Shark In The Water

I dreamed Sunday night that I was in the sea. Waist deep in a murky, putrid even, salty brew with Casey. Someone else was there too, but I couldn't see who. Maybe Casey twice.

There was a purpose for us to be there but I don't remember what it was, maybe I never knew. Suddenly, we realized that we couldn't be there, shouldn't be there. There were sharks we suddenly knew, and as though we had summoned them, they seemed to arrive. Most shark attacks occur in three feet of water, I thought.

I knew, in the dream, that the moment they were in my head, they were in the water, as though the harder I focused on them, the more I panicked about their existence, the quicker they arrived, the closer they came, all the greater in number.

And that's when I felt it, near me, against my leg. I struggled as quickly as I could towards shore and all the while I knew that since it had already found me. With just a nudge, I wasn't going to make it. It had been the side of its head, but it had found me. The first one, that is. And then it had me, my leg, in its mouth. It didn't bite down, just held me there, but I could feel its teeth around my shin and calf. I visualized the blood that would flow, the bone crushing, the torn flesh, the pain. I imagined my leg, gone, and wondered how I would make it ashore with only one leg. I didn't see the others, the people or the sharks, the water was too clouded. Maybe they were already on the beach.

All this time passed: I thought, and I noticed all these things, and still the shark didn't take my leg. If I've had all this time, I thought frantically, it could be that I have another moment more. I felt like I was moving in slow motion, decision-making at an underwater rate. I am held powerless and vulnerable, at the indiscriminate and non existent mercy of this beast. But suddenly everything becomes clear and I realize I have arms. I can use my arms!

The shark is huge, hulking, but still it does not bite so I make a fist and hit at its face. Still it does not take my leg, though it does not release me either. I feel along its massive head for its eyes. And I find one, on the side of its rubbery face and I press it. Barely a touch, but the shark releases my right leg and swims off. The moment it lets go, I can't see it anymore. In seemingly the same moment, still stunned at being freed, another shark grabs the same leg though I know it is a different shark.

I know now exactly what to do: I find its round, fishy eye. Small– I think briefly– for such a large beast. This time I push harder, digging my right index finger into its exposed orifice. This second shark releases me and disappears into the soupy sea.

I struggle to the beach and collapse. The sand I notice is coarse, pebbled. I am incredulous at my own survival. It seemingly took an eternity, but I made a bid for survival, and I had warded off impending doom. Not once, but twice. I had the distinct feeling that I had known how to do it all along, this survival strategy in a shark attack. Most shocking of all, I thought, panting, slumped on the beach, was the fact that I had acted.

Creature of Habit

Every morning I wake up and the sky is gray. If the sun shows itself, it's only briefly, and then I goes back into its hiding. I wonder if it too takes comfort in solitude, and peace, hiding on the other side of this murky veil. When I lay in bed at night, I imagine that I could be the sun, hiding, silently, under the covers. Tomorrow, I think, we will shine.

It would be a lie to say that some days are not dark here, in more than one way.

I am a creature of habit. Every afternoon for lunch I eat a tomato and fresh mozzarella. I go to class, I read The Times, I write. For dinner, some variation of the same thing I ate the night before. I shower before bed, I call John. All permeated by the same thoughts that I had yesterday, that I'll have tomorrow. It's easy to follow the routine, to fall into it, and to be bored. It doesn't appear boring until one day, it just is. The people, the places, it's mostly the same. And although I am a self described creature of habit, I am no friend of monotony.

Love in Italian

It is to my great distaste that time in Italy, is of no essence. Tardiness is expected and tolerated. No meal is ever rushed. Standard business hours provide for a two hour lunch. No coffee break is too excessive, no stroll too mundane. The only people see walk at a brisk pace are other Americans.

On this sunny peninsula, people do things for the mere pleasure of it. The language itself is a testament to the never ending Italian quest for beauty. In speaking, a sentence may not be grammatically wrong, but instead "non suona bene", "non e bella." A phrase that is not beautiful is not correct. So I wonder, does this quest for beauty have anything to do with the apparent affluence of love?

Perhaps it is just my own invention, but love seems to come so easily to people in this country. Love and beauty are on everyone's lips and it seems to this American, that on Italian principle, every detail of daily life lends itself only to beauty.

Haste seems not to exist. Only in matters of love do people seem to find urgency. Were American women of this age so infatuated with the idea of love? Did I just not notice? It cannot be possible. While some women are looking, seemingly endlessly for a man, others seem tirelessly committed to one after another. They are all possessed by it. I seem to be the only one not looking for love on this boot.

I'm no cynic. I look at all the men I pass in the street. I observe them as discretely as I can. I try to imagine them as the love of my life, as my destiny. Perhaps, I force, we were meant to meet here on this street, in this snow. I invent this idea, and before I know it we've passed one another and destiny seems to have taken another course. "Seems" is the wrong word here. After all it's a farce, it was never meant to be. But I imagine just for a moment that this sickness of love could infect me.

After all, everyone wants someone to hold their hand. I want someone to hold both, and then sometimes to touch neither.

In a month

When all the snow has melted, and the streets have dried and the air has warmed, I feel like the spring could arrive any day. I feel hopeful, even if the only birds I see are pigeons and the sky is gray. I convince myself that it could be here any day.

And then the air inevitably turns colder. The sky is darker than ever at midday. I opened my shutters on Monday and I saw the snow, even without my glasses. Snow doesn't fall on the eighth floor. It swirls and darts and soars. It all falls eventually, but not up here. It is spectacular to behold, even if it reminds me that spring could still be months away. Every time I see the snow again, after a brief reprieve from it, I feel depleted, hopeless, used. As though everyday without the snow had been sober, and now I'm off the bandwagon.

These are the only times that I become truly discouraged. These are my only moments of complete frustration. I lived in an idyllic paradise, everyone wants to tell me so, and here I am and its snowing. I want to shut myself in. I want to lay in my bed with the shutters closed and hibernate until the sun shines and I can wear sandals. Enough scarves and hats and gloves.

But I get up. I let in what little light there is, and I put on my boots. I leave the house. I tread lightly though the snow, and I remember that someday these stones wont be covered in slick ice. I won't watch my every step for fear of an icy slip in just one more month. I piles of snow on all the corners will melt. The trees will have leaves. There might even be birds. In one month I will not wear down. Just one more.

My Favorite Pass Time

My favorite pass time has very quickly become reading the New York Times online.

While in the states I did this daily, this habit has quickly taken on a far more prominent role in my day to day sanity. And it has evolved. I greatly prefer reading the Style section, particularly Fashion & Style, for obvious reasons, but also for causes less expected.

Fashion is fun. The world is poor, it's crumbling, it's all politics and death. The appeal here is less, shall we say, magnetic? Rather than reading about the spread of TB in the rubble that was once Port Au Prince, or how little money 911 workers are going to receive for their injuries sustained durring cleanup without proper safety equipment, I like to hear about the latest at Lanvin, at Balenciaga, the cutbacks at Zac Posen, the Chanel sword. (I know, brilliant: a veritable confection created for American born musician William Christie's induction into Académie des Beaux-Arts, the highest French cultural honor.)

I read the Home Page, the World page, and the New York/Region too. That's how much time I have on my hands. But it is regimented: first the serious stuff, the scary and the bad. Then, I linger, for hours at a time, in the Style section, Fashion & Style, before jumping to Arts. Books, movies, theatre, I read it all even if I won't read or see it really. I skip back to Style for Dining & Wine, Home & Garden, Weddings/Celebrations. (I can't help it, Weddings/Celebrations is the guiltiest of all my online pleasures. I don't know any of those people so I don't feel the least bit guilty hating them, the stylish pigs.)

Weddings/Celebrations is the only link I don't post to friend's emails. It is undoubtedly me alone who delights in this slight section of the publication. Everything else is fair game.

Before I know it, I've remembered about my other favorite afternoon pass time, internet television, were I can get caught up on Big Love and find new programs to add to the regimen.

Before I know it, the time to exit the house has come, and another afternoon has passed in a haze of American politics, French fashion, and Haitian despair.

The Things I Love About Italy, In Order

1. When the sky is blue.

2. Everyone's a label whore.

3. The pizza.

4. The Dogs: everyone has a dog, and everyone's dog has an outfit.

5. The coffee: it's always fresh, it's always good.

6. Staying up and out until late

7. Sleeping in: I'm convinced the Italians invented it. With black-out shutters on the windows, it isn't difficult.

8. Cultural procedure: No cappuccino after 10am, no salt on your pasta after you've added the sauce, no oranges after dinner, everything is fifteen minutes late.

9. Wednesday nights at Cassero: Three words: Ultra Queer Disco.

10. Everyone smokes.

11. Waiting for the spring: patience is obligatory. It's twice as wonderful once you've withstood the snow to see it.

12. Antiquity of every city.