this trip is that desire: to be more attentive, to be more compassionate, to work harder for the welfare of my wonderful husband and family, and to take my role as a wife as seriously—no, more seriously—than my role as mother, to not be complacent, to not procrastinate, and to really be the partner that Aaron deserves.

The other "take-home message" on my mind has been this experience with my dad. What a different (in a really delightful way!) experience traveling with him has been from traveling with my family. He's much more laid-back and chill about our everyday activities. So far, he's been mostly content to hand the reins to me and wake up each morning saying "so, what do we do today?" Before we left he delegated the responsibility of "teaching him about art and architectural history" to me. My dad has always had an artistic vibe about him—when I was younger he would brag about a wallet he had made in a leatherworking class that won him a prize, and I used to love playing with an intricate wood puzzle in the shape of a ball that he had also made. The little drawings he would make for us were always exquisite, and I especially remember admiring plans that he drew up for his "dream house" that he hoped one day to build for our family. Though years, sad events, and a divorce kept that dream house from becoming a reality, I always admired my dad's artistic side. As we've talked on this trip, it's been interesting to realize that even though he always loved and admired art, particularly creating it, growing up he felt that it wasn't a socially acceptable interest for him to pursue—it seemed like a feminine pursuit from his perspective in little Logan, Utah. I love and admire the way that though there have been many intervening years and obstacles, he's now decided that no matter the past, he is going to get from life what he wants from it. And for him, that means a healthy dose of art history, which let me tell you, I'm all too willing to contribute to. I mean, what art history buff doesn't want to wax all loquacious about diffusion of light on a canvas or anatomical details in a sculpture? Though my dad has nothing like Aaron's predilection for efficiency or his meticulous planning that takes into account most potential problems, it is incredibly easy to be with him, to know that he's good with whatever conversation, change in plans, or unexpected opportunity comes along. I find traveling with him to both physically relaxing and conversationally stimulating. Such fun!

Tonight we rode down the Grand Canal of Venice on a traghetto, which is the big old boat that functions as basic public transportation in a city built on water. We listened to an audio tour by Rick Steves (yet another example of Aaron's attentiveness—he downloaded a bunch of these from the internet and put them on not one but two MP3 players so that both my dad and I could listen to them as we visited galleries, churches, and even walked or rode through these cities and towns; alongside that comes another example of both my dad's and my, um, relaxedness? We've only once managed to have both MP3 players present and functioning on full batteries at the same time!) that told about the glorious city of Venice, and how it is now falling apart a bit, due to some crazy regulations that prevent owners of properties from making needed improvements to their places. As a result, the city has lost over half its population over the past decade or two. How does that happen? How does something good and beautiful turn into something sad and falling apart?

Coming away from my life, looking at it from a distance, with fresh eyes, gives me a chance to survey things from a different perspective. Right now I can see little cracks and fissures that could lead to more serious damage in the future. I can also see places where I am putting too much attention on little surface lines that will probably never turn into a major problem. When I'm in the middle of homework and bedtimes and food and shopping and all the milieu of minutiae that clutter my mind and my time, it's not easy to see where those little cracks are, or what kind. Sometimes it feels like they're all everywhere! And gaping! But they're not all equally important, and being here gives me the chance to look them over, see which have the potential to become critical, and which of them not only don't matter, but actually add a bit of character to the face of my life, our marriage, and our family. I don't want a fallen apart life/marriage/family in the future, so I need to pay attention in the right places at the right times. And also, I should probably not regulate too much. Because let's be honest, I might possibly have a slight control problem.

So yeah. Let me just say again, I love Aaron! So much. I am so so lucky!! And next time I ride a train in Italy, it better be with him!!

If You Build It, They Will Come

Today was full! That seems to be a theme, doesn't it? This morning we had the rare opportunity (it really is rare, tickets book months in advance, and they were full when we checked before our trip, but by calling, Aaron snagged a cancelled reservation for us) to see the cleaned and restored Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci. That painting has been through a lot! He painted it onto the wall (it's not a fresco, made of actual colored cement like the Sistine Chapel) using a new technique that he made up, because he wanted to take his time, which isn't possible in the fresco medium. But sadly, within a few years, it started to fade. It was touched up and repainted many many times over the centuries to preserve its compelling beauty and expressiveness. Then, in World War II, Milan was seriously, seriously bombed. Ooooh, that all just makes me so upset. War. What is it good for? Absolutely nothin'. You know, as some would say. Anyway, during the bombing raids, the church, Santa Maria Novella, got hit. Badly. There were pictures of the church after the bombing, and it was rubble. Not one brick on another. An art preservation society had done what they could to protect it, building a wooden scaffold in front of it, but what wooden scaffold do you know of that could preserve an entire concrete wall when the bricks around it crumble? Well, it was miraculously preserved. How can that not be a miracle? During the 1990s, it was carefully cleaned, a centimeter at a time, to peel back the layers of rubble, dirt, and added paint, to return to what is left of Leonardo's original wall-painting.

Getting in there was its own adventure. We had to arrive 15 minutes early, then walk through a series of sealed rooms, where all outdoor air was sucked out and special clean air was piped in, before we could enter the room where The Last Supper still stands. It is amazing. It was worth it. I admit that I sort of wish Leonardo had just done the thing on canvas in the first place, to avoid the problems that followed, but the painting is so expressive, so spiritual, so moving, that I'm even more grateful for those who put such time and energy and tenderness into its preservation. I don't know what to say about it really, except that it captures exactly that moment just after the Savior told his apostles that one of them would betray him, and they looked at each other asking "is it I? Could it be me?" Also, I have to agree with Dan Brown on this one. Based on my knowledge of Leonardo da Vinci, there is no way that the figure beside Jesus is male. He is differentiated too much. So, agree with Dan Brown's conclusion, or don't, but Leonardo only included 11 male apostles in that painting. And also, said female figure seems already to be in the know about who the bad guy iss going to be. Interesting things to think about, and if you haven't read The Da Vinci Code, you probably should—I'm going to reread it when I get home—such a compelling read!

After that, we explored the Milan Cathedral, which could take a week all by itself. In terms of art history, that building has the whole story wrapped up in one little, er, humongous church. Begun in 1382 (I think, take all my dates here with a grain of salt), the cathedral wasn't completed until 1810. That's nearly five hundred years of construction! So though it began in an early gothic style, the cathedral's art and architecture wound their way through the Renaissance, Baroque, and neo-Classical styles, with any number of detours along the way. To read about the cathedral, you would think it was a mess of competing styles, but I didn't find it that way at all! Somehow, each artist and architect who contributed a nook, a buttress, a window, or a sculpture (there are 3000 on that thing!), seemed to share a vision of what they were working toward. The final product is vast (the fourth largest in the world, after Rome and two others), but unified. I loved exploring it corner by corner, apse by apse, and seeing what small pieces had been contributed by so many. It gave me a sense of wonder at the ability of the artists and architects to be involved in a cause larger than themselves—not quite like sacrifice, but more like contributing to a gift. It increased my own desire to seek look for opportunities to contribute to things that are greater than my own time and place in the world.

Finally, we visited La Scala! I wasn't prepared for that to be as awesome as it was! I mean, it's an opera house. And though they once were, the premiers of La Traviata and La Boheme are not happening there now. But there was an opera rehearsal in progress when we stopped in—in a way it was almost more fun to hear these huge voices coming out of people who looked so ordinary in their modern tops and jeans. It was a Romeo and Juliet (Gounod) rehearsal, and I loved watching the actors playfully embrace during their scenes to mark their way through, while their voices came out in full. Well, after watching that and touring the museum (surprisingly cool—they had Liszt's piano, though they wouldn't let me look at the keys, even though I begged. What's a piano without keys?), we wanted to come back, so we got some cheap tickets to the performance that night: a ballet called Jewels with sections by Faure, Stravinsky, and Tchaikovsky. It was too bad that it wasn't an opera, because I would have loved to have seen that, but even as it was, it was nearly as fun to look around the theatre and imagine Verdi and Toscanini on an opening night, and to envision all the hottest social set of Italy descending on La Scala for a premier. That is one place in history I would love to relive for a week or two. So what I'm saying is, although we had to stand for practically the whole performance to see what was going on (those were good dancers—without question the best I've ever seen), it was totally worth it. Especially for 10 euros each!

So I guess what I'm saying, is that sometimes it's hard to see the long-term impact of our short-term lives. I can't imagine that the builders and artists who contributed to the Milan Cathedral could really comprehend what it would eventually become. One window, laid out on a table, or wherever they created those things, could not have given much sense of the whole. But by giving little pieces, over years and years, they laid the foundation for something greater. Will I be able to contribute to something of that magnitude in my life? Probably we each have a responsibility to, and our eyes and ears need to be open to know when such an opportunity comes. Sometimes the opportunity will be within the walls of our own home, where we create the launchpad not only for our own children, but for the generations that come after them.

The View from the Top of the World

This place, Firenze (as the locals say, Florence to you), is the cradle of the Renaissance. During its heyday, it was considered the center of the world to those thinkers and wonderers who blazed new trails with their discoveries and innovations. Today we had the chance to climb to the top of the famous Duomo and look across the whole city. It was marvelous. But before I get to that, let me describe, inadequately but to the best of my ability, how fundamentally amazing il Duomo actually is. I don't know what the original façade looked like, but sometime in the Romantic Era (sorry, that's just how I think about history—I think our audio tour said around 1860), a new façade of white, green, and pink marble was added, with attention to preserving the Renaissance spirit of il Duomo. The façade is beautiful; elegant in the extreme, stretching out across the square like it owns the place (which it totally does). The sprawling basilica was actually designed and built before the Renaissance began, but left unfinished. Though the fourteenth century architects who designed the chiesa didn't have the skills to build a dome, they just knew, the way you sometimes know, that someday, somebody would. Il Duomo was actually a labor of love over generations, the place where, from the beginning, it was expected that people would gather to meet and to worship and learn and grow. Some people say, in fact, that it was the competition to create the bronze doors of the baptistery, just across from Il Duomo in the late fourteenth century, that really kicked the Renaissance off. Of course, the short version of the story is that Ghiberti beat out Brunelleschi in that completion, freeing Brunelleschi up to work on the majestic dome.

However you look at it, the building of this monumental chiesa brought together Italy's best minds and artists. And today, we climbed to the top of it. Let me tell you, that climb is no laughing matter. Four hundred sixty three butt-busting steps through the dark, winding tunnels fixed within the inner walls of the church gave me the twin thrills of claustrophobia and vertigo. Even lighted with small bare bulbs, it was dark. The walls were lined with graffiti going back fifty years. It was strange and sort of sad to compare the scribbled names of all these people who decided to leave their mark on the world in black sharpie, to the Renaissance masters, who left their mark in fine marble, paint and architecture. Of so many who live on the earth, how few really change it and make it a better, more uplifting place for the rest of us? The journey was long, with nothing but glimpses through tiny, recessed windows through the thick walls for probably thirty minutes. There was one exhilarating interlude, as we stepped out onto the one-foot-wide balcony that overlooked the entire church from the inside of the dome, which gave us the opportunity to get a good look at the stunning frescoes (they're not the Sistine chapel or anything, but those last judgment scenes have a fiery power of their own, what with freakish demons and fiery dragons and naked people being sodomized by fire-tipped sticks. I'm just going to assume that the Duomo ceiling did its job and kept those Florentines (even if they were a bit heretical from time to time) in line. But after our break, it was back into the wall-space to climb some more. When we finally emerged into a glorious gust of fresh air and daylight, it was like seeing the sun for the first time.

The world is a different place when viewed from above. It's easy to see the way everything works together; how the puzzle pieces fit. I think this trip is a little bit like that for me. When I'm entrenched in the daily routines of our life, I sometimes lose perspective, and can't quite see the point of rituals like books and baths and meals together and piano practice. They just happen, and sometimes I'm a miserable grouch all the way through them. But from a distance, I can see a little bit better how all the little things make up the really lovely tapestry of our lives. Our family sometimes seems imperfect from the inside. There are children who think obedience is a great idea for everyone else, meals of subpar quality consumed at a table of subpar size, appointments not written down and therefore forgotten, homework forgotten or sometimes just ignored or by the mother (yup, I knew it was there, I just didn't want to supervise it), quarrels with Aaron over any detail of any schedule (however loosely observed) that might get modified, because I'm just like that, or better yet, another battle in the unwinnable war to get each other to see the world in exactly the same colors. But you know what? Those colors are part of our own special tapestry, different from any other tapestry out there. And it's our job to make it into the best tapestry it can be!

Okay, I think we can agree that this post is a little rambly. Sorry about that. I always seem to get distracted by the moral of the story. But I have to say, Florence is a beautiful city, and three days weren't quite enough to do it justice. Almost, but not quite. Over and out.

“Every Time I Feel the Spirit” and other songs of the heart

Today was not quite as full of art. Wait, actually it was—I forgot about our visits to the Accademia and Il Duomo. But we went to church too! And I've been back in our room since the early hour of 9 pm, so it feels like it wasn't quite as full.

But even so, I'm going to hold myself back and talk about the other parts of this trip a little bit. First, a (slightly diatribe-ish) letter to Italy:

Dear Italy, it is time I brought some things to your attention. You're old. We get it. But grannies are learning about "that internet thingy" every day! You should keep some of that stuff around. Second, I know you still use the antiquated term "water closet." However, it's really time that your bathrooms grew up. It is possible to have running water someplace besides a closet. There is really no reason to force people to sit on the toilet while showering. There is enough multitasking already happening in modern life, please give us some space in our bathrooms! Third, towels are made of terry cloth. It is a lovely, absorbent fabric that has these little loops in it that absorb huge quantities of water. They also make you feel warm after a shower! The things that you seem to think are towels are actually large napkins or small tablecloths, I haven't decided which, and you should probably switch over before you embarrass yourself. Okay, hopefully you're feeling a little sheepish now, so I'd like to follow those suggestions with some compliments. Nice job with the art preservation. Keeping that stuff nice must take a lot of work, and you're doing a good job. Second, thank you for giving us Rome, the Renaissance, and opera. It's a little scary how many of the things that I love are gifts from you! And finally, your gelato absolutely lives up to its reputation. In fact, it exceeds it. My favorite combinations so far are raspberry melon and pineapple coconut. Just, wow. You make really good gelato.

Well, that's the end of the diatribe, but now that I've started on the gelato thing, I think it's time to tell you about my new diet. I pretty much love it. It's called: when you only have so much money to spend on meals, and also you've been working to get rid of a couple of pounds that decided to settle in around your middle over the winter, you have to make choices. If you are me, and you are smart (these are not, as some might suspect, mutually exclusive, at least not all the time!), and you have realized that gelato is everything it is cracked up to be and more, you really can't see any problem with making a 2 euro cone of gelato into a lunch. So that's what I've done pretty much every day. And despite the fact that the pizza is also delicious (I haven't had a winner dish of pasta yet), it's the gelato that has won my heart. And if the hours of walking have done their fair share on this trip, I'm seriously crossing my fingers that the extra pound or two I'm gaining in Italian trinkets for the kids will be offset when I leave a couple off my tummy.

Okay, it's kind of sad that I haven't mentioned church yet. It was so fun to go to church here in Italy. In my amazingness, I uncovered the fact that the church, though two miles away, is only one train stop away. So we got up this morning and dressed in church attire (I had a real dress, thank you very much, and should probably take this opportunity to mention that I'm definitely happy with my decision to bring plenty of shirts on this trip even though Aaron and my dad recommended only two or three—they roll up so nice and tiny, as does my dress, and I do care about wearing cute clothes, or at least semi-cute clothes even while traveling!), and hopped on a bus for 1 euro each. Once we got there, the directions I had were a little off, so we ended up spending about twenty minutes looking for the building (it was inside an office building), but we got there about halfway through sacrament meeting. Even though the ceiling was square panels rather than painted frescoes, and even though the music came out of a tinny piano (yay pianist though!) instead of a glorious organ echoing through a spacious nave, the holy spirit was in the room, amid the happy banter of children.

It was fun to meet a mix of Italians, tourists visiting Florence, and a couple of families who have relocated from the US to Firenze. In particular, I felt a twinge of jealousy when I met a lovely woman just older than me with five children whose husband is a professor at Pepperdine University (where Aaron applied and interviewed) told me that her husband is teaching an eight-week course in Firenze and the university paid for the entire family to join him. Yeah . . . Aaron's university doesn't have quite that large an endowment. Afterward, an older woman and a younger girl who had walked to church from near our bed and breakfast headed home with us. Only just before we started for the train station, someone let us know that the train service had just gone on strike for the rest of the day. Oi! But this lovely Italian gentleman had a large car and offered us a ride, which was fantastic, especially since we had tickets for the Accademia in only a few minutes. We appreciated it so much! When we were back to the main drag of Florence, the older woman, Debbie, decided to join us for our trip to the Accademia. She and the younger girl were both there with a program out of Southern Utah University, studying art in Florence for three weeks. It was fun to have her accompany us, as she had an artist's perspective on some of the things we were seeing.

Both the Uffizzi and the Accademia were fascinating to visit because their original functions were not as museums, but as schools of art. The Uffizi was arranged somewhat chronologically, which made tracing the development of the Renaissance particularly interesting. The main draw of the Accademia is Michaelangelo's David. Here's what I love love love about his David: did you know that Michaelangelo sculpted it from a flawed piece of marble? There was this unusually long piece of Carrera marble just lying around in the sculpture gardens in the Medici workshop. Some other sculptors had noticed it, and one had started carving on it, but there was this gaping flaw, I think a hollow hole-type thing going right through it, so the other sculptor had abandoned it, and though several other sculptors had looked at it, none was satisfied that it could be made into an acceptable sculpture. But not Michaelangelo. Michaelangelo always said that the sculptures were already in the rocks, and it was the sculptor's job only to uncover them. When he saw that flawed marble, he could see the finished David already there, awaiting him. And indeed, from that flawed marble, he uncovered the most famous sculpture in the world. Interestingly, despite my knowledge of art history, I had forgotten that story until a few months ago, when it came to me as a metaphor for us. I imagine each of us as a big, clunky, possibly flawed piece of marble. But God knows us and can already see what we are capable of becoming. If we are willing to submit to the sometimes painful cuts and scrapes of his chisel, he can turn us into the masterpieces we are capable of becoming.

Also in the Accademia gallery were a number of Michaelangelo's unfinished sculptures, often called The Prisoners. What a contrast they make with the fine, noble, finished, towering David. In so many places they are strong and refined. But so many other places are left rough. There is a bulky knob of stone here, a block of a hand there. They have begun to be who they might have become, but they are left unfinished, never to be completed, never to stand atop the pedestal that their master had planned for them. On a spiritual level, it's so easy to become complacent, like The Prisoners. We see that we have a well-defined foot, a lovely elbow, a well-turned knee, and we think "hey, look at that! I'm looking good! I don't need any more of this hammer and chisel thing!" But in fact, there is so much more that is possible for us! It is in the details of our lives that we become not just half-worked hunks of marble, but masterpieces worthy of our master. I hope that I won't shun the hammer and the chisel when they come for me (even though I really really want to—I like it when things are lovely and easy, not so much when they're hard). I also hope that I can teach and my family to begin to see the masterpieces that they are capable of becoming.