Via del Burro and Ice-cream City

Comfort born of intimate knowledge and best best friendship pervaded my stay in Rome. What a gift, to begin my further travels with my great friend Loren, and her sister Gracie too! We talked about traveling, living, love, home, being women and girls, eating, spaghetti carbonara, gelato, landmarks, walking, blisters, thinking, tiny penguins and dancing cats, being late and getting lost, cooking, growing and growing gardens, where we'll live, how we'll live, how activism lives in our lives, how that's different for everybody because, guess what? Everybody's different. I know, shocker.

Maybe I'm laying the gratitude for friends on a little thick here, so let's be real for a minute (as if I'm every anything else): my life these days is absolutely marked, shaped, formed, and transformed by the support of those closest to me. As much as traveling has shaped me, it wouldn't mean anything if I extracted from that travel the ways in which the love and presence of my loved ones has buoyed me at the same time. And the fact that I've had the opportunity to see so many of those so close to me during my travels, well it makes the celebration of those friends that much more inevitable. So there's that. And honestly, I'm plagued just as much (more? Probably not...) as anyone else with doubts about friends, friendship, being liked and loved, being likable and lovable. Maybe it's just that these relationships and connections seem like the most noteworthy things in my life right now. As much as I struggle with the presumptuousness of writing my thoughts and feelings and publishing them, these friends and friendships seem to me worthy of sharing (to be clear, sharing on this blog, i.e. with my mom). Just laying it all out on the line here; dropping some knowledge. Like I do.

I bought a stuffed goat (not taxidermied, worry not!) for Per in lieu of leaving behind a friend of George to keep him company. I toyed with the idea of leaving George, but I can't quite bring myself to do that. So a goat it is. A goat named Marco; he's Italian. Marco slept with Loren, George, and me once he joined our little caravan, and he and Loren in particular became fast friends. Let me share with you a memory that I will pull out whenever a melancholy mood threatens violent takeover:

I went to the bathroom getting ready for bed while Loren laid in bed, preparing mentally I suppose, for the same.

Loren: What's that?

Marco the Goat (Loren): Maaaaa.

Loren: I know, she's taking forever.

MtG: Maaaaaa.

Loren: Don't worry, she'll come back. She's just in the bathroom.

MtG: Maaaaaaa.

Loren: I know, I totally agree.

MtG: Maaaaa.

Loren: Hahahaha. Don't worry. I won't tell her.

I can't imagine a life without friends like this- ones that converse with toy goats and imaginary ghost people and take everything you say and sing it in a throaty Tom-Waits-meets-the-Rolling-Stones kind of way. This kind of creativity and silliness is my life-force, or maybe the butter in life that makes it worth eating, and occasionally overeating, but never eaten with regret when all is said and done. What would we do without these friends? What would we do without butter? Vegans stutter- I know, I know, you do do without butter. I wish I could. But I can't. Or won't, if we're being real.

We cooked dinner the night Gracie came to visit, and it turned out magnificently under the benevolent kitchen-dictatorship of Loren.

Gracie: If you keep taking pictures of me, it's going to look like I'm on some kind of weird cooking show where I do random things that don't add up to anything!

Loren: Now, add the flour and eggs together. Do you think the cake will be OK without baking powder and baking soda? Yeah, probably. Right?

Alex: Uh...

Loren: Yeah Gracie, just mix them all up together, equal amounts, and then whip the eggs.

Alex: I'm trying to help, but I'm just in the way. Should I just get out of the kitchen?
Loren: NO! I need you to help me spice the veggies. You're not in the way.

Alex: OK.

Gracie: Is this good?
Loren: No, keep stirring.

Alex: FOREVER.

The cake was very dense, and everything was delicious, and don't worry, we finished the entire can of whipped-cream by the time we left Rome. What would I do without friends like these? I honestly have no idea. Certainly not eat gelato twice a day. Which we did.