Our hair was so long.
Frizz tickling in the Italian breeze.
Dry, hot, smelling of figs.
We stretched our muscles out of necessity,
But we stretched our patience out of obstinacy.
Remember the drums and Greek wedding dances on the ragged wooden floor?
So laughable to think back on the subjects we studies with eager reticence.
Was it all really not good enough?
Honey and bread and pen and paper and laughter and tears.
Italy.
Honestly, the real farewell to our youth.
I miss your bitterness and awkward anger.
And your passion and quick wit and insistence on...
everything. Always insisting.
I learned from you. From it all.
Don't we go to school to learn?
What is worth it? And what is worth abandoning?
How to decide when to end things?
Each time we do, it is harder to start something new.
But pasta and Pilates isn't what I miss.
I miss your companionship in Elba and in La Lettura.
We desperately tore our hair free
Naked in the delicately floating scraps of paper.
Blindingly dark in hot, side lights.
With a pitying crowd of fifty.
At least we had great cappuccini before.
And at least we were united as storytellers against that army of four.
I'm so glad you're finishing school.
And I am so sad that I am not. But there is more to life than ambition.
I think.
Let's eat strawberries and pecorino soon
you bellisima bitch.
Under an aquaduct or on a broad porch.
With that quiet comfort of two friendly spirits who understand something only one who has walked the same stony path can.
Miss you, dear friend.
Frizz tickling in the Italian breeze.
Dry, hot, smelling of figs.
We stretched our muscles out of necessity,
But we stretched our patience out of obstinacy.
Remember the drums and Greek wedding dances on the ragged wooden floor?
So laughable to think back on the subjects we studies with eager reticence.
Was it all really not good enough?
Honey and bread and pen and paper and laughter and tears.
Italy.
Honestly, the real farewell to our youth.
I miss your bitterness and awkward anger.
And your passion and quick wit and insistence on...
everything. Always insisting.
I learned from you. From it all.
Don't we go to school to learn?
What is worth it? And what is worth abandoning?
How to decide when to end things?
Each time we do, it is harder to start something new.
But pasta and Pilates isn't what I miss.
I miss your companionship in Elba and in La Lettura.
We desperately tore our hair free
Naked in the delicately floating scraps of paper.
Blindingly dark in hot, side lights.
With a pitying crowd of fifty.
At least we had great cappuccini before.
And at least we were united as storytellers against that army of four.
I'm so glad you're finishing school.
And I am so sad that I am not. But there is more to life than ambition.
I think.
Let's eat strawberries and pecorino soon
you bellisima bitch.
Under an aquaduct or on a broad porch.
With that quiet comfort of two friendly spirits who understand something only one who has walked the same stony path can.
Miss you, dear friend.
