Quarterly Update

Well, I started this entry on March 8 and abandoned it:

in a perfect world, Sara and I would have been in Rome right now, eating San Carlo 1936 patatine and drinking Refosco - alas.

What a long, strange month it's been! In February, I got the genius idea to go visit Carla in Rome during Fairfield's spring break. She finally moved into a real apartment with a second bedroom (albeit one with a tiny, monastic bed). I found a $500 non-stop ticket, which was amazing, and convinced Sara to join me, which was even more amazing - it would have been the first time Sara and Carla saw each other since my wedding, which is just wild to me.

Honestly, the week after I bought the ticket was just so exciting. I made a long list of everything I wanted to eat (the aforementioned chips and wine, but also gelato from the "goat milk man" in Monteverde Vecchio, suppli from the vendor in our neighborhood, coffee from all the places, but mostly from the bar at the Academy), a much shorter list of places I actually wanted to visit (mostly I just wanted to wander the streets again), and a tiny list of people I wanted to see (Carla, and her "coven" of friends, and Gabri, Claudia, and the other AAR staff). Then Marice told me that the department would pay for my plane ticket as a "research trip," and that the Humanities Institute would probably give me $250 for food as part of their quick-grant program, which just made it all even better! I'm grateful, now for those days of bubbly excitement and anticipation.

Obviously our trip didn't happen. Italy became a viral hotspot (though for Carla's sake, I'm grateful the focolai are in the north, not Rome or, worse, the poorer south). The Academy closed its doors and sent all the fellows home (and how bitter it would have been, to have that be your fellowship year). The Raphael show celebrating his 500th anniversary at the Quirinale, which I would have gotten to see, closed without ever opening to the public.

It's looking very unlikely that our trip to London and Edinburgh will happen in June. My travel to San Francisco for a conference in May, which would have given me the chance to see Nathan for the first time in four years, has already been canceled, as has another conference in Kansas in June. I'm honestly bummed about the second one, because when am I ever going to go to freaking Kansas? Also that's a fun conference because it's only for academic art museums.

Obviously, these are the minor complaints of a privileged person. We're both healthy; both of us have jobs; our loved ones, so far, are safe. Sara and I are making plans to visit Carla next March, instead, in celebration of what will be Sara's 35th birthday. And, as I told my students during our last class before spring break (what turned out to be the last time I would see them in person), they don't call Rome the Eternal City for nothing. It will be there, waiting for us. And it will be amazing.