Where the F*#k is My Italian Lover?

It's me, Katherine, today.

I'll begin by apologizing for the title.  I've been thinking through this little post for a while.  I've been re-titling it for over a week.  Nothing else worked in my brain which is evidence my creativity has waned or my sense of artistry has increased and I won't let go of what I want.  Neither choice excites me.

First of all, I don't really want an Italian lover and I'm truly sorry my favorite word in times of stress is the F word.  I sound pathetic throwing around religious swearwords and saying or writing f*#k reminds me that I learned some really useful stuff at CSU.

I really want to talk about the Italian lover thing.  A while back Jim was writing downstairs and I decided to skip a bunch of responsibilities so I could knit and listen to TV for while instead.  I scanned through the tons of channels with stuff I'd never watch (Swamp Loggers--really?).  Tucked in there somewhere was Under the Tuscan Sun.  I'd heard of it.  Never seen it.  The Italian lover thing began here.  I didn't knit.  I watched the movie.  It's a really nice movie.

Since I'm feeling all these rather illogical self failings, the movie hit home.  In lots of ways.  I want to feel like a girl rather than a matriarch.  I want to be courageous and I'm not.  I want to take my head full of ideas and just pick one and then do it.  The Italian lover is just the metaphor for whatever it is I need that will make me try or will help me try.  I don't need encouragement.  I need something from inside me and I know enough about initiations to know I can't will my growth into reality.  So--where the f*#k is my Italian lover?

Understand that even though I feel like I was a really fine teacher and I continue to be so in love with Jim it curls my toes, and the kids and the grandkids are regular delights in my life, and my work with teachers is genuinely fulfilling when all of the rules and evaluations don't get in the way--understand that sometimes I feel like I might have been a great college professor or a great painter or a great fashion designer or something different. What if the novel of my life had some adults who had believed in me when I was young in the ways adults believe in girls these days?

My own little version of Yorick's skull faces me with a good deal of pride.  I've done okay professionally and I think I have helped others and I'm so proud of the kids I can hardly see straight.  I can't believe how good it is to get into bed every night with Jim.  I can't think of myself apart from him.

Also understand that I'm looking back at this happy life and somehow I wake up angry sometimes at myself or my parents or the times I was born into or any whim of a target that my never-ending emotional roller coaster suggests.  I'm in the midst of a fifteen year menopause caused by the various chemical solutions to cancer.  I'm never sure if what I feel is me any more.  If I could find some sort of Zen acceptance for the nightly sweats, it would be a start.

I'm returning to Under the Tuscan Sun and the Italian lover business again.  I want all the kind of self-discovery that Frances finds under the sun in Tuscany.  I want all the self-discovery that comes with restoring a Tuscan villa and gathering lovely souls together while meeting with the seemingly inevitable Italian lover.  He isn't true to her (what did she expect from an Italian lover anyway?), but it frees her finally to just love and find love and ladybugs (you need to see the movie to get the ladybug thing).

Several years ago I was downright pissed at the Eat, Pray, Love movement.  In both the book and movie, the heroine (?) ditches her husband, gives up her income and then gets her publisher to fund a year of self discovery beginning with eating wonderful things in Italy and finding an Italian lover (I was reading angrily so I hope my memory is correct about the lover business).  It reassured me, I think, that Frances found real-life selflessness in Tuscany as opposed to the Eat, Pray, Love lady.  I still think her self-discovery was somehow an act of prostitution.

I want self-discovery too.  I just can't afford Tuscany and I adore my husband.  

So--here I am.  The past haunts me now and then when the hormones bite.

My Dad told me I couldn't go to the college of my choice because my brother would support a family and I would not.  I could go to any state school.  I should have known.  I saved for and bought my first car--a 62 Comet station wagon.  Dad gave my brother a car because he would have to work his whole life and I would not.  I needed to learn about work because I never would.  I have always worked.

No one at my high school, Thomas Jefferson in DPS,  ever suggested I apply for a scholarship.  I had a 3.95 average and my SAT scores were in the 1200's.

I won two national Scholastic art awards in high school.  No one suggested I should pursue art.

At CSU, my adviser suggested I avoid Fashion Design because I'd gotten a C in the first science class I took for the program (I was surprised that I would end up with minors in both science and art).  I didn't tell him I was in love and I'd missed almost all the foolishly scheduled labs at 4:00 in the afternoon.  I aced each exam and flunked each lab and was pretty pleased at passing with the C.  He was also concerned about the B in my first Art Design class.  I was proud of that given the real artists I was trying to compete with.  He made me feel badly about my very proud B.

I became an English major by default.  I had been told I couldn't do the art or science needed for my fashion design goal.  That's all it took to stop me.

I am and always was a mighty fine book reader.  The teaching thing was pretty much accidental too.  I loved it.  I wouldn't change it.  I just wonder what a push would have done because I'm a creative person who is no longer creating beyond a post here or there or a piece of knitting or cooking something really nifty to eat.  It doesn't seem like much.

I also have a hard time finding where I leave off and others begin.  The ladies with Italian lovers begin their self discovery by losing all ties.  They don't have kids.  One dumps a husband and the other is dumped.  They both have money whether it's their own or a publisher's.  It seems only money or extreme tragedy moves these women on their journeys to self discovery.  I don't have the money and I've already had enough tragedy--when you have a job and family you just muster your way through tragedy.  You don't stop and figure out who the heck you are.

I have a great life.  I have no complaints.  I have no regrets.  I just know I could have done more.  I think I could do more now.  I just don't know how to pick up any of the loose ends (a started book is one) until I find some little bit of gumption that I can do anything--even restore a Tuscan villa--all by myself.  I don't know what I can do all by myself and I don't even know if I should be slapped around for even thinking something like that.  How selfish is that?  What would the Buddha think?  What would Seymour Glass think?  I wish I knew what I think about that.

When I was done watching Under the Tuscan Sun, I knew I really loved it.  But my first concrete thought was, "Where the f*#k is my Italian lover?"  I just can't find the equivalent for a little girl like me.