Down for Whatever

My days are numbered in Siena, and, of course, when you think about it in that way, the only possible conclusion is that it makes me sad. I’ve been to a number of cities in Italy, before this trip and during this trip, and I have to say that Siena is a place that I have been calling home. It’s interesting that word “home” and how its meaning differs so much from the other word “house”. I was asked to explain the difference this weekend to a non-native English speaker; it was one of the few times that I actually enjoyed and wanted to speak in English. If you had struggled through speaking Italian and trying to understand Spanish in return like I did that day, you would understand what I mean. Stop to think about that for a second and you realize quickly that it is not a very efficient way to communicate.

So, back to the words home and house. A world of difference separates them and the explanation that I gave this weekend was inadequate, but I knew that the person that I was explaining it to understood and that made me feel much better about the weak definition that I offered. In summary, I simply said that home is a place personal for you and a house is a building. This brings me to the point that Siena is a place that is personal for me. I think of the choices that I could have made six or seven weeks ago and I am so glad that I did what did, and asked who I asked. I was ecstatic to show someone around the city this weekend, as if it were my own and even if it is only sort of my own for a mere five weeks. Five weeks is a nanosecond in the course of someone’s entire life no matter if they might live five, 10, 50, or 100 years. Still, I am coming home with treasured experiences, a few kilos perhaps (although my pants are still loose), and of course for those that know me, a thousand pictures (some of which, in retrospect, should not have been memorialized).

So, this week, I plan to adopt the motto of one of my friends here in Siena and be “down for whatever”.