Transitions

I should start by saying I have arrived safe and sound in Italy. Well, I suppose "safe" is relative because 200km away in Emilia Romagna there have been intense earthquakes in recent days. In fact, on Tuesday I felt one very faintly at 9AM while at my desk but my roommate didn't feel it. Anyway, everything is going well. 

my dearest Phyllis; last night in NYC

I had a tearful farewell with Phyllis a few weeks ago, we had decided to forego conversations about my impending departure and therefore when the day came in which I had to leave, it seemed all-too-soon. It was much harder to leave her than the internship or the city. I found that I did love the city and all it had to offer, and I did try to exploit all its resources, but I also felt ready to get back to a more laid-back way of life. People in New York seemed to me to be working incredibly hard, most with multiple jobs, just to scrape by. I find it to be a captivating, romantic, innovative city that, however, is utterly unsustainable both economically and socially. The common person is too busy working, taking transportation, and trying to survive that the time and means to really enjoy oneself has to be carefully calculated. In my opinion, one has to be willing to sacrifice a lot in order to have merely the opportunity - the presumed promise - of the New York lifestyle, that which only exists in films (or for the 1% of this country). Just an observation. I loved living there for 4 months, but forever? Maybe not.

how could you not miss this ol' gal?

Once I departed from the Big Apple, leaving behind my 78-year-old soul mate and life coach, I arrived in Texas for a few short days of enchiladas, pool time, cocktails, family and friends (not necessarily in that order). I always find it refreshing - and curious - that you can return to a place and feel as if you never left. That used to worry me, as if what was experienced just before could have very well never happened. The thought that life continues just as it was when you leave a place is still something I have to wrap my head around. The visual graphic of my life would have to be represented as an intricate web in which there isn't simply one line, but a web of tracks with intersecting nodes indicating shifts in direction.

Peveragno, Italy (only church, main piazza)

Before I knew it, I was on to my next transition: the summer in Italy. I arrived in Torino on a rainy Saturday afternoon and soon met my new roommates, Sirio and Albino. They're a married couple in their 40s from South Italy, Naples and Matera, respectively. I found the room at their apartment on the internet, by chance, and after they accepted me we found out they are good friends of not one but TWO of my professors! Just goes to show you the the world really is small. They are incredibly fun to be around and very giving individuals. Albino is a mechanic by day and a club promoter/PR person by night - apparently he's very well known in Turin because we can't walk a single block without people stopping him to say hello. Sirio is a felicitous casalinga, or housewife, and she is rather serious about a few things: playing The Sims with a lot of strategy, watching Gossip Girl (dubbed), and perfecting the art of homemade bread. They are the right amount of altruistic and eccentric for me to feel right at home.

joking around with Fatemeh before the ceremony

look out professional life, here i come

ah yes, my future awaits...

What else? Well, this past weekend I graduated. Only symbolically, though, because I technically have to finish 3 workshops and my thesis in order to get my diploma. There are so few of us that it was prudent for the ceremony to happen when it did and the graduation was really quite lovely. There were lots of Torino big-wigs in attendance, two professional photographers, a videographer, and a guy from the local news channel who interviewed me. I'm not too thrilled about the last bit because said newsman caught me at a particularly sweaty post-outdoor-photo-shoot moment in which I felt flustered and unprepared - not to mention the post-production error of his misspelling my name. I'm not bitter. But if you'd like to share in my shame, watch a local news segment in Italian, or feel like you were present at the ceremony, feel free to click here (skip ahead to 5:29 if you'd like to just see my part). Shucks, I almost have a Master's degree, but not yet… exactly. Let's all cross our fingers for these next months to go well. 

serious buffet action

donning my "arts and business" hood post-graduation

I should also mention I went to my professor's birthday party in a very small town 1.5 hours outside Torino on Sunday. Her party started at noon and - no joke - went on until 11PM and all the guests stayed the entire time. This must be a cultural thing because I tend to think you couldn't make an American stay at a party longer than 4 hours if you paid them. But we ate ALL DAY, Italian wedding style. We had a pre-lunch "aperitivo" that included nuts, chips and prosecco, then came the whole roast pig, potatoes, Rocío's infamous seafood paella, sliced veal with tuna, salami, 2 types of bread, 4 types of cheese, pineapple, strawberries, cake, gelato, dolcetto, moscato, grappa, genepy, you see where I'm going with this. I ate and drank for 11 hours, and just to give you a sense of the rustic Italian flavor of this festa, once the second round of dolcetto bottles were removed from the tables one of the guests brought out his accordion and everyone started singing classic Piedmontese ballads. As token foreigner and exotic party guest I was asked a question that has become a favorite of Italians: is Chuck Norris really a Texas Ranger? TV is really behind over here, that's all I can say.

lunch (and dinner!) in rustic Italian country house 

excitement over the roast pig (note the gesticulating Italian hands)

I've got to get back to working hard and finishing this degree. Though it's hard to do when you feel like you've already graduated. Alas! Lots of love from the former Roman Empire and current center for natural disasters!

[Dis]connectedness

I don't know what happened to April, I feel like it was here one day then gone the next. Lately I've been extremely introspective, and even though it sounds silly, I've been doing a lot of thinking. Intense pondering, you know, the kind where your mind hurts after. I imagine it's due to the questions my thesis re-writes have raised and having to defend my stance on some issues - the problem being figuring out exactly what my position is in the first place. 

Central Park in bloom

A few weeks ago I took my laptop to Bryant Park on one of the rare and enjoyable 70 degree New York afternoons and it quite literally took me 3 hours to write 2 (double-spaced!) pages of text. I couldn't stop ruminating over minute details of my argument, and the more I wrote, the more questions my mind produced. To summarize my thesis topic I'll say I've been writing about my generation, the millennials, and how arts institutions have to adapt in response to drastic changes in modes of cultural participation. And for the past month I've been in one of those situations where the idea or topic you have in mind suddenly starts cropping up in everything you see, hear, and read. 

For the past few weeks I've continued to come across articles detailing the psyche of the millennial generation: expressive, confident, connected, excellent at research and multi-tasking. Yet we are also described as the least empathetic generation in decades; we consider money and image more important than self-acceptance and being part of a community. Naturally, I wanted to defend us, to say this wasn't true. In dissecting these recent studies, researching the history of cultural participation, and mapping the social implications of technological trends, though, I found myself questioning if this really wasn't true. The word that has stuck with me is connected. 

The Cloisters, Manhattan

I am certainly connected in the sense of being linked to or associated with people, news, ideas, and content via modern technology and the Internet, but what about true connection in terms of identifying with or relating to people, ideas, and content in more traditional forms? I began my research thinking technology was a catalyst for connection and creativity, and I still believe it is to an extent. But there is an unspeakable alienating effect of being a part of a generation that has a constant need to be connected; one that measures social value in terms of Facebook friend count instead of real time spent with a friend. 

Technology has given me the opportunity to video chat with my family from across the world (or across the house, if I want) yet its prevalence in my life has reduced my need and ability to recall from memory phone numbers, birthdays, and even prose. I can list on one hand the number of people who call me on the phone instead of texting. Every time I give someone a hand-written note they are touched and say it is a dying art form. At a brunch I attended this afternoon a few people were more concerned with updating their location and posting photos than conversation, so much so that I wondered whether we're not all living a parallel virtual life instead of enjoying the real one. We update and share things online to make our lives seem more interesting than they are, all so that a bunch of acquaintances and a few real friends can give their thumbs up to our successes or casually commiserate with our plights.

Brooklyn Botanic Gardens

I am guilty of this, too. Perhaps most obviously because I am ranting on a web log for no reason other than my supposition that people I know might be interested, and, of course, my own vanity. (But I suppose I can blame that on my generation.) I upload photos and write catchy one-liners about my day, checking on a regular basis to see who has commented. But why do I do this? All this time spent by myself, ruminating in New York City has shed some light on the matter. Millennials are unable to be alone. In moments of solitude, even intimacy, we have to be constantly connected. We're so busy communicating and trying to stay in-the-know that we don't stop and think about what really matters. Somehow we have come to believe that being constantly connected will make us less lonely. But the truth is, we have an inability to be alone, be separate, gather our thoughts.

a place for reflection, The Cloisters, Manhattan

Connectedness has created a vast wealth of opportunity to spread ideas, ignite creativity, and share thoughts. Yet in the process of all this exciting advancement, true emotional connection has fallen by the wayside. I felt an initial frustration at being alone in New York without many acquaintances, but soon thereafter I felt a particular freedom and thrill about it. In these few months of physical disconnection, away from both school and home, I have found a deeper connection with myself that has led me to stop, think, and fully comprehend what really matters to me. I don't want to be remembered as having been part of an image-absorbed generation with the least empathy, but rather one that exalts innovation, is open-minded and inclusive, and values connection in all its forms.