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Today I missed San Francisco for I think the very first time since I’ve been here. Specifically, I missed North Beach; we were talking about the Beats in my Literary Travels class (during which I realized that the philosophies behind the Beat movement match very similarly to my own, a very heartening reminder of, well, the heart of literature and what it is to be a writer) and I thought of City Lights, then of all the good times I’ve had in North Beach. It must be some sort of sign, you know, little Italy, my favorite restaurant, that poetry room and its historical significance… It would be nice to think so.

I practiced a little bit today for the first time in over a week. There is something about it, you can’t leave yoga completely, or how can you? The way it gives you spaces, pause in general. And after you stop there is only you, your heart, your breath, all together. I’ve gone back to the “Corpo & Mente” section of the Firenze Spettacolo I picked up for a cool 1.60 euros (money for the most part wasted as most of the thing is in Italian and I get too tired trying to translate) and looked up places offering yoga. The Iyengar Institute in Florence is a little ways away, but the number 17 bus stops right by it. Hopefully I’ll get it together and call and ask them what their prices are / if I can borrow a mat or something (though that is obviously highly unlikely; also unlikely is the possibility that I might be ask all of those questions in a comprehensible manner).
I’ve been thinking a lot about my travel plans for break. Right now I think I plan to go to Salamanca to visit Ashley (a visit which involves a 7am airplane ride, departing from an airport in a city which lies an hour and a half away by train; following my arrival in Barcelona, I will have to ride a 10 hour train to Salamanca – the things I do for that girl!), and then after that first weekend… Who knows! I would like to visit Paris, and lately I’ve wanted to go to Amsterdam more than I perhaps have before. But it is rather far north… I’m very excited about visiting Switzerland in November. I don’t know what I’ll do this weekend…
I thought a bit today about home, and Pasadena came to mind. It’s strange how many places I’m beginning to develop a sort of strange nostalgia for. It seems so unbelievable to me that Matt and I may visit Colorado Blvd. again, see a movie at the same theatre at which we saw the Brown Bunny. Or go to Sushi Roku, or drag Matt into Urban Outfitters. That infinite warmth, the only place in LA it is easy to park, and far enough away to make it feel like a trek.
I guess more than anything I can’t believe I’m ever going to be back in and around LA. I understand I’ll be back at Claremont, back at school, but I haven’t quite gotten a grasp on the whole being back in LA concept, going to movies and out to dinner.

It’s strange when the world gets larger, and suddenly you are allowed to love several places at once.

Today, in my writing class, reading my two page essay out loud, I realized my voice was not myself, that even that thing which I use to make vibrations of a sort is not me. It is temporal just like the rest, sensual just like the rest, and on deeper examination, I realized with great sadness that it is not mine. Reading something about Italy and my initial feelings of disorientation and grasping, I found myself beginning to tear up. In a way, the voice is very much one’s own; it will never be replicated, just like the exact physical makeup of ones body. One considers the end of the body, but never the end of the voice. Speaking aloud for those seven minutes, my voice began creaking and lowering, began feeling uncomfortable. And that was not me.