According to the calendar, I have now been in the city of Orvieto for one week. To me, however, it feels like a much longer amount of time. Things that happened when we first arrived here feel like ages ago. Everyday is a strange contrast between feeling like I have so much more time in the day, and yet also feeling like the days are going by at an alarming rate. I have yet to reconcile why this is.
In talking to others on the trip, part of us feel that it is the lack of what we are referring to as 'screen time' - the time that we usually spend everyday staring at our phones, laptops, televisions, etc. The internet is only on in one room in the convent for an hour and a half at the end of each day, so any urge we may have to pull out our electronic devices in the middle of the day suddenly dies down very quickly. Unless it is to take a picture, technology does not play a significant role in our daily lives anymore.
This leaves more time for focusing on where we are, and the people we are with right now. The philosophy of the Gordon IN Orvieto program reminds me strongly of the La Vida motto, 'be here now.' That is, to take a slower, more relaxed approach to life without the constant distraction of being connected to everyone, everywhere, all of the time. Instead, we are able to use this time to be with the people who are in our lives currently, and invest in them more wholly.
Speaking of said people, I grow more and more excited each day that I have four months to spend with this group of students. The beginning stages of friendship are always a unique time of development. Even with the fellow Gordon students that I knew beforehand, I am building a completely new relationship with and discovering who they are outside of the context of the Gordon campus. With the first week behind us, and plenty more ahead, I am looking forward to continuing to develop and deepen the connections that I have already begun to make here.
The first few days were a combination of amazement, excitement, and an overwhelming stimulation of the senses. Walking through the city for orientation, eyes were constantly scanning and jumping from one building to the next, ears were trying to listen to our instructors while also picking up the background noise of the bells of the many churches, noses were catching the wafts of deliciousness from every restaurant and café front, and our mouths were eager for our first taste of gelato.
The sense that most people usually don't think of when visiting a city though is touch. How often do you walk the streets of a city and reach out to feel the buildings? The materials used in every structure? With the fear of contamination and germs, not often. Here, however, touching is an integral part of getting to know the city. As a part of our first class, Disegno IN Orvieto, we were given an assignment that required us to walk through the streets with massive sheets of paper and take rubbings around the city. Although walking through the streets with these giant pieces of paper flapping out behind us and pressing them up against every surface we could find may have garnered us some funny looks, it was an amazing exercise for us to learn the texture of the city. The different grates in the street, the brick and stone of the walls of the buildings, the grain of the wood from the benches in the piazza - this city has a feeling and a rhythm to it that makes itself known and present when you take the time to look. Will four months be enough time to learn it?
Today, Saturday, has been the first day completely ours. It was a relaxing time of contemplation and reflection. Besides learning the city (and names of everyone!), we have started to structure what will be the routine we fall into for the rest of the semester. Breakfast at eight, class at nine, chapter meeting, lunch at one, and then the afternoon to do homework, grab a cappuccino or gelato with a friend, sometimes joining in on some event going on in town, or even watching the occasional film for class.
There is still much to learn and take in. I cannot imagine covering everything in a single blog post, and don't anticipate on sharing every detail of my life here through it. How do I convey to those not here what it is like to have dinner with an Italian family on a Friday night, complete with laughter, small children, and attempting to communicate in broken Italian only to learn that smiles and gestures do just as much as spoken language? The connection that can be made in a single night? How every time Prof Doll reads to us a poem or passage at the beginning of the day it is a refreshing and renewing of the mind for that day? How no matter how long I look at the duomo or how many times I pass it, I will always be left in a state of awe and wonder by it? Seriously, no amount of pictures could have prepared me for its physical presence in front of me.
Those are some of my thoughts so far. Many more are running through my head, but I have yet to collect, organize, and put them down on paper. For now, this blog post shall have to suffice, for I must return to the studio to continue to work on my drawings.
Buonanotte, miei amici.
