Moving Day (Almost)

I never knew how stressful packing could be until I faced having to get two years' worth of belongings for two people into four bags: two large suitcases, one medium, and one rolling suit bag. It's not even really the clothes, it's the books; I managed to get most of them into our luggage, but I had to suck it up and pay 100 euro to ship home a twenty-pound box with a couple of exhibition catalogs (as well as our boxing gloves, which, despite their light weight, would be impossible to find space for in the bags). Complicating matters is the fact that we're not actually headed straight home to New Haven, but are going first to Paris, then back to Rome for two days, then Sean goes down to Naples for his conference. We're leaving three suitcases here until the beginning of September, meaning everything we need immediately, or he'll need for the conference, has to come to Paris. Complicated.

Tomorrow I'm leaving the Academy, after two years. I'm certainly ready to get back to real existence; as charmed as our lives are here, it's still effectively an elegant dormitory. We've been lucky to make some really good friends this year, and even better, we have plans to actually see them back in the States. Rick and Lauren are in Cambridge, and have an entirely separate apartment in the basement of their townhouse that they've encouraged us to come stay at (John and Bryony, for example, are taking them up on this for two weeks in August). Emma, Jeremy, and the girls are in Swarthmore, and our plan is to go down and stay with them in mid-October, when Jinn and David are visiting from Chicago. We're also headed to Chicago in late March-early April for RSA, so we'll see them again in the winter.

It's a bit more sad to say goodbye to the staff, since I don't know when we'll be coming through Rome again (unlike most people here, who already seem to have their next visit booked). Gabri, at least, we'll see in NYC in October for "Gabri-fest," but Tiziana and Alessandro...? And poor Massimo. I don't think I've written about him on here; one of the "rossi", he got into an awful car accident about a month ago, coming home late from the staff party at the Academy. We were out back with them singing group karaoke, and Sean stayed up playing pool with the stragglers till 3am. Massimo was supposed to stay over, but decided at the last minute to drive home to Ronciglione, an hour north, and we don't know what happened (possibly he fell asleep?) but he hit a wall at full-speed. He's been in a vegetative coma ever since, and suffered really traumatic injuries. He was such a nice guy, even if he always spoke in super-fast dialect that I could barely follow.

So as not to end this on a down note, I went back to my first, starry-eyed post when I arrived here in September 2014. The cynical side of me read it with an eye to everything that I would come to find annoying, but I've often returned to the sentiment below in the two years in between, because I vividly remember thinking it:

The first night, I got up from the dinner table to use the restroom, and walking back toward the table, looking down that long, candle-covered table and everyone clustered around it talking so animatedly I thought "Two years of nights like this?" in this sort of awe-filled but also uncomprehending way.  It just doesn't seem possible, that this is a thing I am now doing, and will do for a considerable period of time.  But it is--and the only thing that's going to make it even better is when I get to share it with Sean!

Tonight will be the last time that I look down that candle-lit table. I've been incredibly lucky to be here, and--as I said two years ago--the time I got to share it with Sean has been the most special of all.

So long, Academy, and thanks for all the fish pasta!