hot bodies

hello, it's 00:20, and i am sitting in arezzo. i should go to bed, but the last two days are worthy of description, so here we are:

i spent yesterday more or less around the house labelling photos for the dante project and typing up a translation of a mario rigoni stern story that i'll finish tomorrow. around 16:30, i put on some clothes and walked in to the center of town, where i met up with a local poet and high school latin teacher with whomi had chatted a few times last year. she was going to give a lecture in nearby monterchi, comparing the work of two painters: in this corner, from 15th century san sepolcro, piero della francesca; trading uppercuts and color palattes with with the 20th century florentine ottone rosai. taking advantage of the opportunity to salute her, listen to some italian, and see some art all in one swing, i was going to check it out. i was getting a ride with her and her husband. it was very, very hot.

the ride to monterchi bordered on the surreal. i don't have time to do justice to the complexity of the personalities involved, but there were three principal players, plus me: professoressa verde, made-up to the max, expressing her anxiety about her lecture by confirming a series of superfluous details over her cell-phone. her husband, francesco, smoking incessantly, expressing his anxiety that we were running late. every 2 minutes, he would set his jaw and announce the time, followed by our expected arrival time in monterchi. with the interaction between these two characters alone, i was already primed for a spectacle. we left 10 minutes behind schedule, only for professoressa verde to realize 5 minutes into our 45 minute drive that we had forgotten a friend of hers from the previously mentioned provincial government, to whom she had also promised a ride. and so, another rapid, pointed telephone call. the woman was on her bicycle, on a nearby street. we would turn around and pick her up.

prof.ssa verde gave her husband a brief description of this alessandra as we went in search of her. she's passionate about art, specifically piero della francesca. she works at the provincia. she's taking classes at the university. she's a little...spaced out. she's rather fat. and there she was, waving at us eagerly on the sidewalk, next to her dilapidated bicycle. a brown skirt and leopard print top were stretched across her generous build. as she settled herself very close to me in the back seat, she chattered away; beads of sweat collected on her upper lip. somewhere in the middle of the unfiltered narrations of her consciousness, she made my acquaintance. no, really, the pleasure was mine.

over the next 45 minutes, prof.ssa verde became more and more nervous about her talk, and now having no one else to call, she turned to the two bodies in the back seat. she delicately took a book from her purse and did an impromptu commentary on some of the verses she herself had written inspired by these two painters. she encouraged me to buy her book after the lecture. alessandra kept interrupting with the most far-fetched mental associations ('listen, you know what comes to mind...?'); francesco was clearly furious about our continued state of tardiness and that this fat lady in the back seat - the reason we were so late in the first place - wouldn't shut up and let his wife read her damn poems. and all the while, it was very, very hot.
the sweat pooled precariously above alessandra's lips and then ran down into the folds of her neck.

today i got up at 6 and caught a bus to the marina di grosseto on the adriatic sea, italy's west coast. my host family has been there on holiday for the last 2 weeks and i went down for the day to be with them and take a dip. the beach was narrow and crowded, but the water was beautiful. i swam out to the buoy and floated there, looking back at all the people under their umbrellas, walking along the edge of the water, splashing each other. summer in italy is a celebration of the human body. every woman wore a bikini, regardless of age or physical fitness. every man over 25 wore a speedo. there were bellies that spilled generously over waistbands, thighs that slapped against each other. old women sunned their shoulders, their tops arranged in ways that tempted physics.

and i have to tell you, every body was beautiful. the sun was high and the water calm and blue all the way to elba. many of these families have been coming to this beach their whole lives for a few weeks in july or august. and it is very, very hot. what a wonderful freedom, to lay down your weight and have the sea take it. to come back under the umbrella, and read the afternoon away in magazines.