Hard to be alone sometimes

Day 2 of the 4 day festival.  Great costumes, I took some videos with the camera.

As I walked around Umbertide, I did not see another woman walking around alone, not matter what her age.  I saw a few men, usually over 50, walking on there own, but not many.

It is hard to partake of the festivities as it is a lot about food and alcohol.  I don't drink and most of the food looks like it has flour. (My budget is tight, so I eat at home.) There are tables set up in lots of nooks and crannies in the village, restaurant style and little stands for wine and such.

I walked around for almost 2 hours.  I feel sad now, depleted.

I saw some people dancing on stage in the piazza, old group dances, that was nice.   There is a marching band of about 8 or 9 men wondering around, they sound great.

I don't know, it's one of those celebrations that is more fun when you are with friends.

Why should I feel down, I am in Italy!  Alas, I do.  What is, is.

I had a great 3 hour nap. I went over to a cafe on Garibaldi St. and enjoyed a cappuccino and reading the Yeats bio for 2 hours.  I was in my element.  I was lost in the book for a while, took a few notes too.

"This is who I am," I thought to myself.  I really enjoy learning, reading, writing, curling up in a chair.  Sometimes I chuckle out loud at something I find amusing, or I do the ol' eye brow lift with a small smirk, to something I find interesting.  That's me.

I have not seen one person reading while I have been in Italy.  I am not sure what they make of me, but no one bothers me much.  I am lost in my own world anyway.

I was able to download a few photos onto Facebook, because I couldn't send any photos to my sons.  Some glitch with the iphoto app and my email on yahoo. (They don't like to work together.)

It was bothering me, like a stiff itchy wool sweater, so when I got back from the cafe, I deleted it.
Thankfully my boys were able to see the photos, as were 4 friends.  I am just not ready for "real life" yet.  My time here seems too fragile still, too vulnerable.  I don't want people part of this experience yet.
I am glad I deleted them.

There were 2 very old women who had a small stand of dolls on one of the smaller roads tonight.  They are dolls that are made locally and the money goes to UNICEF.  I looked at a few dolls and it came down to two.  The one that had my color hair was wearing a purple knit outfit, I was going back and forth.  Finally I went back the one I saw in the beginning with darker hair and a grey and white outfit and I bought her.  I let the 'girl' part of me pick her out.  I carried her around with me for the last 20 minutes as I walked around tonight. I got a few looks.  It was nice to hold her and then take her home with me.

She was made in the town of Fontanelle. She was 'born' in March 2012.  She has very dark brown hair and blue eyes. (drawn on)      She's a fabric doll, very simplistic, but I like that about her.

I just realized this doll has all the markings of my sister Kathy, dark hair, blue eyes, and born in March.
On the UNICEF tag it says her qualities are 'Elegante e bellissima".

I looked up the town and it is in the northeast of Italy, 45k north from Venice, population under 6000.
(Wikipedia to the rescue.)

So here I am in my jammies listening to people clink glasses, laugh, and talk right outside the windows.
My doll is propped up to my right, in the corner of the couch looking confused with her new surroundings.  I haven't come up with a name yet, I will let it come to me.

I feel adrift tonight.  It isn't a bad feeling, but it isn't comfortable.  It is a reminder that I am alone in many ways here.  I feel that way in the states too.  It is nothing new.

Here are a few things I jotted down while reading today:  (These were interesting chapters, Yeats during his 20's joining secret mystical societies, etc.)

-"He goes like one on a secret errand"  ~Walter Pater  (Intro to a new chapter quote)

- A strickly chronological account (of Yeats during these years) would give the impression of a man in a frenzy, beating on every door in the hotel in an attempt to find his own room"  (I like the visual of knocking on doors, trying to find one's own, I've been doing that all my life)

- "...thought there was no one but his own shadow to rave against"   (Yeats with some depression)

- Yeats wrote in his story 'John Sherman'   "Your mind and mine are 2 arrows. Yours has got no feathers, andmine has no metal on the point"    (I am more of the latter type)

- "Mysticism? It is the love of our hearts for the dreams of our brains; it is what makes the vulgar hate us, what makes us into outlaws"  ~Stanislas de Guaita  (1885)

- (Latin) "Sapere Aude"  (Dare to be wise)     I would buy this as a bumper sticker!

- (Yeats was a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, great name) Fellow member, Florence Farr, wrote to him, "...to choose a life that shall bring him in touch with the sorrows of his race rather than accept Nirvana open to him and like other saviors of the world, to remain manifested as a living link between the supernatural and nature."      

This is similar to the idea in Buddhism of the bodhisattva, staying in the world to help others rather than allowing themselves to leave into bliss/nirvana.   Also a saying of Joseph Campbell, life is "the joyful participation in the sorrows of the world".  I believe this is was something he read in sanskrit.  

- "Letting the will move of itself"   (Many things about my time in Italy feel like this.)


The Yeats book is called:  "Yeats - The man and the masks"  By Richard Ellman (1948)

People are still wooping it up out there and it's 11:30.  I hear their happiness and joy and I share in the joy of it.  It is beautiful, even from the vantage point of being alone.


My new little fabric friend and I are heading upstairs to bed.

Good night.