Top highlights from One Italian Summer
History, memory is by definition fiction. Once an event is no longer present, but remembered, it is narrative. And we can choose the narratives we tellabout our own lives, our own stories, our own relationships. We can choose the chapters we give meaning.
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i hope you walk through the world knowing your value. I hope you find a passion--something you love, something that lights you up inside. I hope you find the peace and confidence it takes to trust where your path leads. Remember it is only yours. Others can wave and cheer, but no one can give you directions. They have not been where you are going. I hope you will understand someday that just because you become a mother doesn't mean you stop becoming a woman. And above all else, I hope you know that even if you can't see me, I am always with you.
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My mother, you see, is the great love of my life.
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What got you here won't get you there.
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History is an asset, not a detriment. It's nice to be with someone who knows you, who knows your history. It will get even more important the longer you live. Learning how to find your way back can be harder than starting over. But damn, if you can, it's worth it.
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The present is relentless. It forces us over and over again to pay attention. It requires all of us. As well it should.
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Every day the world is born again. Every day the sun rises. It is a miracle, I think. A simple, everyday miracle. Life.
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We made promises in a world lit with light. We do not know how to keep them in the darkness
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What got you here, won't get you there.
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There is more to life than just continuing to do what we know. What got you here wont get you there.
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The difference between being good and bad at something is just interest,
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And finally to you, this time around: one of lifes most important challenges is determining what to hold on to and what to let go of. Do not be fooled into believing that you do not know which is which. Follow the feeling, follow it all the way home.
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There's something about photography I love -- a whole memory caught in a moment.
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Its possible actions only have the weight we give them, she says. We can decide what something means.
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I hope youll understand someday that just because you become a mother doesnt mean you stop being a woman.
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Naples is a strange city, he says. Its in tatters in some places, absolutely run-down, but theres also this persevering Mediterranean beauty, almost Grecian. It was the most bombed Italian city in World War Two and has a largely tragic historya huge cholera epidemic, poverty, crimebut theres this strength to this place and its people. I find that beauty next to decay is its own kind of stunning. You can really feel it when youre there.
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I dont think bad action makes you a bad person. I think life is far more complicated than that, and its reductive to think otherwise.
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I think I'm really good at travel and less good at what happens when you stand still," he says. "I like to be a visitor. In places, in hotels, sometimes in other people's lives.
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My mother was the first person you called for a recipe (a cup of onions, garlic, dont forget the pinch of sugar) and the last one you called at night when you just couldnt sleep (a cup of hot water with lemon, lavender oil, magnesium pills). She knew the exact ratio of olive oil to garlic in any recipe, and she could whip up dinner from three pantry items, easy. She had all the answers. I, on the other hand, have none of them, and now I no longer have her.
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She made me in her image, but she forgot the most important part. She forgot that one day shed leave, that she already had, and then Id be left with nothing. When youre just a reflection, what happens when the image vanishes?
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Never trust anyone who hasnt had their heart broken. Its a before and after. You never quite see the world the same way again.
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I cannot yet conceive of a world without her, what that will look like, who I am in her absence.
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Id like to kiss you, he says. I hear it in my rib cage. But Im not going to unless you tell me its okay. I know youre in a weird spot. I also know were here, and there is a very big full moon, and your lips look like watermelon. The good kind. The breakfast kind.
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Do not be fooled into believing that you do not know which is which. Follow the feeling, follow it all the way home.
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There is beauty to the run-down buildings, the laundry strung high overhead, the rhythm and drawl of daily life here. There is beauty, too, in the old Mediterranean architecture, buildings left over from centuries ago, before Naples became what it is today. There is beauty in the discrepancy -- two things that seems oppositional, coming together.
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My mother was the first person you called for a recipe (a cup of onions, garlic, dont forget the pinch of sugar) and the last one you called at night when you just couldnt sleep (a cup of hot water with lemon, lavender oil, magnesium pills). She knew the exact ratio of olive oil to garlic in any recipe, and she could whip up dinner from three pantry items, easy. She had all the answers. I, on the other hand, have none of them, and now I no longer have her. Hi, I hear Eric say from inside. Where is everyone? Eric is my husband, and he is our last guest here today. He shouldnt be. He should have been with us the entire time, in the hard, low chairs, stuck between noodle casseroles and the ringing phone and the endless lipstick kisses of neighbors and women who call themselves aunties, but instead he is here in the entryway to what is now my fathers house, waiting to be received. I close my eyes. Maybe if I cannot see him, he will stop looking for me. Maybe I will fold into this ostentatious May day, the sun shining like a woman talking loudly on a cell phone at lunch. Who invited you here? I tuck the cigarette into the pocket of my jeans. I cannot yet conceive of a world without her, what that will look like, who I am in her absence. I am incapable of understanding that she will not pick me up for lunch on Tuesdays, parking without a permit on the
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History is an asset, not a detriment. Its nice to be with someone who knows you, who knows your history. It will get even more important the longer you live.
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My mother, you see, is the great love of my life. She is the great love of my life, and I have lost her.
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The difference between being good and bad at something is just interest, Carol says.
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She knew me completely, but it didnt work both ways; it couldnt. Look how much life was lived before I ever even arrived. Look at who she was before she met me.
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think about the death of her own motherso young, far younger than meand her warm but removed father. Who taught her how to love? Who taught her how to be the woman she became, the woman she is here today?
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Actions only have the weight we give them. We can decide what something means.
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There's more to life than just continuing to do what you know.
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The entire town is built around the cove of the sea. It looks like an amphitheater, enjoying the performance of the ocean.
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One should always let waiters choose food, and builders choose wood, she says. Something my father used to say.
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It has all made my blood pump faster and my skin feel softer, weightier. The blessing of this life, this one, brilliant, beautiful life. All the loss and anguish. All the joy that makes it possible. The tender connections, the fragility, the impossible odds of being here, now, together. The choice of continuing to make it so.
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And in that gaze I see it allbirthdays and dinners and shopping trips. Mornings spent watching soap operas in her bed. Nights on the phone. Care packages mailed to New York City. Scraped elbows and fevers and her voice, always her voice. Everything is going to be all right. Youre okay. Ive got you.
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No one is perfect, Katy. Perfect doesnt exist. What we had was pretty fucking good, though.
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You act like you dont know how you got here, like you just woke up and looked around and thought, Huhbut I have news for you. Even inaction is a choice.
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I miss her I miss her I miss her. I miss her warmth and her guidance and the sound of her voice. I miss her telling me it was really all going to be okay and believing it, because she was at the wheel. I miss her hugs and her laughter and her lipstick, Clinique Black Honey. I miss the way she could plan a party in under an hour. I miss having the answers, because I had her.
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She seemed to love the stage of life she was insomewhere past all the figuring out. Somewhere solid.
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My darling Katy, my baby girlItaly is so beautiful. It reminds me of you. How happy everyone is in the morning, how the stars come out at night. I know I am not there, and I hope someday to explain to you why. I hope so many things for you, baby girl. I hope you walk through the world knowing your value. I hope you find a passionsomething you love, something that lights you up inside. I hope you find the peace and confidence it takes to trust where your path leads. Remember, it is only yours. Others can wave and cheer, but no one can give you directions. They have not been where you are going. I hope youll understand someday that just because you become a mother doesnt mean you stop being a woman. And above all else, I hope you know that even if you cant see me, I am always with you.
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It's hard to be good at what you don't love.
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But Ive done so little of this - this kind of fun, this kind of abandon. I feel the decade of playing grown-up clawing at me, all the years not spent getting drunk on dance floors presenting themselves here, tonight.
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Sometimes I think it didn't work because it wasn't right, and sometimes I think it didn't work because I refused to let it.
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Never trust anyone who hasnt had their heart broken. Its a before and after, You never quite see the world the same way again.
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The magic of Italy seems to be in its ability to connect to some time out of time, some era that is unmarked by modernity. There is so much peacefulness in being present, right here.
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There is a great life waiting for you at home. Its beautiful and hard and joyful and real. It will be messy and youll get it wrong sometimes You should be more honest when you do - it will help her, your daughter. She doesnt need you to be perfect; she just needs you to be you. That life is good, Carol, but it may not be the one you want.
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Its possible actions only have the weight we give them,
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I do not belong to anyone. Not in that way, not any longer. I am my own, just as she was hers.
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cannot comprehend that if I call her phone, it will just ring and ringthat there is no longer anyone on the other end who will say, Katy, honey. Just a second. My hands are wet. I do not imagine ever coming to terms with the loss of her bodyher warm, welcoming body. The place I always felt at home. My mother, you see, is the great love of my life. She is the great love of my life, and I have lost her.
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Even inaction is a choice.
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How much of my life has been open, really? How much has ever lent itself to its own natural development? I feel a sensation that is wholly unfamiliar begin to awaken down deep. It rustles, stirs, stretches, and then sits up here, right next to us.
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When the world seems to shine like you've had too much wine...
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Hes a fucking idiot if he let you come here by yourself.
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Her eyebrows knit together. Youre going to be all right, she says. I think Joseph is rightyou just had some heatstroke. She looks over her shoulder, toward the direction he disappeared in. Do you know your name? Where you are?
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walk
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There is more to life than just continuing to do what we know. What got you here won't get you there.
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History, memory is by definition fiction. Once an event is no longer present, but remembered, it is narrative. And we can choose the narratives we tellabout our own lives, our own stories, our own relationships. We can choose the chapters we give meaning. Carol was an incredible mother. She was
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Get a window seat, honey, cause theres so much to see. LORELAI GILMORE
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