Unforgettable

"Was I really there? Did I really stay there for five months of my life?"

These are the questions I end up asking myself every time I look at the pictures that I took in Italy. I stare at them and try to bring myself back there. I wish I could dive into a scene, submerse myself in the culture, as if it was a pool of deep water. Cigarette smoke mingles with the sweetness of freshly baked pastries, the clinking of espresso cups placed atop a counter in a bar, and the rushing of constant running water from knee-high drinking fountains fills my senses and I instantly lose myself. I walk down the narrow cobblestone streets through small alleyways canopied by line-drying laundry. As I turn the corner, I meet by the Tiber and the top of Basilica di San Pietro. Like a shining jewel in the distance, the lantern of the basilica sparkles against the night sky. For many, this lantern is a symbol of holiness but to me it signifies home. I walk toward it. Political posters with pictures of crossed ballots and graffiti, professions of rebelliousness and love, line the boards and buildings on my way. I walk on forever deeply submerged in my memories. Suddenly something forces me out of my memory and I recall that I do not live in that place or in that moment anymore. Just as quickly as I plunged into my memories I am dragged out and am forced to come back up to reality for air. I surface only to find that this air that is without cigarette smoke, without sweet pastries, without history, and without soul.

If it is not obvious already, I miss Italy. However, it is hard for me to tell if my memories of my stay are still accurate or if they have already romanticized. As I enhance the photograph, lessen the exposure, or saturate the colors, I wonder if by altering these pictures that I am also altering my memories. Was that door really that green and weathered? Were the tiles on that roof truly that vibrant?

I am always trying to find bits of Italy in Oxnard. As I drive down Pacific Coast Highway toward Santa Monica I enter Sicily with dark jagged rocks protruding from crashing waves and light greenish-yellow vegetation alongside the hills. While driving back home at night, the lights of Hollywood Beach against the black ocean remind me of the reflection of the streetlights against wet Roman cobblestone or of the reflection of Florentine streetlights against the river. I see bits of Italy everywhere. These images, smells and sounds flood my thoughts constantly and I act as a person obsessed with a lost love.

As with all memories that involve significant others who are far away, are my memories becoming too idealized? They say (whoever “They” are) that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but does it also make the heart grow blind and forgetful as it overlooks and denies all of the difficulties that my love has put me through? I ask this because I have been guilty of doing this in the past. I remember coming back to my boyfriend at the time after a month long vacation only to realize that he was not the person I had been missing all that time. I would return with such high expectations that disappointment was certain.

The knowledge of this particular character flaw worries me and only brings forth more questions that concern my future relationship with Italia. Am I missing the true Italia? When I visit her again, will she be everything that I expect or would she have evolved into someone else who I do not understand?

I longingly look at my pictures and treat them as if they are reflections of my lovesick feelings about Italia. I push all of my paranoia aside and I say to myself, “The door to that house may not have been THAT green and weathered and those tiles on that roof may not have been THAT vibrant, but to me they were and will forever be that way.” To me Italia is a place that is timeless and unforgettable.

There is probably something damaging about constantly ruminating and reliving the past. In fact, based on psychological studies, in certain situations I know it is damaging. In my case it may cause my expectations to escalate to such as height that disappointment is inevitable, but I have faith in my Italia. The Italia that I have grown to love would never let that happen because she always has something mystifying up her sleeve. I don’t know why but something tells me the next time we meet I know will not be disappointed.