{"id":639,"date":"2015-04-01T05:39:47","date_gmt":"2015-04-01T09:39:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/annakovel.com\/?p=639"},"modified":"2016-11-16T14:20:18","modified_gmt":"2016-11-16T19:20:18","slug":"yellow-and-green-run-dont-walk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/annakovel.com\/?p=639","title":{"rendered":"Yellow and Green\/ Run, Don’t walk."},"content":{"rendered":"

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It was a sunny morning in Rome yesterday, and I woke up before the alarm went off. I opened the shutters onto the street, looked at the day, and I heard myself say to my six year old son: “Time to get uuUP! It’s a beautiful sunny day!” My voice was false, with a thin veneer of cheer,\u00a0 but I think I tricked him. In reality I was a flat plane of arid land, nothing growing on it, nothing on the horizon. What was I looking forward to- what did I care about that day? This sunshine was better than the grey clouds of the day before, but I felt nothing.<\/p>\n

After dropping my son at the school busstop on the edge of the Tiber river, I walked the round about way into Trastevere by going uphill on via Garibaldi and looping back down into the piazza san Cosimato. It’s a good little wake-up walk and helps me process my thoughts. Also, this is the most quiet route and I couldn’t bear the nuisance of having cars driving up behind me on narrow streets.\u00a0 At the piazza I looked briefly at the market stalls without stepping close enough for anyone to speak to me.\u00a0 I saw the gorgeous artichokes and thought about how much work would be involved in trimming them, and how I ought to feel inspired but instead I just felt dull, stupid and hopeless. I went into a pasticceria and drank a blood orange spremuta<\/em> at the bar- it wasn’t as good as usual. I began walking home-\u00a0 I passed my husband, G, outside the Settimiano arch as he was on his way to scout a location to show his architecture students and I noticed he was scowling a little, and had bags under his eyes. I wondered what I looked like to him, caught off-guard as I had been, out in the neighborhood with my morning face on, brewing my own inner storm. Ten minutes later I was in our apartment and in bed. It was not yet nine o’clock. I curled up into a ball and thought about how miserable I was, how exhausted.\u00a0 I fell asleep.<\/p>\n

I woke up and I thought: please don’t let it be really, really late. But when I looked at my phone it said 11:48.\u00a0 I made tea and sat at my desk, and tried to look busy when G opened the door at 12, saying: do you want to go have lunch? I’m hungry! I didn’t tell him I hadn’t eaten breakfast yet. I said yes, and stalled him until the dizziness of excessive sleep had cleared.\u00a0 I knew going out for lunch when I was still half asleep was better than staying home alone. I’m familiar enough with this state, and it scares me; I’m not sure I can trust myself to stay floating above its slimy, black depths. So even if I ‘m not ready for lunch right now, lunch is where I’ll go. Call it self-preservation, a survival instinct-\u00a0 after all, it has been shown that I’ve got one.\u00a0 Didn’t I outrun that car, make a split-second switch of direction, too close to call, too rapid to pull my boys with me?\u00a0 What would have happened had I been quick-witted enough to yank Lucian’s hand, and he had run with me, stayed with me? His little brother would have followed him, as always, and they’d both be fine.\u00a0 RUN!<\/p>\n

But I didn’t. And now here we are, limping along, like a three-legged dog.<\/p>\n

So I went out for lunch yesterday at a place I should have known better than to go to; my judgement was impaired.\u00a0 After eating we couldn’t wait to escape, to get away from all the tourists who surrounded us.\u00a0 But before I went home I had to pick up something for dinner, so I retraced my steps… The market vendors were packing up, but a few crates of produce remained. Young zucchini with their flowers attached looked fresh, and I was suddenly decisive. Then I asked for a lemon: un bel<\/em>, said the lemon man, tossing a plump one onto his scale.\u00a0 I bought loose eggs from a basket too. After that it was clear to me what to do: I turned around and walked to the cheese counter, where I bought fresh, creamy ricotta.<\/p>\n

Just the thought of lemon zest, ricotta, eggs, and zucchini made me smile inside.\u00a0 Something bright and cheery would be good.\u00a0 A frittata for dinner … I know the one who’s gone wouldn’t have eaten it, but I think his brother will.\u00a0 It won’t ask too much of me and it will feed us well.<\/p>\n

This is what I think about while I watch slices of zucchini sizzle in the saut\u00e9 pan:<\/p>\n

What do I say to my little boy if he asks again at bedtime: can you please bring Lucian home so I can give him a hug? Will his eyes be closed?\u00a0 Will he look like himself? I just want to give him a hug.
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I toss the zucchini just a bit before adding their flowers and pouring in the eggs and ricotta. I use the cheese grater for lemon zest and parmesan and scatter them straight into the pan- it all smells so good. I don’t have a broiler to finish this so I have to flip the frittata, sliding it back into the skillet to cook the runny underside.<\/p>\n

And how to serve this? Our fourth plate is chipped- it looks like a large bite was taken out by a recent fall on the counter. Is it dangerous? I think the tiny shards of china are gone. Maybe I’m being careless, but I can’t let a little thing like that deter me. We’re making do with what we’ve got here. It’s not perfect, and certainly not what we ever could have wanted- but it’s what we’ve got.<\/p>\n

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It was a sunny morning in Rome yesterday, and I woke up before the alarm went off. I opened the shutters onto the street, looked at the day, and I heard myself say to my six year old son: “Time … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":647,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,8],"tags":[106,43,82,46,20,196,18,92,198,149,150,17,181,195,75,53,207,197],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/annakovel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/IMG_7160.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5ICYG-aj","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/annakovel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/annakovel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/annakovel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annakovel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annakovel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/annakovel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annakovel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/annakovel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annakovel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annakovel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}