Salutations

Having all of these kids around is so much fun! Altogether, with the six cousins that are here (actually, at the moment, there are two more from Sara's side of the family), which brings the grand total (including me), to 12 kids! I'm the oldest, and the youngest is, I think, 2 years old, and spends the majority of his time naked ;) We went swimming on a beach the other night where, a ways out into the bay there was a floating dock. We spent probably two hours just playing, jumping, diving, pushing, and getting pushed off of this incredibly simple and fun structure. This fun culminated in Chiara and I dancing a combination of the Madagascar penguins' dance and some of the Irish dances I had learned at my other vacation, while singing "I like to move it, move it," - and SLIPPING on the wet wood and falling on top of each othe! We screamed at the top of our lungs because of various hurting body parts (for me it was my ankle; for her it was her stomach, which landed on top of my ankle), and then laughed at the top of our lungs because of how silly it was, and then we dove back in (I lowered myself down carefully because my ankle really did hurt for a while), and swam slowly and tiredly back to shore (by which time I could walk perfectly fine again)!

I took time to smell and enjoy every variety of flowers along the flowery garden path that led to that beach. A powerful lesson became of it in that yesterday a big fire started somehow, and it ended up burning those same gardens where we had been walking the night before. It was sad, yes, but I haven't heard of anyone being hurt. It is very close to here which was scary because it was a very windy day, but no harm came of it. It was actually quite exciting because two bright yellow rescue planes and a helicopter carrying a HUGE bucket kept roaring above us, back and forth, picking up water to fight the fire from OUR beach (by which I mean the one where the house we are staying at is on- a three minute walk through the garden to the shore). Stefano, the three youngest boys, including the naked one (who incidentally was wearing a spedo at this point), Marco, and a hillariously cute 5-year-old named Luca), and I all ran down to the beach to watch the hellicoptor swoop down to fill up its load, and the two fast planes level themselves with the water and fill up their bellies with water to spray. Stefano took videos and possibly pictures, some of which I might be able to share at some point.

I had an incredible night last night, simply awing at the stars and the moon, and laughing as Stefano jokingly made fun of me to the 14-year-old Pietro because I didn't realize that the sun rose in the east and set in the west everywhere. I had never really thought of it! Stefano demonstrated to me by picking up a blue bocci ball and holding it up, spinning it slowly between his fingers. "I am the sun," he started, and then said with a smile, "-of COURSE I am the sun!" ;D As I watched that little blue sphere spin around, with little imaginary occupants each meeting the sun at a different position in its roation, the earth suddenly seemed a lot smaller, and I definitely seemed to be in Italy, and I suddenly felt like hugging somebody.

I think that I was all I meant to tell you... to tell you the truth, it's a bit easier for me not to write on ths blog while I'm here. Not indefinitely, or as a strict verdict or anything, it's just that every time I get off, when I am able to get on to write, I find that I feel unbearably lonely, more than when I don't get onto the internet, where there is the potetential to connect with the world back home, but only in a small, teasing sort of way. Without all the business of doing things that I previously experienced during the first part of my stay in Italy, it is a more frightening, perminant feeling of homesickness, when it comes, which I would rather do without, to be hones. Here thare are days as Andrew put it, of "water and sun..." and "more water and sun"... and beauty, an sweet moments, and many, many dreams and thoughts and contemplations, but not a lot to actually DO or write about, so it's harder to keep my mind off of those I miss once I get on to write to them. It makes me start to count the days until I can come home, and strangely, it ends up turning out that there are more days that the time it feels I have left, which is to say, it feels like I am comming home sooner than I really am, but I think that if I stop thinking about the days, the actual timing of it all will more accurately match up with the way I am feeling about the time in my head.

I hope this makes any sense at all.
(This probably means to say I will be back on in three days instead of one, but you know what I mean...) ;)

That's the other thing I hate about blogging here- when I get to the end I don't know how to end it, because it's not really a letter; it's a blog, but I feel like I should say, "goodbye" or "I love you" or "greetings!" or something, which makes it seems so definite, as if I am indeed ending something, and none of this is perfectly necessary because nothing is ending, it's just that we're all living our days. No, I don't like ending blogs here, not at all. So, until later then.

(bye) ;)