wanderings

it's strange being abroad. i just had an experience trying to buy some tools from a hardware store. no one spoke english but me, so i reverted to drawing pictures of what i wanted. the problem was, i wasn't exactly sure what i needed because it's for a design project i'm doing. so i completely confused the man and myself and ended up purchasing a few items. i tried to ask if i would be able to return them if it didn't work out but that made no sense to him. i spent my time between classes taking a new route to the studio. i've been doing this lately in the mornings as i walk by myself. it helps me appreciate rome more and the tiny shops that will soon escape me once i'm back in america. i found myself at santa maria in trestevere today, a church i've been meaning to go to in rome. it was nice to experience this on my own, wandering at will and taking time to look at things that i want to look at. it seems odd to me the way we depict christianity sometimes; mary is always in her blue dress, Jesus on the cross, everything ornamented in gold and a lot of it just seems really sad and almost fake. as i was admiring a a portrait of mary's head contained within a box a man ran in, set his bags down and said a quick prayer and ran out. this prompted me to actually stop my wandering, take a moment and pray to God. it was nice losing myself and just realizing that faith is a choice, no one HAS to have it to survive on this earth, we can easily choose not to see God in our daily lives and live completely for ourselves. i just don't understand why we do this when it's obvious that we continually want more to please us, and once we find something pleasing we want something else, we are never satisfied. i wanted so badly to study abroad, to be in italy, and now that i'm here i'm not satisfied. i'd like to study or be somewhere else. to me, this shows how we were created. we were created to have the perfection we seek in God. this world is not all that we have, if we choose faith we will be forever in eternity with our creator and lover. we will finally be content.