In Rome, my clock operates strangely. Each Thursday, I whisk myself off to someplace new. My weekends are spent with many friends connecting in foreign places, tearing through a schedule of jam-packed activities. Sunday evening brings me back to my little room in Trastevere, always tired and a bit discombobulated. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday are busy days but they are quiet. My path crosses with my roommates but few others from Duke, and I like the moments of solitude.
Long distance has only affirmed my perceptions about who is important in my life at Duke. At school, something feels off if I go a full 24 hours without seeing a close friend. Their absence is detectable and I feel incomplete. Abroad, we move through long stretches during which these connections subsist solely on communication about our new lives. I miss them dearly, but my idea of normalcy has changed. The status quo for a “great month” is now a weekend or two of overlap each month — if we are lucky. That is, if the friend is even studying in Europe. I am not entirely sure why, but I feel old when I regard events that will happen in a few months or next year as “soon.” When I was younger, each week felt significant in the goings on of my daily life and formative to the evolution of my identity. Perhaps this is because chunking my life into larger gaps — and furthermore, viewing these periods casually — means that I am really planning now. It means looking towards a future, driven by decisions, that extends beyond my semester of travels where real life with its real implications is on pause. It feels strange at times, but not scary. This semester has been filled with leaps in and out of my comfort zone. I have formed new connections I am excited to bring home, cultivated existing ones and cherished any reunion with those who already knew me inside out — no matter how brief our intersections in the same place are. This prolonged distance from my people — the ones who ground me, who make me feel utterly at ease just by being themselves — was challenging at first. Their absence felt tangible and I did not quite feel like myself, always slightly out of sorts. I realized this retrospectively, once my feet were steadied. I never doubted the ability of my core relationships to withstand time and space. I have been happy to find that they are not just on pause; I feel like each has actually grown deeper. It is nice to know with such certainty that time zones and lack of proximity does not weather how we operate. I spend time with so many different people among different groups as I move from city to city. Time apart from those I deeply love has only brought me further clarity because the immersive sense of bliss I briefly experience when I am with them — even over FaceTime — is so easy to distinguish from the range of other still-pleasant interactions I often experience. The space away from the hustle of school life, which is crammed with tons of necessary interactions and relationships that vary from highly positive to mediocre, has provided me with a poignant magnifying class. My convictions about who my closest companions and confidantes are, and who I want them to be, have not faltered. The quiet time has merely affirmed that the foundations are strong. These connections make sense; they were not formed out of convenience. I want to return to Duke with intention. It will be lovely to come back and merge my life with my dearest old friends again, add the new connections and simultaneously shed those that I did not realize had grown to feel like obligations. It is strange and a bit frightening to believe that I am descending over the hump towards the final stretch of my college experience. I expect the re-adjustment to be jolting, as any time of transition usually is for me. But I have never felt more confident in knowing who I want to surround myself with and how I hope to prioritize those who matter.
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I experience the sensation that I have been transported to a different time and place. The hot beating sun and palm trees whisk me to Miami. Colorful mosaics line the curved bench on the main terrace, winding in the shape of a salamander. The tiles shimmer in the sun like scales of a fish, emitting an energy that feels Latin. A panoramic view unfolds before my friend Dylan and me. We spot two rather oddly shaped brown houses in the distance. They look like what I would imagine Hansel and Gretel’s gingerbread houses to be. Tile salamander statues are scattered throughout the park and an electric violin reverberates under twisting archways. I climb the ascending hillside of Parque Guell and everything structure I pass feels startling and surreal, like something I might find in Disney world. Each surface upon which my eyes rest is simultaneously vivacious and eerie, both confusing and enticing to the senses.
Later we visit La Casa Batlló, another masterpiece by Antoni Gaudí. A 3x5 inch screen shows us how the house appeared in Gaudí's time. As we progress from room to room, the scene changes. Everything minute detail of the place is magnificent. Purple and green stained glass windows whisper of the sea. Spiraling staircases create optical illusions at every turn. Sunlight dances through window shafts. I look upwards at wall of blue mosaic tiles that climb, growing darker until they reach the arching translucent greenhouse roof. I feel like a small child underwater, swimming for the first time, peering up to the surface from the bottom of the ocean. The white attic feels like a cave — not quite suffocating, but almost so. The voice in my headphones tells me that Gaudí designed this part of the house to look like the rib cage of a whale. I believe it. The inhabitants of this house must have constantly felt as though they were grasping onto greatness but also struggling to breathe. Every room reflects a collision between naturalism and creativity, madness and genius. The result is strangely soothing. I feel like I am caught in the dreams of some wild thinker whose visions could not be concrete enough for this narrow world. But he graced us with a few thoughts and thus, masterpieces were born. Strangely enough, La Casa Batlló is now sandwiched by the most ordinary-looking buildings in one of the busiest, most commercial streets of Barcelona. Leaving feels like I have climbed up out of Alice’s rabbit hole, back to sights and sounds of reality. Later, when walking through La Boqueria, Dylan turns to me. “Do you think we permit works of genius — real expressions of creativity— to exist today?” I pause, chewing on that for a bit. “Does our society encourage the next Gaudí? Or would he get stifled?” The bustling clamor of the market surrounds us. We could excuse ourselves and argue that genius is often only deemed as such retrospectively. So many artists are not celebrated until after their deaths. Society often crowns laurels that the creative thinker never gets to wear. Usually, they are ostracized instead. But his words stick with me. I am not sure if our world allows this kind of startling creativity anymore. Yes, technology transcends what we used to view as traditional boundaries, but can codes and numbers really stop one in his or her tracks? Can it steal a person’s breath away in that punctuated, indefinable way? We do not know what might have been. Across Europe, countless museum halls celebrate the works of incredible artists whose works withstand time long after they are gone. I wonder who comes next. I hope there is still enough oxygen left in this world for their ideas to breathe and shatter our perception of normal. I am not sure. I enter the stately building with a crowd of chattering friends, greeted by an imperious main hallway. Elegant white marble arcs slope over us with detailed inscriptions upon their surfaces. A subdued murmur lingers throughout the massive hall, suspended.
The vastness and grandeur make me feel small in the best of ways. After standing still for a few moments, I walk into the first exhibit and begin to wander. My friends slip off. Soon, only Cassidy remains near me. Together we amble through the labyrinth of ornately framed paintings, each becoming lost in our own world. We are still vaguely connected by our mutual admiration and understanding, which we communicate through occasional eager glances across the room. Crowds of people surround us. I am overcome by the old, familiar feeling that tiptoes through me when I am immersed in great art. A sense of calmness pervades, not crashing like a wave but crawling slowly. However, when the feeling does arrive, it swiftly becomes all encompassing. Each impressionist painting is more breathtaking than the next. My eyes drink in Dega’s ballerinas, the ones I used to measure and sketch. I walk six inches from Van Gogh’s flower pot, his jutting brush marks rising from the canvas caked in oil paint. My version of his flower pot, painted on an apron, hangs in my kitchen at home. There is something surreal and also intimate about being so physically close to the works I studied and copied throughout my childhood. Time no longer ticks as my exterior thoughts and concerns fade, eclipsed by my immediate present. In this moment, I am in my element and in my own world. I had forgotten how this immersive stillness feels: it is a more static yet acutely aware sense of being. My old teacher Sasha’s voice rings through my head as I approach Cezanne’s fruit. She assembled apples and pears over and over in her studio basement, emphasizing the importance of how the light falls on the fruit’s surface. Thinking about her brings forth a pang of nostalgia along with a wave of fondness. I haven’t spoken to her in years. I had regarded her as a mother figure for a long time; we used to gossip and listen to music and share weekly updates as we worked. I wonder how she is doing. In Sascha’s studio, my thoughts always slowed down and my hands moved of their own accord. I became synchronized. As I walk among these paintings, I feel as though I have returned to an old self. It has been a long time since I painted. I seek that state of calm and cohesion through other means now, like running and writing. They do the trick for a short time. But sitting down to draw or paint used to keep me suspended for hours. It’s strange that something so integral to my childhood identity could have faded in my memory. I had forgotten how formative these experiences were to my younger sense of self. I didn’t realize that this chapter was tucked so far away in the back of my mind; with the box now reopened, I register how much I miss it. Engulfed in both contentment and wistfulness, I admire each brushstroke. When Cassidy and I reach the end of the progression of rooms and have seen our fill, we walk out side-by-side. She, too, has been an artist her whole life. Similarly to me, her passion has been relegated to a secondary hobby since going to college. During that stretch of time in the exhibit, we understood each other perfectly. As we exit, we understand each other more deeply still. Our friends sit on the marble steps at the museum’s entrance. “We’ve been waiting for you for a long time,” one says. “What took so long?” Cassidy and I blink, a little surprised and dazed. I truly have no recollection of how much time has passed. I step outside into the sun, not feeling ready to leave quite yet. The world claims us again. Winding canals dictate the cobblestone labyrinth that is Venice, forming her web of streets. As I snake around corners on foot, it almost feels as though a small child was playing with a puzzle, grabbed the pieces he wanted to keep for himself and then bolted, leaving the city to fill in the gaps. Like Rome, ancient bricks and beautiful crumbling stones form the skeleton of every building, pushed up against one another and washed over by hues of sepia and pastel. On narrow and scarcely traveled streets, the water laps quietly against the stone, radiating a tone of calm acquiescence. The canals' surfaces lay still.
It is easy to leap backwards and imagine Venice as a crux of power and mystique. She has not lost her elegance with age. Masquerade shops line every street. The stores are filled with masks of all sizes and shapes. Delicate black-and-gold handicraft glitters alongside masks that are brightly colored. To window shoppers, each flaunts a slightly different identity. Years ago, people of status liked to play dress up and be someone else for a time. During Carnivale each spring, eager travelers still do the same today. Venice has always embodied wealth and prosperity. She makes her status clear. Historically, the city was a strategic naval, financial and commercial powerhouse. Commander of the Adriatic Sea. She was considered the most elegant and refined city in Europe. The wealthiest Venetian families constantly vied to demonstrate their prestige through the acquisition of art as well as the creation of literature and architecture. But Venice could never master the art of continuity. Her power remained fleeting. Time and again, Venice seized other lands and was seized; she conquered and was conquered. Under Napoleon’s power, Venice belonged to the Austrian Empire. When the city was a flourishing imperial power, she traded expansively with the Byzantine Empire, Asia and the Muslim world. Her identity was not Italian, but distinctively and proudly Venetian. She tried on one mask for a while then discarded it for an elusive new identity. Sometimes this was by choice; other times it was forced through surrender. But as Venice evolved, she always stayed afloat. Bridges connect one street to the next throughout this floating city. My friends and I cross one after another to reach the Grand Canal. The main streets are crowded with foot explorers like us, but suddenly we turn a corner and find ourselves surrounded by silence. At dusk, the emptiness feels eerie — but in a mysterious and glamorous way. Imperious, but never threatening. Moments later, we wind around another cobblestone corner and the bustle of chatter erupts once again. We recline in a gondola as the sun sinks and the sky darkens. A man in stripes paddles throughout the quiet canals, humming under his breath. The canals seem endless to me but he knows their routes like clockwork. The city begins to light up. Candles line apartment windows and lampposts cast a soft golden glow that glimmers over the water, creating reflections that dance back and forth quickly. We glide towards tiny islands, overcome by glamour and transience. The city is proud to show herself off, but she also doesn't quite want you to know who she is. She wears many names. City of bridges. City of masks. The floating city. She is always playing dress up. With each nightfall, her identity can start anew. |
Carly Stern
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