hermitage
today we went to 9:30 mass here at the Chapel on campus (and the girls were extraordinarily well behaved! probably because i told them ahead of time that they would have to wait til the homily to eat their snacks, unlike last week when they devoured them by the time we finished singing the Gloria). immediately following mass, we joined the seminarians for pranzo (more like brunch in this case) and sat with the Pennsylvania contingent (on Sundays, the tables are arranged by state of origin). i gleefully said we should bring our Terrible Towels next week, only to realize that one of the faculty members from our table hails from Eastern PA...
then we came back home and literally did nothing, all afternoon. Cecilia napped, Greta played some dramatic imaginative game involving all of our shoes and then watched at least 2 hours of Netflix on the Kindle (!!), and i went down a rabbit hole of TripAdvisor reviews and expat blogs looking up a good restaurant to try for my birthday. every once in a while i'd feel a pang of guilt, like, "here i am on this glorious fall day, just sitting on my duff when i could be out exploring all the treasures Rome has to offer." but to be honest? it takes work, mental and physical work, to navigate to those treasures and pack the diaper bag and plan around naps and meals and convince the almost-five-year-old that yes she can walk 100 feet without stopping. and sometimes it's okay to circle the wagons in our own little oasis where we all speak the same language and have uninterrupted access to a clean bathroom.
and i felt another pang of guilt for the poor kids being stuck inside instead of out absorbing the culture! the beauty! the new experiences! the statues! the history! but then i watched them play so happily together, trotting from room to room each with one of my purses slung over a shoulder, calling "ciao bella!" to each other, having a pretend picnic in the bedroom, waltzing with each other across the family room, playing dress-up with my clothes, and i thought, this is just what we need today. a saturated sponge just can't hold another molecule. we need a day, now and then, to dry out.
then we came back home and literally did nothing, all afternoon. Cecilia napped, Greta played some dramatic imaginative game involving all of our shoes and then watched at least 2 hours of Netflix on the Kindle (!!), and i went down a rabbit hole of TripAdvisor reviews and expat blogs looking up a good restaurant to try for my birthday. every once in a while i'd feel a pang of guilt, like, "here i am on this glorious fall day, just sitting on my duff when i could be out exploring all the treasures Rome has to offer." but to be honest? it takes work, mental and physical work, to navigate to those treasures and pack the diaper bag and plan around naps and meals and convince the almost-five-year-old that yes she can walk 100 feet without stopping. and sometimes it's okay to circle the wagons in our own little oasis where we all speak the same language and have uninterrupted access to a clean bathroom.
and i felt another pang of guilt for the poor kids being stuck inside instead of out absorbing the culture! the beauty! the new experiences! the statues! the history! but then i watched them play so happily together, trotting from room to room each with one of my purses slung over a shoulder, calling "ciao bella!" to each other, having a pretend picnic in the bedroom, waltzing with each other across the family room, playing dress-up with my clothes, and i thought, this is just what we need today. a saturated sponge just can't hold another molecule. we need a day, now and then, to dry out.
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| leaving for church this morning, under the fresco of a September sky |
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