On saying goodbye...

I'm very much a person who needs to mentally prepare, anticipate and "preview" the future in my head. I need a lot of time to say goodbye to places especially since I usually end up far more attached to locations than I initially realize.

Though the coming of the end of our time in Cortona snuck up on me, at least the realization came with enough time for me to start mentally preparing for our departure.

But for Westmont? I have one semester left until graduation. I think there's been a parallel process going on in my head between Cortona and Westmont: physically saying goodbye to Cortona and mentally picturing myself saying goodbye to Westmont.

I went into town this morning to send a tube of all my drawings and my prints home and to visit all the little shops in Cortona that I haven't been in. I accomplished the first goal, but didn't quite get around to the second.

Somehow I ended up at top of the comunale steps where I sat and sketched for about an hour. With only two and a half days left here in Cortona (We'll be in Siena all day tomorrow and we're leaving on Tuesday morning) it just made more sense for me to sit, sketch and watch instead of shop.

The view from the steps

Drew and Sally Ann eating Molesini sandwiches lower down on the steps... they left a few seconds after I started sketching them though. On the right is the view on Via Nazionale as you approach the comunale steps I was sitting on.

I had similar thoughts for the whole process of leaving Westmont. I pictured myself going to all my favorite places (the pond, the rock by the library, the trails, the stairs of death behind VK...), the dorms I've lived in (Clark and Armington), and the places I've spent a lot of time in (the physics building, the art building, the DC, etc) and sketching them and just sitting there and being there...

I was already having issues in my head about what it would be like to go back and have everything look "drastically" different with all the construction going on. I was sad enough when they got rid of the tree in front of the DC (last year?) and when I went back over the summer and saw all the trees behind VK and the VK alley parking lot area chopped down... Yeah, I really do get attached to little things like that.

So after a morning of Cortonese immersion: drawing Cortona, laughing at the swarms of students flooding the piazza and having two high school guys ask to take a picture with me (it was very random - they were sitting on the stairs near me eating lunch with a bunch of friends when they looked at me and asked "photo?"... twas highly amusing! I only wish I had thought to get their camera wielding friend to take one with my camera too.)... I went to Cafe della artista for lunch with Eunice, Madeline, Katrina and Sarah K only to get the news that Westmont is burning.

It was a shock to say the least.

I'm guessing this is Mark the RD's house. It's right next to Clark G where I lived freshman year... I heard that's completely burned too.

It was a relief to hear that no one was hurt and all the people were safe. So what got to me the most, even more than Clark being gone, was hearing that the physics building was gone.


Apparently I'm far more attached to the physics building than I had thought. I've spent so much time in there between regular classes for the past 3 years to working there for 2 summers. I had mentally imaged myself there next semester taking my final physics class with all the boys and with a goofy Dr. Kilhstrom standing and lecturing behind the desk (that doubled as an offering table when Dr. K lay on a bed of nails on it at the end of first semester physics). It's a bit of a mental jerk/twist/squeeze to correlate that picture to what there is now...


(I've been watching LA FOX news streaming online... a tad frustrating since the audio and video stop constantly. But yeah, I took screenshots because I'm a dork who needs records of everything...)


In the grand scheme of things it's not exactly a significant building... being the old garage of the former estate and doubling as a nursery for conference groups in the summer and all... but it's still a huge part of my Westmont experience.

I can't quite wrap my head around how different the campus will be next semester or what the students are doing right now or how Westmont will run for the rest of the semester with dorms and classrooms being completely unusable or entirely gone.

I'm saying goodbye to a different Westmont than I knew before leaving for Italy.

I guess there's just been a lot to think about in the past few days... Leaving Cortona, Westmont burning, getting into a car accident two evenings ago... (No worries, we're all completely fine.) I suppose the latter occurrence could have very well been saying goodbye to life. But it's hard to think of that in the same context as what I experienced...

We had a very fun filled day of hanging out of trees and olive picking. On the way back to our dorms, the car that I, Marissa, and Kiersten were in ran off the right edge of the gravel road and flipped over.

It was a shock and it was entirely surreal but it didn't seem like a near death experience in any way, even though in my head, being in a car that runs off the road and flips over should be equated with a brush with death.

But life goes on.

I think that's what has struck me most through all of this. Something happens but the world keeps going. Some events like the fire in Montecito register with a wider crowd... for many it's a news event but nothing personal. For those personally involved and there, I can't imagine what it's like. For others like me, watching from afar, it's a huge shock and it's hard to not stay at the computer all day and watch the news constantly.

But I'm not there in Santa Barbara even if I've been on that side of the world in my head all afternoon. I'm here in Cortona where two art history papers are calling my name (and I've been ignoring them in favor of processing the accident and the fire, packing, and spending time with people and with Cortona). And here, life goes on like it does all over the world...

The Cortona experience is a hugely significant to me and this coming Tuesday (when we leave) looms large in my mind.

But for the locals? Life goes on... we're just another group of students that comes through; just one group in the who knows how many that have come through in the past 38 years.

For me it's a very important portion of my life. I tend to divide my life into distinct categories based on where I've lived. There's the Glendale/Pasadena segment, then the Malaysia segment, then Lubbock, San Francisco, Lubbock, San Diego, Westmont, now Cortona, then a last short Westmont segment...

Maybe that's why I need so much mental processing when I'm leaving a place because in my head, another major section that I'm fully invested in is about to close. But again, life is continuous, time keeps going (as far as my finite mind needs to consider at least), and all these categories are just mental constructions in my head.

No lovely note to end and linger on. Just thoughts on the processes of goodbyes...