I'm away from my work right now, staying with friends in hot, muggy, uncomfortable -er - sunny Florida. I've got another week to go before I can get back to work.  On the surface, the work doesn't appear to be exciting: staring at microfilm slowly cranked by for hours at a time, poring over indexes to spot relevant records, trying to solve apparent contradictions in the data, and cursing oneself for omissions in recording data. So, why do I miss it? 

     Because I'm painting pictures in my head. Imagining the joy of each of the many births in these large families, crying with them at the tragic deaths of infants and children, sensing the celebration of the marriages, and sweating with the day in and day out struggle for existence of the contadinos and contadinas who labored at Polizzi Generosa. Day by day I'm building a panorama of life, dramatic and tedious, that becomes as real as my own existence. 

     I miss it.