MONA LISA’S AND MAD HATTERS

Well, mom and D have been here for 6 days. What a fun fun time. I can’t tell you. So so amazing and wonderful. It was such a trip, and in many ways solidified my experience here in Rome. Sometimes it takes a best friend and your mom to show up to make it all real. Even if it is two weeks before you leave….

We had such adventures. We went to the Vatican (which was so wonderful, so much better than the last time I was there a month ago) and we traveled down south to Pompeii to see the crazy ruins (which was so beautiful but after an afternoon in the south I was just plain THRILLED to get home to Rome). And we shopped and moseyed around and we went to the flea market, and mom bought me THE MOST BEAUTIFUL ring for my birthday, AND WE ATE. Oh man did we eat. Just meal after meal. Sort of a final hurrah for me. Being that I am off so soon, it was just bliss to be able to share all my favorite stores and restaurants and corners of the city with them. And we crossed a few things off my to do list, and even found a few I didn’t know were on it. It was so great.

But now that they are gone it is back to life.

My precious life that I get for only two more weeks. Which aren’t even normal weeks. I turn thirty, I cook thanksgiving (or a version thereof- no turkey- bird flu is a real thing here…) and then I say good bye to my favorite city in the world and I go back to fucking America.

I am totally resigned to going at this point… but I have realized that I AM NOT DONE IN ROME. And that makes me feel strange that I am going. I am very aware that I don’t want to go, and at the same time I am OK to go… I just know sometimes as a grown up you have to do certain things, and now that I am 30 (or at least I will be in less than a week) I must act responsible and like a big girl and do what I must.

It’s time to get my cats home. It’s time to go and make some money. It’s time to be a god mother.

But
this
time

IS.
ALMOST.
OVER.

And I will mourn it’s passing. But I am so grateful and happy and blessed that It happened at all.

And I will maintain and I will survive, and so too will Rome. As long as the Coliseum stands, and the eternal flames glows and my heart beats.

So too, will my love for this great seat of western civilization live on.

However buried under soot and silt and sewer over how many thousands of year… I will love this place, and this time.

“I thank the lord for the people I have found. While Mona Lisa’s and Mad Hatters, sons of bankers, sons of lawyers, turn around and say good morning to the night. For unless they see the sky, but they can’t and that is why, they no not if it’s dark outside or light. “ -EJ


And in more un sentimental news my brother is throwing a huge fuck all coming home/ birthday party for me the night after I arrive to LA.

So I suppose fuck Mona Lisa, fuck her mad hatters, Its time to go back to one.