Greetings from another part of the world

Ciao tutti. I've landed in Venice, physically and mentally. It's been hard finding a wireless network (my aunt doesn't believe in the Internet), I'm writing this from a restaurant near the Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari. It's cold compared to LA (48 degrees), but the sun is shining and the light is fantastic.

I've spent my first days just walking around, enjoying the calm safely away from San Marco and the Rialto. There are always tourists here but its much worse during the summer. I remember spending time here with my family when I was little but everything seems so much smaller now. I guess growing up also means that the world becomes less indefinite, for better or for worse.

How does it feel?

My first Christmas in LA was terrible. The winter weather in Italy is not like in New York, but in LA it's almost like summer all year and I hate it. Some people prefer the sun and the heat but to me, a real Christmas means cold weather or even snow.

What I miss the most is my family, of course, so many of them disappeared when we moved and we only saw them once or twice a year. Now I only have Avy, at least that's how I feel even though I know I have some family left in California. I don't know if I'm going back this Christmas or not.

Babbo Natale

I've never been good with change, I like to keep things the way they are even when I'm not really happy. Not that I'm an unhappy person, I'm just a little bit dark and I think I've always been.

The biggest change in my life, of course, was moving away from Italy. America meant nothing to me then, I didn't know what was waiting on the other side of that ocean. And I remember my last Italian Christmas like it was yesterday. How everyone was there, my whole family, my parents, my cousin.

They were fantastic times, nothing has ever come close to it since. Maybe it's like that for everyone, that a childhood always glows like diamonds as we get older, but that's the way I truly remember it. And I'm afraid that I'll never feel like that again, even though I may be happier in another way.

Dad got me a silver necklace, I still wear it sometimes. It reminds me of how beautiful everything seemed and how I thought it would never change.

Un certo sorriso

I'm back in a summery Toscana, it was hard leaving Avy again but at least she's not alone. The evenings here are so warm, when Bruno sits me down on his veranda and brings me a plate of prosciutto I remember the tastes and smells from years ago. It makes me angry, I can see the past but not the future, and what if those lost moments never return to me?

I can't be weak but I am, I miss my family and my childhood because things were so easy back then. I didn't ask any questions because I didn't need to know, it wasn't important. The only thing that mattered was this night and the next morning, spending time with them without a worry, without a single cloud in the sky.

Tom has promised to join me this week. He says he's not scared, I know he's lying but it doesn't matter. I need him here, as someone to lean on when the memories come too close.

In the closets

He called, and I didn't tell him all the things I want to do to him. The tension in the air made it impossible and put me off a little. We didn't say much at all, I wanted to and maybe he did as well but there was too much space between us. I'm afraid that my family and its history is part of it, but I don't know how to ask him. "Dear Tom, are you scared around me?" No, I will have to think of another way. I don't want to push him or risk driving him way, but I can't undo the past either.

One thing bothers me more than the rest though: what did he think we when we first met? That my father was just any other business man? That as a rich Italian family we probably don't have any disturbing secrets hidden away?