Category — MidLeap

A trip to see my family is a trip regulated by meals.  We’re planning lunch and dinner while eating breakfast.  My trip this Christmas was no exception.

The first meal I had with my parents was on the way back from the airport.  Dad was excited about a barbecue place, and I wasn’t so hungry, so we headed to some ranch-styled chain near the Boise mall.  I was still finding it difficult to figure out what to eat (a problem since my return to the states).  I thought a barbecue joint would probably have exactly one option for a vegetarian, which would make my choice easier, but this place had two – so I ordered both.

When we sat down at the table I laughed out loud.

Along with several bottles of bbq sauce, Each table was outfitted with its own roll of paper towels – you know, just in case.  I ate about half of the salad and side of mixed veggies I ordered, and packed the leftovers home.

The next morning’s breakfast was much more exciting.  Like Portland, Ketchum has a number of really excellent restaurants.  Eating at restaurants I knew meant ordering from familiar menus.  This morning it was “Huevos Kneadery” at “The Kneadery”, a restaurant that has been around as long as I can remember.  Eggs (over-medium), black beans, cheese, salsa, avocado and sour cream in a tortilla or two occupied me as I remembered how to eat again.

The fresh cookies on the way out helped, too.

The following days were filled with several pizzas, frequent coffee outings (my dad likes to go every Wednesday and Friday when the local paper comes out), and fantastic home-cooked meals.  The most important of those meals was, and always is, Christmas dinner, when we have my mom’s ravioli.

There is a day sometime in November that is set aside for ravioli-making.  Mom gets out the food processor, the pasta-rolling machine, and her immense Formica cutting-board.  Dad sets aside the better part of the day to assist in the folding, cutting and crimping that will ensue.

Over the years, I’ve watched them assemble the pasta, and on occasion, have been allowed to help as well.  The making of the ravioli is serious business.  Everything from the amount of flour on the cutting board to the type of fork used to crimp the edges makes a difference in the way they turn out.  Mom, who grew up watching her grandmother hand-roll the pasta dough is a master.  Dad, the heir to a distinctly non-Italian, German tradition, has proven himself a capable helper.  I, however, have proven that I can push too hard with the fork, turning a well-crimped edge into pasta fringe.  I can whip up a darn good timbalo or saffron ricotta sauce, but the ravioli is an item I’ve yet to master.  I’m hoping to take on the challenge in the next year or so.

The ravioli come in two kinds on Christmas:  cheese and meat.  The cheese version is ricotta and spinach, and the meat is ground beef and spinach (correct me if I’m off, Mom).  Both are delicious, and until last year, Mom’s ravioli was one of the few exceptions to my vegetarianism.

In addition to the ravioli, Mom makes her sauce from scratch.  She starts with a roast – or two – tomato paste and sauce and other stuff, and lets it cook all day long.  One of the great treats of going home is walking into the house in the afternoon to the smell of the sauce simmering away.  From the time she was tall enough to lift the lid, my sister has been sneaking tastes.  First it was with string-cheese dipped into the deep red sauce.  More often now, it’s with bread – my mom’s excellent rolls if they’re available.

No, the sauce is not strictly vegetarian, but I remove as much of the meat particles as I can see, and remind myself that even the Dali Lama eats meat every other day.  I might eat only the cheese ravs, but I’m not willing to give up the sauce.

About an hour before dinner is served, the grand ravioli count begins.  A complex calculation takes place.  It includes the number of people in the room, their relative hungriness, as well as an evaluation of past performance on the part of the eaters.  Some kind of an algorithm is employed to tell my mom and dad exactly how many dozen meat and cheese ravioli should be brought from the basement freezer where they have been stored, spread in single layers, in plastic bags.

The ravs are big.  The squares measure about 3-4 inches on each side.  Cooking takes a while, and is done with extreme care and delicacy.  If one bursts, the parts are fished out to be tested, or added to the leftover bin.  Not much is ever wasted.  They are too precious.

There was one year my family didn’t spend at my parent’s house.  I had surgery, and my family came to Oregon for Christmas.  Along with presents, they packed ravioli and sauce in a cooler.  And there was a fabled year when mom sent a similar care package cross-country to her sister who was spending the holiday in Massachusetts.  Nothing interrupts the ravioli.

When it is time, the ravioli are brought to the table last, after everyone is seated, and remain in the center of the table, people passing plates to those sitting closest, and calling out orders “2 meat and 3 cheese!”

When the ravioli are made, they are marked.  They are pierced one way with a fork for cheese and another for meat.  Even though they are placed on separate ends of the platter, the markings can help with identification.  And Identification is something of an art at the dinner table.  “That’s a cheese.”  “No, it’s a meat.”  “Give it here and I’ll find out.”  The cheese seem to flatten out while the meat poof up ever so slightly.  It’s more of a parlor game to see who can identify them the best.  Nobody is really disappointed if they end up with the wrong kind on their plate, and I can always find someone to take a stray meat rav off my hands.

In my mind, there are three things that must accompany the ravioli – aside from cheese, I mean that’s just a given: a great crystal bowl of sauce and meat, just in case; my mom’s rolls (they are super-tasty, but super-sticky to make); and olives.  Pitted, extra-large, black olives are always passed around the table for my mom, aunt, sister and me to put on our fingers and wave around briefly before devouring them.  There are always other things on the table for Christmas.  A ham was incorporated into the meal when my brother-in-law was incorporated into the family.  A few slices are eaten, but the main attraction is the ravioli.

We each have our own ways of eating them.  I favor a quadrant approach.  I carefully cut each rav into four, square pieces.  They are perfect bite-sizes (pretty much the size of your average store-bought ravioli).  That way each bite has the same proportion of dough to filling.  It is a tradition of rituals, and the method of eating is a deeply personal one.  (I’d never think of criticizing the way someone eats their ravioli.)  There are others, however, that are distinctly communal.

As the eating begins, so does the counting.  A close accounting is kept, and regular reports made to the table, as though the number of raviolis a person eats secretly determines whether they will get into heaven.  There are great ravioli controversies surrounding the most consumed by one person at my mother’s table.  There is a legend of a guest eating 21 in a sitting.  I was there for the alleged incidentt, as was nearly everyone else in my family, but over the years the number has become so fuzzy that none of us knows  exactly what happened that night.  (It wasn’t Christmas, so I’m pretty sure the accounting wasn’t as critical.)  I know that I, personally, have maxed out at 14 ravioli, and my aunt at 12, because we were competing one year.  (I won.)  But, in a sane year like this one, I stopped at 6 and had room for pumpkin and apple pie.

Every year someone exclaims the ultimate praise, “I think these are the best you’ve ever made!”  Most years, Mom smiles kindly and goes back to eating – the ravs are always good.  But some years, she looks down at the piece on her fork, studies it carefully, and nods her head, “they really are good this year, aren’t they.”  And then one of us will pass a plate calling out “I want that meat one right there – no there.  Thanks!” as another of us waves an olive-laden finger in the air.

Christmas in Idaho, for me, is magical.  The place where I grew up is one of those mountain locations that looks more like a postcard than anything else.  Many days have some kind of precipitation, whether it’s thunderstorms in the summer or snow flurries in the winter.  Every day, however, is marked by a beautiful clearing of the sky that is eye-watteringly blue.

There are some things that happen every year when I go home.  Christmas eve is marked by a soup-feed at my parents house (usually attended by the priest who will be celebrating evening mass), evening mass at my childhood Catholic church, hanging of stockings, a morning feast, and the crowning event, a Christmas ravioli dinner.

There are other things that are unexpected, variations that make the holidays interesting.  Yes, my sister and I will get in trouble for whispering and giggling in church, but the results vary.  We didn’t do it much as kids, when we were busy serving as altar-girls, but as adults, it seems that we can’t help ourselves.  “I’m sitting next to Kristin!” my little (30-year-old) sister demanded.  I climbed over my grandparents and mother to kneel next to her at the bend in the pew, my knees widely straddling to different kneelers.  We kept it together until my mom turned us in to my grandmother for whispering.  The resulting boxing motions made by my 89-year-old, heathen grandmother sent me into fits of stifled laughter that brought tears rolling down my cheeks.

When the mass got to the “prayers of the faithful,” a time when parishioners pray aloud their hopes for world peace, the healing of friends and family members, and the memories of lost loved ones, my sister gripped my hand tightly.  It wasn’t because she was distraught or devout in her prayers.  It was to keep me from saying anything.  As an adult, I’ve found the prayers of the faithful a nice gesture, a time to fix the positive thoughts of those in the high-ceilinged room on the betterment of all.

During a previous Christmas mass, I opened my mouth to voice a prayer for a family-friend who had suffered an accident and was undergoing a difficult recovery.  I imagined the positive energy floating to the hospital bed, and the warm feeling the family would feel knowing that people were sending love.  I didn’t hear the gasps down the pew when I said the name, but it became clear that I’d let a cat out of the bag as soon as mass was over and groups of people darted in my direction.  Apparently, the accident wasn’t public knowledge and I’d missed that piece of information.  Fortunately, my family clued me into the situation, and I was able to rapidly employ Jedi mind-tricks.  When we got home from church, the message light was already flashing on the phone, the sign of a truly small town.

From that point on, we referred to the incident as “the time Kristin ruined Christmas”.  This year, however, I kept my jaw firmly clenched and my sister and I celebrated when I made it through mass without ruining the Christmas of 2009.  I left it to the frozen, overburdened powerlines to try to do that.

As we drove down the road to my sister’s house after Christmas mass, she noted that the streetlights were out.  I watched as porch lights extinguished at the passing of our truck.  Pulling up to the house, we saw the telltale sign of jerky flashlight bursts against the inside of the window coverings that told us the power was out.  We walked Cathy to the door and told her to come to the parents’ house if it got too cold.  Her parents-in-law were visiting, and the temperature was dipping below zero (that’s Fahrenheit, people).

When we pulled into Ketchum, a 20 minute ride from Cathy’s house, we found the traffic-lights were out.  That meant it was a darn big power outage – on Christmas Eve.  Fortunately, the lights were on at my parent’s place, so I powered up my laptop and climbed into bed, ready for a Christmas ritual of my own.  Woot.com is one of my online loves.  It’s an electronics clearing house that posts a new item every night at midnight central time.  Every so often, they post something called a “Random Bag of Crap” – $3.00 for 3 pieces of random electronics (and other stuff).  Everything from blow-up tiki huts, to Nintendo wiis and insulated beer mugs for $3.00.  Hundreds of thousands of people compete for these coveted items.  Usually the BOCs are posted randomly – but Christmas is one of the few days you can plan ahead to be ready for them.

So I sat in bed with 7 minutes to go, my account loaded and my credit card at the ready.  And then the power went out.  NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooo!!!!  The wireless router was no longer available.  I stayed up for the next 7 minutes, hoping that the power would roar back up in time.  At about 10 after, I gave up the ghost, dug around for my headlamp, and tried to get some sleep.  Surely, the power would be on by morning.

—

When my dad bought a generator for the Y2K meltdown, I laughed at him.  We sat in front of the tv and watched the celebrations in Australia and China as nothing happened.  Fireworks went off and the lights stayed on.  No computers burst into fire and no bank accounts were lost.

The generator stayed in the garage for 10 years, next to the 5 gallon container of gas.  When we woke up this year on Christmas morning, it was 55 degrees in my sister’s house, and you could see your breath in many houses in the valley.  But, at the Flickinger house, it was a different story.  Walking up the stairs to the kitchen, I saw a funny blue light.  Candles were lit and my mom was warming water for hot drinks; the 6 gas burners of the stove were on high.

Soon there was a roaring fire in the fireplace, and the sound of my dad pull-starting the generator in the garage.

It took a while to get the 10-year-old generator going, but he had it up and humming, and powering the furnace before breakfast.  Breakfast, however was on the barbecue.  For the past 5 or 6 years (maybe longer), we’ve had the same thing for Christmas breakfast.  It’s a breakfast strada.  A what?  A breakfast strada.  Here’s how it works:  You take a box of Eggo waffles, cheese, ham (if you like), and layer them in a 13×9 baking dish.  After 2 layers of each, you pour a scrambled egg mixture (including milk and cayenne pepper) over the top.  Bake and devour.  Just for the record, you can bake it on a barbecue, though it might result in a slightly burned bottom.

By noon, we’d eaten, opened our presents, played monopoly (another Christmas ritual for my bro-in-law and me), and started setting the table for Christmas dinner.  Mom had already calculated what parts of the ravioli dinner could be cooked on the gas stove, and practically giggled when she told us we could do everything without the power.

But the Christmas gods are just, and they like ravioli as much as the rest of us.  They didn’t want to take chances.  Right on time, the power clicked on.  17,000 people had been without power for 15 hours on a really cold day.  But all was well now.  Furnaces roared to life as Mom dropped the first raviolis into the boiling water.  Nothing could ruin Christmas now.

I spent Christmas in Idaho.  It’s where I spend every Christmas.  My parents, sister and brother-in-law, grandparents and aunt – my entire family – live there.  Going home is always a deeply good thing.  This Christmas was especially good.  The valley where I grew up is a special place.  Nestled between the high desert of southern Idaho, and the unbridled beauty of the Sawtooth Mountains, it provides a dramatic stage for the day-to-day sagas of those who live there.  This Christmas, it provided a sense of stability in my changing world.

I had a fantastic flight from Portland to Boise over the volcanoes of the Northwest.  Hood, St. Helens, Jefferson, they all stretched out before uson a beautifully clear day.

I read my Italian version of Harry Potter, clinging to the little bit of Italian that I had managed to learn in two months.  I’d been back in the US less than a week when I headed home to Idaho.  My parents made the 2 and a half hour drive to Boise to pick me up.  There are smaller, closer airports, but they don’t have the cheap Southwest Airlines flights that Boise has.  It was wonderful to see their faces at the airport.  I remember seeing them just outside the gate in the “pre 911 world,” when they’d come to pick me up during a quick trip home from college, the years measured only by my dad’s shirt pattern, or my mom’s hairstyle.  There’s something terrifically comforting about knowing that there’s someone waiting for me if I need them.

The next week or so was to be defined by several excellent meals, a solstice celebration, Rock Band competitions, and increasingly less caffeine.  And raccoons.

Yes, raccoons.

My mother has a number of bird feeders that hang or stand on the second-floor deck just off of the living room.  The French doors to the deck make up one wall of the big living room.  That means we can watch the birds that come to feed during the day as they dart from the tall aspens a few yards from the house.  Every day or so, Mom goes out and fills the feeders.  One is a little feeder that hangs from a beam and feeds the little sparrows and chickadees that fill the trees.  The other is a big, flat-bottomed, wooden tray that has been affixed to the railing, and outfitted with a roof propped on four posts.  This is to keep the tray from filling and freezing over.  The magpies that use this feeder don’t like it when the feeder freezes.  They bang on the peanut butter, ice globs that form until someone comes out and refills the feeder with the sunflower seeds that live in a clear plastic container.

The container is the kind that has locking handles.  They “clack” menacingly into place, holding the lid securely onto the bin.  Mom got the container to keep the raccoons out of the seeds.  Ever since she looked out the window to see the raccoon in front of the open bin, running his fingers through the seeds in a gesture of pure pleasure, she’s had to take extra precautions.  Now, every night when the doors are locked, the bin comes inside.

Every so often, we see the raccoons.  Their white markings stand out against the dark glass, as they peer into the warm living room in the evenings.  I half expect them to reach up and turn the doorknob.  Usually, when we go to take a look or turn on the light, they crawl to the railing and lower themselves down into the snow, shimmying down the 6 foot post.

This Christmas brought a couple of close encounters with our furry friends.  The first came one evening when I went to pull the seed container inside.  I’d just gone to open the door when I decided to turn on the light to make sure there weren’t any friends on the deck.  “Click.” The first bandit looked up at me from the seed bin.  They’d already found a way into the seeds, knocking the bin over and scattering the black shells everywhere.   I moved toward the door, ready to scare them off.  “Wait!”  Mom wasn’t so sure.  “Don’t worry, I’ll just go out and shoo them away.”  “Oh really,”  she was smiling.

I opened the door, and in the full brightness of the floodlight, the raccoon looked up at me.  He backed away about a half a step and considered me.  I backed into the house.  These guys are cute, but they also carry rabies.  I wasn’t so interested in tangling with this guy’s black claws.  We turned off the light and finished locking up the house.  We’d clean up the mess in the morning.  Some people would have charged out, banging around to scare the animals off, but, like the magpies that so many people consider pests, my mom likes the raccoons.  The messes they make are fair trade for the cute faces that peer in the windows every so often.

The next morning, Mom cleaned up the mess and gathered the gifts that needed to be delivered to friends – packets of the homemade pizzelles that she makes every year.  Whenever I’m home I ride along.  When I was younger I’d hop out of the truck and drop off the packets of goodies.

Our first stop was a quick visit.  We were greeted by a skittish dog that Mom identified as the latest rescue.  He was a beautiful shaggy red and moved away from us, barking, keeping an eye on our movements.  We rang the bell and stepped inside for a quick hello.  After hugs and pleasantries, we reached for the door and backed out, still talking.  “Oh, watch for the raccoon.”

I turned to see a raccoon ambling up the walkway toward the front door.  “Mom!  Check out the raccoon!  There’s a raccoon out here!”  I was preparing to make a run at the fuzzy ball.  “It’s okay, it’s a pet.”   Our hostess had closed the door, making sure the raccoon stayed out, but now we were looking at the raccoon as he walked right up to us, climbing up Mom’s leg to stand on his back feet and play with the keys in her hand.  Raccoons are big.  They’re big in the way porcupines are big.  Mom and I looked at each other.  “Can we pet him?”  I was hoping she knew more to the story than I did.  “I don’t know.”   She reached down and stroked his back.  Cool.  My turn.  Raccoons are also soft.  At least this guy was.  And he was curious.  He had abandoned the keys and had his head up under my mom’s jacket at this point.

She realized quickly that he was trying to get to the dog treats in her pocket.  After a giggling fit she reached into her pocket and found the treat.  It’s amazing what dog treats can do.  At once, the raccoon was subdued and the dog from earlier had reappeared.  Taking my life into my own hands, I snuck a chunk of the treat from the raccoon to the dog, who slinked off.  The door opened and our friend reappeared.  “What’s the story with the raccoon again?”  Mom asked as the raccoon sniffed her shoes and eyed the doorway.  “Oh Rocky? He was a rescue.”  Evidently Mom had heard this story before.  We said our goodbyes and headed for the truck where she shared the story.  Rocky had been orphaned as a baby.  When Mom’s friend’s found him, they realized that he wouldn’t make it on his own, so they took him in and contacted the local raccoon rescue organization.  Yes, apparently, there’s an organization – or at least a woman who rehabs them.  Months later, there still wasn’t room at the rescue, and the raccoon was watching tv on the sofa, and had a name.

The next day while we were playing Rock Band, we had a visitor.  One of the raccoons that usually came at night made a special daytime appearance, sitting in the birdfeeder and eating handfuls of seeds.  We all watched him and said how cute he was.  And we locked the door.

Rocky was super cute, but he was also known to help himself to boxes of cake mix when he was hungry.  It’s a lot easier to clean up after one of these guys outside.  And this guy looked like maybe he’d been talking to Rocky.

The Nines is a five-star hotel in Portland. In fact, it’s the only five-star hotel in the city. That’s an important point.

On my return trip to Portland, I booked a room at The Nines for a few nights. It’s in the old Meier & Frank building in downtown Portland, overlooking the Pioneer Courthouse.

It’s a pretty cool place. They hollowed out the building from the 8^th floor up, to create an atrium that houses a fancy restaurant and several common areas, including a wood-paneled library/billiards room.

Before I get too far, I’d like to share the secret of how I was able to afford a room at The Nines: because it’s the only five-star hotel, you can use filters on Hotwire.com to make sure you get the best deal. Here’s how it works: usually you tell Hotwire what city and star-rating you want for a hotel, along with other things like how far it is form the city center. Hotwire comes back with a low price for the type of hotel, but doesn’t give you a name. That means you might get one of several different hotels in the area. It’s a bit of a gamble, but allows you to get a good deal on a room. However, if you plug in “Portland” and “five-stars”, the only option is The Nines, even though it won’t show you the name of the hotel. Excellent. What that meant for me is I paid the same for The Nines as any other big, downtown hotel, and a good bit less than if I’d booked direct.

Now that I’ve got that out of the way, here’s the skinny on The Nines. It’s beautiful. The rooms are decorated in white, turquoise and silver. My king room had a huge flat-screen tv, a desk, minibar, marble bathroom and velvet chaise lounge.

It’s the kind of place where they have a turn-down service every evening. When I returned from gallivanting around Portland, I found my bed turned-down, my terrycloth Nines robe arranged artfully on the bed, the tv remote and room service menu out, jazz playing on the clock radio/ipod speaker, ice in the bucket, and little chocolate cakes on the nightstand.

The hotel is a fairly quiet one, despite its downtown location. Atrium view rooms are available at a premium, and cut down on the street noise, if you’re really looking for a quiet retreat. The hotel houses two restaurants, one in the 8^th floor atrium, and one higher up. It has a nice business center with faxing and copying services, as well as printers, computers, and an Ethernet hookup for your laptop. It also has free wireless internet if you’re feeling anti-social.

The only thing it doesn’t have is cheap parking. The only hotel parking is valet parking, an expensive indulgence in a city that prides itself on its mass-transit and pedestrian-friendly streets. I took the Max light-rail from the airport to my hotel for a few dollars. No transfers and it dropped me off a half a block from the hotel entrance. Portland is a great place to explore on foot, but there is on-street parking that is free at night, and a “smart park” city-owned garage a few blocks away if you insist on having a car.

My nights at The Nines were a welcome retreat. I found myself thinking that a decompression period in the hotel might be a nice post-leap ritual.

“How was it staying in someone else’s house for a couple of months?”  My bro, Matt is always good for interesting conversation.  “Did you feel like you were imposing?  Would you trade the experience?  Would you do it again?”

When I left Portland for Italy, it was with a certain set of expectations.  I really tried to have as few expectations as possible, but I still tried to prepare myself for certain things.  Like not having a place of my own, or the loss of language and humor.  I expected it to be hard in some respects, in truth the hard is part of what I was looking for.  Stripped of my day-to-day routine and defense mechanisms, maybe I’d be more able to hear the guiding voice I’d finally noticed screaming at me my first day in Barga.  I did find some of that.  I also learned some things about myself I hadn’t expected nor really wanted to learn – painful things that I’m sure will come in handy some day.  (It makes me feel better to think that painful things are of great value.  It sucks to think that they just hurt because I’m a dumb-ass.)

As my return to Portland drew closer, I found myself conflicted.  I had so much enjoyed the time with my Italian family, and had learned a lot, from the way to eat cheese and honey to the way my feelings of inadequacy can color my interactions with the people I love.

I also learned how much I value having a door.  This is a lesson I’ve learned before in work contexts.  But even after nearly a decade of unsuccessfully struggling to secure an office with both a door and a window, and analyzing the status that such an office carries, I still didn’t fully grasp the importance of having an actual door in my everyday life.  By taking this first leap in the way I had, I put myself in a position where I would not have a door of my own in any aspect of my life.  Without an office job or my own house, the symbolism of a door was intensified.  While I blogged about what I ate, and what I felt, I consciously opened myself and my adventure to the world.  While I slept on someone else’s floor, they opened their world to me, and I shared the minutia of my existence, right down to my underwear drying on the radiator.  And I felt both the freedom and the exhaustion that came with it.  I started the journey ready to be responsible for nothing but myself, not fully realizing how dependent I would be on others not only for the shelter I had chosen, but for the many lessons I was hoping to learn.

When I had the opportunity to rent a fantastic, cheap apartment I turned it down.  I could isolate myself and prove that I could do this on my own, but if I really wanted to know about myself I needed to prove that I could do this with others.

Throughout my life I have struggled to find a way to accept the assistance of others without resentment.  To realize that, accepting the nourishment, or even the flat out help of another person is not tantamount to failure.  That I am not weakened when I reach out, but rather strengthened.  It’s a lesson I have learned intellectually, one that I have shared with others, but one that I struggle to embrace in my own life almost daily.  It’s a lesson that I really want to learn on a deep level.  Someday I’d like to be appreciative of a partner who wants to take care of me, instead of resentful.  I would like to feel built up by the gifts I receive instead of torn down.  I feel like that would be a healthy thing.  Seems like a good idea.  I wonder why it’s so hard?  I kind of want to vomit and work-out compulsively while I’m writing this.  Maybe I’ll just eat.  Crap, this one’s hard.

In Italy, I found myself falling into a routine.  Between the metronome of my meals, I unwittingly sought out the regularity that would stop me thinking about my life.  Waking up at a regular time, making breakfast, catching a ride to the top of the hill, writing, shopping, cleaning – these things were welcome distractions.  It was almost the end of my trip when I realized that, halfway around the world, with the intention of changing my life, I had found a way back into the patterns that had made me so unhappy.  It wasn’t until my last night in Fornaci, the last night on my little bed on the floor, that I realized how I had traded an office without a door for a life without a door – that I had traded the lack of control and self-worth that I felt in my life in the US for the equivalent in my life in Italy.

When I returned to Portland, I would have no place of my own, but many friends who would happily invite me into their homes, even give me my own door.  It’s a nice feeling to know that I am welcome.  I have beautiful friends in Italy who opened their homes and families to me.  People who treated me like their sister or daughter or aunt.  They allowed me to see myself and the tricks I play to keep from addressing my own demons.  I have wonderful friends and family in the states who would do the same.  Before I left for Italy I wasn’t often able to accept any of these gifts.

As I prepared to return from my trip I wasn’t sure much had changed.  I still felt out of control of my life.  I still felt pretty darn inadequate.  And, in a fit of self-indulgent misery, I called my mom to tell her how I was feeling.

And a miraculous thing happened.

When she suggested that I take control and book a hotel room so that I wouldn’t have to worry about where I was staying or who I was inconveniencing, I listened.  I heard her.  And I accepted her advice.  Without resentment.  Without thinking that I knew better.  I just saw it for the good suggestion that it was and acted on it.  And I felt better.

Yes, I was choosing to rent a door for a few days, a place where I could retreat and deal with the emotions that were enveloping me.  It wasn’t that I was rejecting the gifts that were offered me.  I was simply taking responsibility for the way I felt and recognizing what part of my life I had control over.  It was what I needed.  The night I checked in, I wondered if I’d find myself withdrawing to a dark place.   When I woke up the next morning, it was with at the intersection of sleep deprivation, jet lag, caffeine withdrawal and PMS.  I was emotional – but energized.

I got a great deal on a fancy downtown hotel that was a few blocks from my old office, which meant I woke up to familiar sights and sounds.  I shot an email off to my friends at the office, the people I’d spent 8 hours a day with for three years, and I headed out.  I spent nearly the entire day with people from the office.  We got bagels and coffee at my favorite places, talked for a couple of hours and then headed to the Indian cart for lunch.  I realized how interesting it was that the first place I went was the place that had been so difficult for me.  Sure it was comfortable.  Yes, I knew the people there.  But there were a lot of dynamics I wanted nothing to do with.  On this trip into the office, I found a couple of things.  First, I was able, and even excited to have long conversations with people I had previously had conflict with.  I was a little more aware of my feelings and how they were coloring the interactions.  And I steered clear of the dynamics that didn’t work for me anymore.

Second, I was able to open up to my friends.

I’m a pretty open person.  I’ll answer almost any question as honestly as I can.  But I rarely seek out advice regarding my personal life.  I’ve often said that I’d rather make my own mistakes than learn from the mistakes of others.  I think I’m finally ready to let that go – at least I hope I am.  My first few days back in Portland allowed me the opportunity to seek help, to seek advice on topics ranging from my next travel destination to my career plans to my personal relationships.  In accepting the support of friends, I felt stronger.

And every night, I closed my door on the world so that every morning I could open it again when I was ready.

There are things you miss when you’re out of your element.  Little things like sounds and smells, bagels and Indian food.  Things you take for granted.  For me, one of those things is a door.  I’m not sure exactly what that says about me, but I’m content just to know that it’s something I need.  Would I trade my time in Italy?  Asalutamente No.  But I think there’s one comfort I’d rather not live without.