Landings are always difficult. Especially landing back in the hot, small apartment in Rome after all the airconditioned spaces of airports and hotels, after the cool breeze of the summer evenings in Poland. Opening myself to let all of the African and Bengali culture in and closing in on the so called roots back in Poland. THere was a week of traveling up to the Baltic Coast - the place where I saw the sea for the very first time. Went back to that very wide and white Baltic beach in Jantar, the amber coast, where my sea addiction has began at 1.5 year old. And now, after 12 years in New York and 7 years in Rome, I can't imagine living too far from the deep blue..And as Warsaw changes daily, maybe not in the same frantic rhythm as Shanghai, I still spotted the same houses crafted out of the wood, the same fishermen selling freshly smoked fish in our northeastern coast... Letting so much in: the smell of the Baltic sea, the smell of the moonsoon rain in Dhaka, the odorless winter dry air of Johannesburg. An intense summer of mixing more work then pleasure but still the "gratitude" for having been able to work for a bit back "home". And so hit with the difficult landing back in Rome. The job, so fascinating, but so insecure. All of it so that I can pay for this tiny, hot flat. The digital divide between Montefiridolfi and anywhere else in Europe. Almost as if the perfect taste of these round, red, perfumed tomatoes is not enough to soothe the fundemental question "why am I here?" But just when I am about to launch myself into the project of applying for jobs in Brussels I am reminded of the words of Andi Shiraz "Anyone who’s lived and loved the proverbial bel paese knows that the only thing harder than living in Italy is walking away from it. Italy is a dream that when you settle into it makes you think hard about what you’ve done". And so I know I will read her article again and again on the American Mag: http://www.theamericanmag.com/article.php?show_article_id=568 because she is back home in Rome. Seeing Andi in Tre Scallini is filling that empty spot I felt back in Warsaw. Picking my peperoncino from Calabria to spice up my pasta while cooking for my friend Gary made me feel home. Having the Australian grils crash over to see Rome - made me feel home. Yes, Luca and Javier have left to London and Madrid respectively and they took with them the soothing sounds of their guitars. But it is thanks to my mad job that I have an intimate understanding of the samba in Brazil and it is my life in Rome that tought me just how good it is to have a big window open to the sounds of the world. Even if I miss Poland's green grass and the skies that make fool out of my attempt to praise the sun when there is sometimes much more poetry in the shades of grey.
