Two Months Out

"Italy is in my blood."

~ Christine Cutler

It's two months today that we arrived home from nine weeks in Europe, most of which we spent in Italy as you know if you read this blog or know me at all.  I have had a hard time adjusting to being back. . . a harder time than I have had coming back from previous trips.

I don't mean I've had a hard time with the time change, although that was certainly part of it in the beginning. They conventional wisdom is that it takes one day for every hour of time difference for your body to adjust to the new time zone.  France and Italy were nine hours ahead of us, so if one were to believe that theory, it should have taken nine days to readjust to Pacific Time.  More than three weeks later, both Mike and I were still waking up in the middle of the night.  (I often wondered where the heck I was and looked for skylights . . . something we had in more than one bedroom apartment in Europe.) We both finally got over that, thankfully.

At any rate, we got right back into life in the desert, but I am still not really here, if you know what I mean.  My mind drifts to Italy a lot, and I miss being there. . . dreadfully miss being there.  I'm working hard on trying to figure out a way return.

Every so often, though, these crazy obsessions overtake me, and my mind swirls with thoughts and projects and memories and all stuff related to that obsession.  That's where I am now, and that's where I'm going to be for some time, I'm afraid.  If I wanted to forget about it . . . If I *really* wanted to get Italy out of my mind, I could do it.  I guess the truth is that I really don't want to move on at this point.  

So, I'll deal with it. . . and I'll continue working on a way to go back . . . . 

The photo above is of Pettorano sul Gizio.

(A side note... Going back isn't in any way related to the hurdles of which I've alluded lately. That's a different crazy idea of mine.  ;-)