The Blog

I am sitting at my sister and brother-in-law's small "flat" in Swansea, Wales. So it isen't a real flat, it is a few rooms of a college, but it is so much better than a real flat. It is old and mysterious. It is quaint on the inside and has beauty on the outside. I should be going to bed, but i took a three hour nap today because I had one of my world stopping headaches, so I am wide awake with so much to think about. I have been begging time to slow down for the past month now, but have come to find a way to deal with the fact that it only speeds up when I ask it not to, and I will be going home in only five days time. Home. Yesterday I made a comment to Sarah about the fact that we still call it home. The question 'What makes a place a home?' has never seemed so relevant to me as now and the answer still remains a mystery.
Having spent a week here with Tony and Sarah I have gotten to observe quite a bit. I cannot begin to explain to you the beauty of the surronding areas. I am so glad that a desire of Sarah's heart has been answered in not only marrying a man like Tony, but being able to live somewhere as beautiful as here. I have tried capturing the beauty of nature through words and find that I am unable. How do you paint a landscape complete with colours and sounds with something as limiting as words? Urgh...words.
Aside from the beauty of the outdoors I have also come to be totally entertained by the people here. I feel as though a book could and should be written from what takes place here. Take for instance Michael the gardner. Not the strapping young male gardner of movies and dreams. He is an older man who doesn't tend to talk to anyone, eats his meals at his own small table, and wears a beret and rolled up pants with long socks to mow the lawn. Sarah tells me stories of how he is a packrat and how he may have ended up at the college because of a broken down tire on the way to a gypsie convention. Who knows. There are other people here at the college who have devoted their lives to this place. I feel nothing but respect when in their presence because I can only imagine what would be required to give up one's life to something like this.
Which this may be an odd turn to take, talking about giving up one's life for something makes me think of the nun that I met in Rome. Carrie, my ever loveable guidebook, during our stay in Rome reminded me several times of the nun to tourist ratio in the city. Something like 2 to 1. An interesting ratio. It only seems fair that fate should play out that I should have a "nun encounter". Carrie and I were waiting at the train station. I like to arrive at places of departure early so as to not be rushed to find where I need to be, so we had arrived about 2 or say 3 hours early and were just sitting where we were to wait for our train to take us to....well let's save that part of the story for another time. As I was sitting trying to get through the pages of Crime and Punishment I watched out of the corner of my eye a nun walking down the platform in full form. She looked as though she was rather plump in size, but realized she was hiding underneath her cape two suitcases. She came and sat on the bench next to me. I kept reading, not knowing the proper ettiquite to talk to a nun. She came over and started talking to me...oh such dissapointment arose inside of me when I realized she was speaking Italian and I had no idea what she was saying. I smiled my akward, what do i do smile, and said very slowly, "no italian, only speak english..he." In about one second it became obvious she did not speak English and so she only slowed down her previous phrase of an italian statement, probably in the hopes that if it was slower I would be able to understand it. I felt horrible. I was afraid she would just leave because I did not understand her, but she kept trying. She slowed down to a snail's pace, she used her hands to represent numbers, and she patted me on the head. We compared tickets and figured out we would be on the same train, same car, only different stops. After awhile of this I got the brilliant idea to get Carrie to rip out her Italian-English dictionary and the communication began. She, in so few words, explained that she believed the train would be leaving from a different platform because of the day, she said they would announce it for us. I was grateful. She patted my head, smiled at me, and then held my chin in her hand and smiled back. I felt somehow as though I had been blessed by this little Italian nun, and I only hope that somehow I was able to bless her too.