No Place Like ...

It's true what they say, you know. About home. About how you never really appreciate it until you're gone. I can attest to it because I'm living it. Right now.

I'm 8,500 miles away from where I grew up, the house I moved out of when I was 17. And it sure feels like it sometimes. Right about now is where that whole appreciation part comes in.

I'm thankful that I remember how the breeze felt when my mom used to open the front door and the back door at the same time. I'm thankful I remember how the red clay outside would track in every time someone came in. And I remember how the pear tree in the front yard was just a shrub when we moved there 11 years ago. Now it's tallest branch is in line with the rooftop.

I appreciate how my old bedroom door needs a good shove to get it to shut all the way. And how the hot water in the shower takes a little longer to get hot than it should. I appreciate the smell. The bay windows in the breakfast room with a view out to our woods. And the deer that sometimes come right up by the back porch to eat whatever they can find in my stepfather's manicured lawn.

Yeah, that's home. My home. Wherever I go, that will not change. Kind of sad, really ... knowing that no matter how happy I am or how much I love my boyfriend, a part of me will always be in Georgia.

It will be in my mom's front yard, where I used to play while my grandpa was building our house so long ago. It will be on my grandparents' old gazebo, where we used to churn old school vanilla ice cream with my grandfather. And in my Oma's pool down the road, where my brother and I and all of our cousins would swim around and around and around, trying to make a whirlpool with just the weight of our tiny bodies.

It will be in our old court, where we'd race to the bottom on our banana seat bikes after a game of kickball. And it will be on the softball field in Harris County, where I shed as many tears as I did drops of sweat, and where I learned that sometimes loss is just as important to the soul as victory.

That is where my home is. Sometimes I wish it wasn't so far away.

Great Expectations

I'm not sure what it is about me. I'm not sure what happened in my life that has made me expect so much out of people.

With all the loves I've seen destroyed and all the loss I've had to go through, you would think it'd be the opposite. I shouldn't expect anything from anyone. I shouldn't trust a soul. Or have great expectations for friends or family members or politicians who gained my vote.

But I do. And I think that's one of my greatest downfalls. I expect a lot. Not in a bad way. I just have such admiration for people in my life, I guess I tend to put them on pedestals. And when someone falls off that pedestal, I take it personal.

I wish sometimes I could be one of those people who doesn't care what people I know are going through. I wish I didn't take things to heart. Or feel hurt for people I know are hurting. I wish I didn't feel like I need to tell people when I think they've fucked up.

I wish I didn't have the admiration I have for people in my life. That way, I could get used to them screwing up. No one is perfect, I know that. But it's screwing up the things -- the relationships -- that gets me the most.

How do you start not to care?

Extra Cheesy Blasphemy

I have never been a cook.

My whole life, I sat idly by watching while my mom and grandmothers during holidays while they slaved over homemade casseroles and basted turkeys and desserts that can make your mouth melt just thinking about them. I watched my family's eyes light up every time my Oma said she was making her homemade lasagna. And I watched my mom hammer out a two-page spaghetti and meatballs recipe like it was old news.

And now -- finally -- I have learned my way around an oven (and a food processor, a hand mixer, a stove and a griddle).

I am no longer afraid of my mother's lasagna recipe -- or a hundred others. And I'm even trying new things, like spicy Cajun shrimp pasta, stuffed peppers with corn salsa and made-from-scratch oatmeal cookies. I am learning the finer points to timing out a meal, and I can even make one from a few odds and ends in the pantry.

I, Amanda Casciaro, can cook.

Because I can cook, I can so without remorse that I am highly offended by Pizza Hut's new advertising campaign. So they say they're selling lasagna, huh? Pssshhhfff.

Do they expect me to believe that could pass for lasagna? And do they expect me to believe they tested their two-bit dish on Italians, who compared it to their "momma's" within range of hidden cameras? They've got to be kidding me.

I am shocked. Shocked and appalled. Shocked, appalled and disgusted. And I can say that, because I've tasted that glorified dog food they brand as "lasagna." The "lasagna" with the sauce that tastes like it's been sitting on a shelf in a can for five years. The "lasagna" with layers so thin you can barely tell they included ricotta cheese. The "lasagna" they serve in a tin foil pan.

Yeah, "lasagna." I spit on that lasagna. And I bet my great-grandmother would too, if she wasn't rolling over in her grave right now.

It's blasphemous. And I, a proud Italian woman and a cook, am ashamed. I am ashamed at Pizza Hut. I am ashamed at whatever soulless advertising agency came up with that campaign. And I am ashamed at the actors and "Italians" in those commercials.

That is blasphemy. Pure and simple. With extra, stale, pasteurized cheese.

In and Out.

When you are a writer, by nature, you are always writing about something. Always putting thoughts and subjects and current events together to form sentences and paragraphs and pages about life. Even if you never get those sentences and paragraphs down on paper.

You are always relating something to something bigger. People to beliefs. Beliefs to an overall meaning about life. The weather to how the world works.

It is what it is, as someone I used to know used to say.

You get used to missing the boat. Forgetting about the truths you discovered over lunch and promised you would write down when you got home. Remembering what you said you would write about, and then realizing it didn't matter as much as you thought it did at the time.

There have been so many things I've wanted to write about in the past few months. But because of my unwillingness to sit down at my computer, I can't tell you what half of those things are now. I've let my beloved blog fall by the waist side. And I have no reason or excuse why I've let that happen.

So, instead of trying to conjure up all the missed pages, I'll just start anew. I'll start with my new favorite hobby -- scuba.

When I first learned to scuba, it was in a pool in February. Guam doesn't have winter or fall, so the water was warm. And I was terrified.

It was strange how just learning to breathe felt so unnatural. Granted breathing underwater is, by nature, unnatural. But still. You have air, so it should be easy. In and out, in and out -- it's that simple.

It wasn't simple at all though, that first time. Letting go of gravity, trading my flip-flops for fins, learning to see straight ahead instead of side-to-side, it was all hard. But now that I've done it, I'll tell you what I like most.

It's the nothingness. It's having control of everything and nothing at the same time. It's not talking. Not walking. Not being able to run away or jet up to the surface when you see something bigger than you in the water. It's just ... breathing.

Sometimes that is so taken for granted. There is work and laundry and dishes and love and TV and Myspace and family and time differences and learning to cook and making new friends and keeping the old. There's keeping my relationship with God and making it better and being the person that I want to be and loving the person I'm with.

There's everything. There's everything in my life that's worthy of my time. There's everything that keeps me from just breathing.

I would not trade who I am for a second. I would not sacrifice any part of my life for anything in the world. And I would not give up one person in my world ... well, for the world. But there is something so satisfying about breathing.

In and out, in and out.