Bambini

Italian children are impeccably dressed and impeccably kept. Their outfits are stylish, the colors are sophisticated, never babyish. This morning in the piazza I saw a blond toddler with butter cream yellow trousers, and a navy/blindingly white wide striped shirt of the type a yachter wears, collar up and jaunty, every bit ironed perfectly. I have never seen bed-head on any child, they are coiffed and groomed, never a dirty mouth, sticky hand or tear-stained cheek. No child is EVER permitted to play on the ground—the only part of their body permitted contact with the dirt is the bottom of their feet, neatly tucked into, what else, fine Italian leather shoes or something fashionably sporty. If a child tries to kneel or play where it is dirty, a loud reprimand is heard—“No! Sporco!!!” and they are pulled upright again. Consequently, though Italian children of any age play hard, I have yet to ever see one fall down.

The Art of Pantomime

Having always scoffed at mimes and their elaborate communication antics, I find myself now taken aback to be drawing on this art form myself. I would rather not, of course, as I feel quite embarrassed by it, but for the sake of neighborly civility, I manage to drop my ego, sort of, and dive into my own clumsy hybrid version.My Italian vocabulary, as mentioned, is tiny. I guess it is around thirty or forty words. For the moment, let’s not go into why it is so paltry, having essentially lived in Italy now for a total of about ten months—I am the first to know that it is inadequate at best, frustrating and socially compromising at worst. Nevertheless, I manage to communicate when I want to, and sometimes even surprise myself at how well with so little. Older people are easier to “talk” to, they don’t care how much I am struggling, how awkward I might be, how many times I say the same word. They just keep smiling at me and nodding encouragingly, filling in all the blanks until it really seems as if we are having a conversation. I have to use my hands a lot, gesturing things like lying down to rest, walking uphill (there is no other kind of walking here in Menaggio), praying (I enjoy sitting in the churches here, which are around every corner, are cool and dark and peaceful, and even if I don’t really pray, this gesture goes over big with the elder folk who are mostly all very devout). I keep eye contact, and smile. Smiling and the burst of an unselfconscious laugh lifts everything. Friendliness begets friendliness and when you are struggling to connect, the open heart cuts right through effort and brings it all down to closing the separation between us, which doesn’t exist anyway, and opening up everything else which feels real and whole.

Just a Tuesday

Nothing special about today but that I am awake, have no pain in my body, my mind is pretty clear, the air outside the open window is crisp and the view of the forest and overarching mountain behind the apartment is as green and stunning as ever. I'm baking loaves of zucchini bread, which no one around here is familiar with, oddly enough, so I bake it to share with all the sweet, elderly neighbors in this beautiful ancient building. My fiance is at work and as is usual most days, I am here in his, our, place by myself. I left my home in Tucson in June to stay here in Italy with Massimo for a planned six months. This is my fourth time here since we got together in 2007. Being apart and skyping, texting, phoning is so difficult and frustrating after a while and we miss each other--the daily ache of being without. So, I am here again, for the longest visit yet. On certain days I feel like running "home" again...but here is home too now, so where to go? I'm sure many people would shriek about my not being blissfully content in Italy, of all beautiful, perfect places in the world. And I think that of myself at times too. But I haven't learned to speak Italian, yet, and I'm shy, so sometimes being in a foreign land like this strains me to breaking. On the days I wake up covered in insecurity and self-judgement, like a sheen of sweat from a bad dream, I suffer terribly. I believe everything I think. Everything I do and try is wrong, a tentative move to, say, buy The International Herald Tribune at the local newsagent is flubbed: I don't know where to put my money, because there is a little curved platform on the counter but some people use it to pay, some to pick up their change; how many times do I say "Ciao" as a greeting (one seems customary) and how many times as a farewell (three seems typical)? I'm an idiot, awkward fool, nervous and neurotic...my thoughts plague me, the voice of doubt in my head is so loud I can't hear myself, I can't leap over and away from it and I shrink smaller and smaller. Usually I return to the apartment and keep myself inside, where I feel OK. I know this isolating looks weird. And poor Massimo worries about me, I know. Who wants to be with someone so unadventurous, so scared?

And then there is this: it doesn't matter. Not the doubts, the fumbling, the not knowing, my lover's worries, not speaking Italian or not wanting to go out of the house. Not even having just burnt the bread because I was so busy with this...Not one part of it matters so long as I am simply accepting what is. Accepting the mistakes, the desire to flee, the need to hide...My thoughts are not real. Why should I assume that they are? There is nothing empirical about thoughts. And maybe, (and this is a work in progress) thoughts aren't the point of anything in this life, in spite of the fact that most of us make them the center of who we are and what we do. Every time I dwell on my suffering thoughts, I suffer more. After forty-four years, I'm not interested in yet more twisting in the wind and this conclusion of "it doesn't matter" is something which is helping me enormously to be willing to get up and live inside just another Tuesday with some little bit of peace.