I'm pleased to report that 20 years later a non-negligible amount of Italian remains lodged in my brain, even after two overnight flights on the heels of Cottonwood partying and fraught Anchorage life re-assessing. When I finally arrived, weary and bedraggled, at my Airbnb, I chatted ungrammatically but coherently with host Claudio about working in Alaska and the logistics of my friends' wedding in Sicily. No one has been too thrown off by me saying the Spanish "es" instead of "รจ" or "bueno" instead of "buono" that has crept in courtesy of my early-summer Duolingo practice. I even understood an explanation about sorting various recycling.
The vibe is pretty beach-relaxed down here, but still I feel self-conscious in my increasingly grimy two shirts. The hot bright sun, the gut-bomb fried rice balls (arancini), my bone-deep fatigue -- it's taken a minute to adjust to leaving Alaska. (Is week-long jet lag a product of too many miles, or middle-aged mileage?) Luckily, a handful of Coldfooters was here to ease my transition, and provide camaraderie for dancing. Actually, compliments to Cleo and Ronny's friends and family, who ALL danced for hours, from wedding DJ favorites like "Mambo #5" and "Celebration" to the salsa and cumbia that had the Venezuelan guests and the catering staff joyously flaunting their moves. Those of us departing *early* left at 2am, after late-night spaghetti was served to fortify those dancing 'til dawn.
And now I'm into freeform vacation mode, treading city streets footsore and antsy-me, reading six-month-old NY Review of Books, cooking pasta and transporting olive oil around with me. Sometimes it feels like seeking some kind of transcendence through some kind of groundedness. Instead of eat-pray-love, it's walk-read-eat.
