Viva Italia!

I'm really bad at keeping resolutions.  For the most part, I've stopped making them, because I have learned that I never keep them.  This year, I told myself that I wasn't going on any more trips (after the wonderful time I had in Seattle and Port Townsend with Teesha and Tracy Moore and Jane Davenport at the end of January).  That resolve lasted about two months and I found the idea of not going anywhere for the next 8 or 9 months was quite depressing.  So for the last couple of weeks, I've been considering different options, checking out things on the Internet, feeling the urge to plan something, do something, go somewhere.  And although there were lots of interesting options, I just didn't find anything that felt like it was the right choice for me.

Until earlier this week, when I read on Diana Trout's blog about a trip to Italy she is organizing and the fact that there was one spot open.  She'd written the post a couple of weeks ago and somehow I had missed it, even though I usually see her blog posts when she posts them on Facebook, so I figured it would already be too late, someone else would have taken that space.  But something about this trip spoke to me and I went ahead and contacted Diana (whom I had met at Journalfest 2010, when I took her class called "Journal Spilling" and from whom I took an online course last October) via email.  The anniversary of my dad's death always makes me feel a little bit of carpe diem (seize the day) mentality and this year was no exception.  Bing, bang, boom, I signed up to go. 

It's the last 2 weeks of June, just under two months away. I'll spend a couple of days in Rome before heading to Fabriano (known to all in the art world as the home of the finest watercolour paper), where Diana's group will be situated for a week. Afterwards, I'll have a few days in Florence (or as they call it in Italy, Firenze) before flying home.

I am so excited about this trip.  And also nervous for some reason. I think it's the idea of being alone in a country where I don't speak the language.  The only word I remember from my only previous visit to Italy back in 2004 is "andiamo", which means "let's go".  Which, under the circumstances, seems appropriate!

Photo courtesy of signworldwide.com