Adjusting in progress

Earth calling Marquish, Marquish doesn't answer.
This has been the recurring theme of the last almost two months. I didn't write, I was busy planning the best way to hold on and change faith.
I am serene now, back to school, studying, alive and kickin'.
All I didn't want to happen, eventually became my everyday life. Reasoning led me not to hate it, to accept it even though this is not the place, the time, the situation I wanted to live. But hopefully it is for the best. I spoke to Lise yesterday and no question was damn hard. I miss that wonderful world (like Armstrong's) I started to dream could be my next future.
In the end I cannot complain, Rome is treating me alright. Friends are nice, I am working hard which is always rewarding and the project I left before leaving is going pretty well.
For all of those who stayed with me in California and hoped to see me again:
I am sorry, I couldn't help this from happening and I am as disappointed as you are.
Come visit me in Rome and facing a beer I'll explain everything. Y'all are more than welcome.
More to come.

Back (for a while)

Here I am writing from Rome again, not really in the mood for many words. I'll just tell that the VISA situation went wrong somewhere, due evidently to US' immigration policies, and this implies that I'll certainly hang around here for a long while.
I'll write some more later, now I feel inside out.

Three Months of Madness

Broke

I just found out my credit card is not working anymore...
Annoying really, I thought I didn't by far ran out of money. Maybe it is just the card itself it's broken or there is something weird happening with the bank.
Though it is annoying. I have enough money to go back home but still I hoped I had something saved to do stuff in the future.

Halfway to nowhere

I left the house today. A lot of people came with me to the bus station. It was great of them to come. It meant a lot to me. I managed to force the tears back to my eyes until they were there. I didn't want it to be sad. Something so beautiful such as what we had couldn't be nostalgic and melancholic in the end.
I'm in San Francisco now, on my own. I guess I need a few days to clear my thoughts. It is strange ti come back to the noises of a big city while your brain finds the oddity of silence around myself not having all the company there was in Santa Cruz.
I'll miss the guys. Since there is the reasonable possibility of a comeback anytime soon in ACE, I dont really feel like I have been separated from it. But speaking of the guys I know that many of them I might not see again. Experience taught me how hard it is to get together again. There will be a reunion in Berlin in a couple of weeks though. I'm actually thinking about going there.
Let's hope it'll be possible.
More to come.

One more project

I'm sorry I didn't have the time or I was not in the right mood to write before this time, it's been long since I posted my thoughts here. But the last month has been pretty full.
On monday we are leaving for Yosemite national park for a four days project after a rather long break. It's been a lot of fun, we partied really hard, more than ever.
And now it's again time for goodbyes, with the only exception that this time it's my turn to leave. Right after the project I'll start my journey back home. I won't hide the fact that it's hard for me to leave all this behind.

People

The German guy, saying goodbye through a mass of temperamental bright-blonde hair, looked tough and cold, though I could percieve the puncturing pain of separation in his voice.
The quite Korean, the one that never speaks loud and is never in a hurry left in an early morning without making a big fuss about it. I hope someday he will finally figure out how God must look like.
The high elf, light of my days, left smiling as usual. It makes me feel better to see that what's important is what you have had rather than what you might have lost.
The crazy Italian left on an empty van riding to San Francisco Airport to meet her lover. I know she'll have fun since none else ever was that much in their own world.
The Swedish silent rock left with a luggage bigger than him in a sunny sunday morning, with the best company.
The GPS, the best surprise you'll ever recieve, will leave tomorrow on a trip to his beloved city. You still owe me a dinner, there's still time for us to say goodbye.
All this people meant everything to me here. I'll never forget.
Concerning who is here now:
The Jumping Jap, with his wide forehead and a passion for Marlboros. The companion of freesbee training and much more.
The Danish nuts, the one with a laugh that spreads around as a disease. One day I won't be jelous of your spectacular voice anymore, we should play more together.
The French community with thier gentle manners, it's so nice of you to remind me everytime how to stay civilized also being in the wild.
The Korean girls and their good spirit, always looking at the brightside.
The Italian army that just arrived with a coffee pot and some familiar humor after so long.

I am stuck in the middle, ready to start over. And not to forget y'all, for no reason.
Both present and gone people are the inspiration to make miracles happen.

Back in Town

I arrived a couple of hours ago from Nevada City where the last project took place and I have a lot of energetic and good vibes. I start to be addicted to the bad ass work I've been doing lately, time is going to damn' fast. Last project was a piece of cake, we had showers, dvd player and a spectacular river nearby. Work was a little light and boring but I found ways to make it more interesting (I lumberjacked big trees using a polaski and it's muuuch better than going to the gym...).
I've waited so bad to com back to Santa Cruz that waiting one more day for what I need seems so long. Let's see what around next corner. It's kind of scary though.

New Mood

I came back yesterday after a loooong drive through Arizona, Nevada and California. It was better than the last time, time flew by and we had fun. During the last project I realized a couple of things I want to change in the future, I must have been really pain in the ass in the last few weeks for those around me because of complaining all the time about me going to Arizona and stuff but from now on I decided to change. I want to be more positive, not only to stop bothering those around me, but especially to live things better. In a way what happened is that I was really upset and angry because of what happened and I felt so bad and couldn't really get over with it. So I was just doing things and communicate to people in the wrong way. Especially in Chiricahua I worked as hard as always but all the time with some shadow of unhappiness within my thoughts. It is time to stop.
Since yesterday (which of course was not the most brilliant of days, sitting in a car for 11 hours or so) I started take things easy, which is also more in the Californian style.
My next project is going to be in Stenford University (I don't really know what American Conservation Experience can do for a University, I'm curious to find out) but as usual it's not really sure until the very last day. So finger crossed everybody, this time it might be the right time.

Over the hills and far away

So I am back in this beautiful hippish, surfish, summer city. Yesterday it was such a beautiful day, we played football on the beach. The sun was high and the tan was coming.
To spend a few words about my first project: it is pretty hard work. I wasn't expecting it to be that hard, the first day I wanted to commit suicide. It's only after a while that I saw the purpose and the beauty of what I was doing. I am learning to build dry walls and channels and water bars. It's called "trailwork" and involves everything is necessary to reconstruct, renew, remodel existing trails. I did it near Tucson and it was extremely hot. Until yesterday I was pretty sure my next project would have been in California but apparently since the branch has just started up here (I'm in the very first crew working here in Santa Cruz) there is not that much work to do et so we'll help the guys down in AZ to get things done. It pisses me off very much, it is frustrating that I applied for a California project and now I find myself working in Arizona for another hitch. But still I don't want to blame anybody, I see that they do everything they can and things will go the right way in a while.
Speaking about myself, there's not much to say. I enjoy the work part, the project and everything that goes with it because it really is fulfilling and self-satisfying. Though I think this is still a vacation, I'd like to have a little more night life a little better company while drinking (the US underage-no-drinking policy is a fucking joke). But best is always yet to come.

Back from Coronado

I just arrived in Santa Cruz after the eight days project in Coronado, Tucson, Arizona.

It was cool, I have done impressive hard work, it was extremely hot (around 40 degrees at noon). Mostly what we do is trail reconstruction, I am learning how to build dry walls, water bars, channels and some other tricky stuff.
I wasn't maybe expecting it to be this hard but now I am so happy I came you wouldn't imagine.
I am too tired now to give details, more will follow.

A Blue Empty House.

Oh God...my back is killing me. On May, 26th I met the rest of the first Santa Cruz Team ever @ the airport. I've been told afterwards that ACE (the organization I work for) has worked in AZ for a long time and just right now decided to open a branch in Santa Cruz. So I'm really happy to be part of this thing growing and I can really say I'm seeing it at the very beginning. Imagine that in the house we don't even have beds yet. Nevertheless the building itself is beautiful, a blue house on Broadway Street.
The beach is 5 min away as it is downtown. Santa Cruz is a pretty city, I think is the place where everybody wants to be in the summer: surfers, beach volley players, rappers, rockers, punks, musicians (there are plenty of music festivals). It is very expensive though.
So tomorrow I'll be off to go to Coronado Park in AZ for 8 days of hard work (with a fucking desertic climate I'm afraid).
I'll try to keep the blog adjourned between projects, for the moment take care.

On the doorstep again

Last night in San Francisco after 3 really tiring days. I recovered from jet lag only today so I made all my walking tours starting at 7 AM.
Through Chinatown I made the tie knot to a mexican guy who was on his first day of work, then i explored Grant Av. and Portsmouth Sq. when the city was still asleep. I got the vibe better when I went back there in the afternoon, it is a neighborhood that is pitoresque especially for the immense activity in work hours.
From there I walked through Russian Hill to North Beach discovering one or two quite well hidden places which were asbsolutely outstanding. I hope to be able to post a few pictures later because it is hard for me to describe it.
I walked from Fisherman's Wharf through the whole Embarcadero to Market Street (it's been a huge walk).
Then today I saw Mission and Soma which are quite a bit the other side of the city. While Marina, North Beach and the Hills (Russian and Nob) are really posh, beautiful looking and clearly rich areas, these other two are poor. Lots of beggars, some junkies and drunks came to me asking for money. Didn't have any trouble though.
Tonight I made my first sociable night at the hostel, especailly because i didn't go to bed at 8...
I met an Italian Girl which made an italian fashioned coffee, an australian photographer, an argentinian guy called Santiago and a Portoriacn girl that speaks a lot of languages (I actually have doubts about her nationality I believe she has got several passports).
Best guy I met is a chef called Kevin, a New Yorker, that told me wonderful aneddots both about his US life and his Italian Roots (he didn't look really italian at first, but apparently he's got a house in Milano).
Well, that's pretty much it, there other nice things I might write but I do start being tired so i might just go to bed. Tomorrow I'll leave this place which I like, no joke, to Santa Cruz and maybe I'll find out a little bit more about what I got myself into for the next months.

Cheers

Sitting on the dock of the bay

Hey there (as Akeboshi says),

I arrived today in San Francisco after a 20 hours journey that really devastated my body. My luggage got lost so for today I'm stinky and tired, I could shower buying a small towwel but couldn't change clothes...
The first impresison on the city is great, to step in a meal place and have meat loaf made me feel like a movie charachter. All the imagery we have through art, movies, music and novels is now in front of my eyes and for the moment doesn't collide that much with the dream.
More to come.

On the Doorstep.

I write these lines just a few hours before leaving. California is waiting for me and I am so badly excited I'll suggest a few songs I'm listening to countinuously:

Led Zeppelin: Going to California
the Byrds: If you're going to San Francisco
Otis Redding: The Dock of the Bay
xxxx: California (the one going "California here we come" all the time)

Speaking of me, I have thought a little about my feelings before the atlantic step, I do believe the anxiety before departure is much more invasive (even though less strong) than the other times I was leaving, not because of the length of my stay, but instead for the state of mind I reached here in Rome. Last time I was leaping into mistery I needed to. The years in Rome got me so filled up of shit I couldn't really breathe. Now it is a much more voluntary choice, not forced by the environment so in a way I feel really it was me to pick this one.
I hope to be able to write as much as I'd like about this country of real mistery I'm going to. It's been years I wanted to visit the US, I always thought in a way our educational background comes from there so it'd be cocky and ignorant to speak about something without knowing the subject.
My luggages are ready, all familiar faces have been seen and kissed. Only one day away from America.

About to leave again.

Here I am describing the newest anxiety pre-departure. It's been nine months here in Rome, and it was time for me to leave again. Since when I came back from Brussels, my life has taken so many turns.
I don't know if in this year I consider in conclusion I have changed as much as I did during the Erasmus one (or maybe didn't change at all...) but I do believe I understood a few things.
Some of them are definitely positive, such as the belief I have now in chances and opportunities, whose cycle is continuous and never stops. Some bad things I realized is that your past can kill you if you let it. Forgetting, hiding, regretting are dangerous things as well as living of evanescent memories of the past. Apparently things are like a wheel that never stops.



Reading above it might look I converted to Buddhism in the end...who knows, maybe one day I might spend my energies in meditation only. For the moment I am in a big rush to complete all the stuff for the journey. I don't want to speak about California yet, I thought that one week before leaving it was right to write sort of a balance of the last months.

California, here we come!

I've been accepted for a summer volunteer program in California, I'll leave in around a month for Santa Cruz where I shall spend three months (until the end of summer ;op).
It is a relief what finally happened. I couldn't stand anymore those whole days of nothing, this will be both challenging and (hopefully) rewarding.
By the way, next year I'll study here in Rome once agian, which is far from an happy solution but it's pretty much the only choice.
Further news will come.

the Triumph of "Minor Arts"

pag.139 secondo paragrafo.

Passo avanti un'idea che viene dai miei amici ispanici.
Sostanzialmente si tratta di passare di mano in mano un post bloggato (generalmente si commenta su quello degli altri e poi si inizia nel proprio) con la citaizone delle prime cinque righe del secondo paragrafo a pag.139 del libro che si sta leggendo. So che è una cosa surreale ed ho già provveduto a coglionare come merita l'artefice del passaggio che è arrivato a me. In ogni modo proseguo e vediamo che succede.

"Quando diceva di non lavorare gli obbedivano; e facevano addirittura a gara per seguirlo nella marcia in onore dell'undicesimo anniversario della fucilazione di Francisco Ferrero a Montjuic, Barcellona."

Bruce Chatwin, In Patagonia.

The Storm has Passed

Now that I have clearer mind, I rethink of what happened in the past weeks, months, year.
All of a sudden I find myself enjoying my time in Brussels even too much, deciding to stay there longer, postponing the thesis, graduation and such. Then, a sense of invincibility appears to have taken me so that I couldn't reason with clear mind. It is only now that I realize, not to have been mistaken, but to have made choices considering no possible adversity.
That's why the circumstances I should have forseen caught me so surprisingly unprepared.
I do know, on the other hand, that I've been a little unlucky, but I must be couscious that I made mistakes and cannot now avoid being responsable for those.



But as I said beginning this post, I have clearer mind now and the future appears less tragic of what I thought in the beginning. You just have to learn flexibility. The more easily you heart adapts to situations, the more versatile your mind will be. It doesn't mean to accept everything and always consider that "things will come to you one way or another". It means you have to try get everything tou can also from a second best situation, that is most of the time not a choice.
I played basketball today, for the first time since october. It's fucking hard, my body is aching in almost every part, but how satisfying it is to lay on the couch after the shower, with all your muscles thanking you for being reactivated.
The best is yet to come.

Mood for a Day

It is tough for me not to feel down and out these days. There has been a concentration of bad vibe around me that I sincerely have a hard time to keep the optimistic engine going.
I've been rejected from LSE, which can appear a calculated failure to whom knows me best. And in the end it is so, I don't claim any injustice or feel unlucky, simply I played my chance on the hardest odd and came up short. Shit happens they say. What really hurts it's the complete lack of direction I have know, meaning that I don't even know what to hope for the years to come. I know swing between different hypotesis, not knowing where to go. The prospective of staying in Rome is hard, not only for my desire of starting an independent life, possibly in fairer country, but especially since what I would study here appears incredibly stupid and useless.The road that leads abroad is complicated, economically and pratically.
Following others you never arrive first, but you may not arrive. I now have to consider all sides of my situation in the next weeks and figure out what's best for me. It is certain that the great expectations I had were unaccurate. I do not own, at least right now, a good starting point.
I'll try, even if it costs me a lot, to end up like I did the other day meaning it:
The best is yet to come.

What's next? (Beauty)

Behind every corner there's beauty. Showing itself suddenly, surprising and scaring. Though what I ask now it's what's next?
I have a firm convinction that best is yet to come, nevertheless what's beyond next corner is the great "?" .
Will beauty stun me once more or the sad grey of empty days is going to become abitude?
First of all I'd like this flew to pass, I hate being sick. My head's hurting and I can't focus on anything. Furtheremore I am already nervous for Champions League quarter finals against Manchester United. That's fucking hell of a team.
These are days of words not said, secrets not told, speeches not spoken, conversations not talked. I vaguely hope for good news from London, already quit hopelessly look for an internship. So what I do can't be said and what I say can't be done.
I know how much my words may sound cryptic but one day I'll explain everyone, myself in first place, I swear.
In the mean time take a look at last corner's beauty.

Explored!

I'm happy to announce that I've been explored!
I'm really happy to have made it especially with a photo that is dedicated to the city I lived in all my life, good or bad as it is.
Cheers!

my, oh my.

http://lavidapirata.blogspot.com/2007/01/voglia-di-volare.html

This is something that touched my soul. It had been a while the last time that happened. I'm just sorry that only the ones speaking spanish will be able to read it. It's just amazing...

Imagine & Forget

I try to imagine, I try to forget.
I believe in what I don't know, I refuse what I see.
I own what's ethereal, I desire what's in my room.
I despair just to understand how happy I can be.
Imagining,
Forgetting.

(De)pressed

It's been a while, though no big changes have occurred. These days of nothing have become weeks, hoping they won't horribly turn into months. It's the desolation of the jobless, the void of the unoccupied, the unbusiness. So long have stretched my days I can't recollect how fast (or slow) time passes.
It is anyway peculiar how odd can be not to find an activity, a volunteering service, simply an employer, when you have acted all your life as the "good guy". I worked so hard in University, I garduated, I read, I play, I think all the time. I saved from wasting every minute if the past three years, it truely is weird not to see these action haveing a counterbalance.
I will wait until the end of january, then I'll consider my research for that activity I spoke above concluded.
Maybe it's time to move on, to focus on the fact that I'll start again studying in september and I should spend these months left to that time for curing those activity I left a little behind. It's been weeks since I played guitar last time. The few licks I could blow into the trumpet are almost gone. My body is a wrack. Only thing I do constntly is photography.
I'm sorry I can't be more positive at this time.

Wannabe left, Photographer returns

I arrived yesterday from my trip in Madrid where I spent almost two weeks. It's been a good time, I met nice people and I got along well with them.
This was also the chance to try out my new camera, and to start an activity I believe I will develop over time. If you want to check out a fewe shots they are available at www.flickr.com/photos/marquish/ or on the link on the right.
Take care and have fun

Happy new year !!

Happy new year to y'all. I'm in Madrid in a dirty cybercafe, so my post can't be very long, interesting and there'll be no photos :(
I promise anyway to post something as soon as I'll be back in Rome.