… questa piccola poesia è uscita dall’esperienza di arrivare in una nuova cultura e di lasciare letteralmente la mia lingua, la mia voce, dietro di me. Le nostre parole hanno il potere di definirci in modi sia positivi che negativi. Per me, una nuova lingua è stata un nuovo inizio.

…this little poem came out of the experience of arriving in a new culture and literally leaving my language, my voice, behind me.  Our words have the power to define us in ways both positive and negative.   For me, a new language has also been a fresh start.  English translation follows.

Ho perso la lingua

Quando ho raggiunto

questo posto sconosciuto,

Spalle stanche e pesanti,

avvolte sotto la mia corazza polverosa,

Ho perso la lingua

e sputavo queste strane parole

fuori come

pappa dalla bocca.

 

Non avevo un modo di raccontare

mia storia.

Come si parla di violenza passata, ex amanti, tradimento…

con solo il tempo presente?

Oggi io sono.  Oggi siamo qui.  Ho fame.  Ho sete.

 

Il passato mi ha sfregiata,

mi ha inquadrata-

Avevo pensato.

L’ho nascosto da qualche parte in un cassetto con la lingua

che era smarrita.

 

E poi, strada facendo,

ho incontrato

le vecchie parole che hanno

costruito

la prima vita.

Con una lingua nuova, cosi piena di belle vocali e

la cadenza del canto,

sembravano meno velenose,

innocue.

 

Ma quando me le sono provate-

Testa bella alta e pelle appena

liscia e morbida-

Ho scoperto che

non si adattavano

più.

E le ho ficcate nella scatola.

Sono ormai contenta di essere,

di parlare, di

Adesso

 

I Lost My Tongue (translation)

When I reached this

unknown place,

shoulders tired and heavy,

shrouded under my dusty armor,

I lost my tongue

and spit out these

strange words like mush

from the mouth of a baby.

 

I didn’t have a way to tell

my story.

How do you speak of past horrors, ex-lovers, betrayal…

with only the present tense?

Today I am.  Today we are here.  I have hunger.  I have thirst.

 

The past had disfigured me,

had defined me-

I had thought.

So I hid it away somewhere in a drawer with the tongue

that was lost.

 

And then, along the way,

I met again those old words that had built

my first life.

With a new tongue, so full of beautiful vowels and

the cadence of song,

they seemed less toxic,

innocent.

 

But when I tried them on,

my back straight and tall,

skin newly soft and smooth and light,

I found that they

no longer fit.

So I stuffed them in a box.

Content to be,

to speak,

only

of now.

The air was heavy with the clinging heat of an August night.  Strings of lights, motionless in the stillness, illuminated an incandescent swath through the darkness.  There was moonlight from a crescent sliver, but not enough to reach the ground where people were settling in on blankets and folding chairs.

On a little make-shift stage in the grass, a trio of young jazz musicians began their first set.  The crowd, anonymous in the shadows, nodded with the rhythm, gently tapping fingers and feet.  The singer stepped to the microphone.  Behind and below, sounds of traffic faded.  The medieval city’s facades of stone and clay shimmered in a reddish glow, throwing off the warmth of the day. The fields and hills beyond slipped from sight.

They appeared from the shadows, moving slowly and leaning together so closely that in the darkness they seemed one.  Their silhouettes united, the outer edges soft as if worn by time. Dressed heavily in black, they walked with eyes cast down, heads touching.   One pale hand trembled on the curve of a cane.  Their elbows intertwined, locked by the comfort and habit born of countless hours.

They paused to observe the concert and the crowd.  Then, without a word, they continued down their private path.  The night took a breath and opened around them.  They disappeared, their world uninterrupted by the presence of strangers.  This night, the same as those thousands that came before and those they will be lucky enough to have after.

I wondered what it’s like to live so long with another person that words no longer matter.   I wondered how it feels to love so simply and deeply that life without the other is unimaginable.

I wondered, when one dies, does only half a person remain?

 

 

L’aria è stata pesante con il caldo appiccicoso di una sera di agosto.    Fili di luci, immobili nella placidità, illuminano una striscia incandescente attraverso il buio.  C’era una luna crescente, ma la luce non era abbastanza forte da raggiungere la terra dove la gente sedeva su coperte e sedie pieghevoli.

Sul un piccolo palcoscenico improvvisato nell’erba, un terzetto di giovani musicisti jazz ha cominciato a suonare.  La compagnia, anonima nell’ombra, accennava un ritmo, battendo leggermente le dita delle mani e dei piedi.   La cantante si è avvicinata al microfono.  Dietro e sotto, il rumore del traffico è sbiadito.  Le facciate di pietra e argilla della città medievale brillavano di un bagliore rossastro, gettando via il calore del giorno.  I campi e le colline oltre la città scivolarono nelle oscurità.

Sono comparsi dalle ombre, muovendosi lentamente e appoggiandosi così vicini che nel buio sembrassero essere una persona.  Le loro silhouette erano unite, gli spigoli sfocati come se fossero stati ammorbiditi dal tempo.   Erano vestiti di nero, e camminavano con gli occhi abbassanti.  Le loro teste si toccarono.  Non hanno mai parlato. Non sembrava esserci bisogno.  Una mano pallida tremava sulla curva del bastone.  I loro gomiti erano intrecciati, la chiusura forte, nata da una vita insieme.

Si sono fermati per osservare il concerto e la gente.  Poi, senza una parola, hanno continuato lungo il percorso.  La notte prese fiato e si apri per lasciarli passare.  Sono svaniti, il loro mondo ancora intatto, ininterrotto dalla presenza di stranieri.  Questa sera era lo stesso di quelle migliaia che sono venute prima e quelle poche che verranno dopo.

Mi chiedevo, cosa significhi vivere così lungo con qualcuno per cui le parole non contano più?  Mi chiedevo, come ci si sente ad amare cosi semplicemente e profondamente che la vita senza l’altro sia inimmaginabile?  Mi chiedevo, quando uno muore, rimane solo una mezza persona?

 

At a gathering in Florence, she was proudly putting her fledgling Italian to the test. “Oh, I love this so much,” she said, using the Italian name for the sheep’s milk cheese –pecorino– they were sharing. The response from her new friends was not what she expected. Confused, she avowed a little more loudly, “No, really! I love it. In fact, I adore it.” When the Italians stopped laughing, they explained that she had ended the word with the wrong vowel and was actually professing her adoration of love-making in an um, certain…physical position. It did have something to do with sheep – and mammals in general- but what a difference an “a” makes!

No, it wasn’t me, but I am here to tell you that living in a foreign language is not for the faint of heart. Three years into this adventure in immersion I still have days when I want to crawl under the table and hide. Unlike my amazing friend Natalie who speaks several languages and can parlez with her French neighbors without a trace of an American accent, I struggle mightily to get it right. Left brain, right brain differences? Age? Or maybe it’s because I made my living with words in my madre lingua. As a life-long writer, playing with words, cultivating nuance and communicating complex ideas is fundamental to who I am.

And then this. Starting over again with “Hello”, “How are you?” “Where is the bathroom?” “I like your dog.” “Excuse me, I did not mean to say you are a dog.” Excuse my Italian. Pardon my Italian, I’m sorry for my Italian. Mamma mia.

Cari signori, thank you for asking. I really want to explain to you how I feel about the election. I want to share my opinions on immigration reform. I’d like to ask specific questions on how those ravioli are made. In my own language I am opinionated and well-spoken. But here, sometimes it’s better to smile, listen and make notes on new words and phrases I need to learn. Come si dice? Come si scrive? How do you say ____? How do you spell____? Sometimes when I am really lost and it seems as if a response is required, I do as the Italians do. I shrug, tilt my head and say boh, a wonderful word that means nothing and everything.

Most of the people I’ve met are very kind and patient. They offer gentle corrections and help me to say what I want to say. I’m no longer embarrassed to make mistakes but I’ve learned way too publicly, for example, that the words for fig and the slang word for vagina, are one tiny letter away from each other. “Cara,” corrected a funny friend with a grin, “Your vagina is not a fruit.” The word for “cool” as in hip, sweet, awesome, is also too close to that fruit for my aging brain and so I use gonzo which as far as I know is safe. For a long time I thought we lived in a former red light district until I found out that the street up the hill is named for stone (sasso) and not for sex (sesso). These things were not covered in my text books.

Alberto is also a great help, although at first our teacher/student interactions went like this:

Me (In Italian): Alberto, what does cerniera mean?
Alberto (In Italian): It means, uhhhh, cerniera. (Louder) Cerniera! (Really loudly                                                        and gesturing wildly), CERNIERA!!!

It means zipper, thank you Google translate. As a bonus, I also learned the word for deaf, as in, I am not.

Still, I would not trade this experience for anything. For a long time it was impossible to understand everything. I learned to trust and to be less controlling. I would figure out that we were going someplace to meet somebody but more than that was a pleasant surprise. When words are precious and sentences are a struggle, I can sit comfortably in silence. I reserve my energy for meaningful conversation and leave the blah blah blah in the ether. I have to listen closely here, there is no other choice. If I want to be part of the conversation, I need to jump in, be humble, make mistakes. So hard for perfectionist me. When I am tongue-tied, I’ve learned that sometimes a little wine helps. And yeah, I’ve also learned that too much absolutely does not.

When you begin to live in another language, there is the insult of speaking like a child but wonderfully, the opportunity to observe like a child. Every flower, insect, body part, appliance, food, experience…all of them have new names. I’m learning to be patient, to not assume and to wait for the meaning to come. As my next visit approaches, Alberto will tell me, Non vedo l’ora! Which taken literally means “I can’t see the hour” (what?) but actually means, “I can’t wait!” (Much better!) Tra il dire e fare c’è in mezzo il mare (between the said and the done there is half the ocean) means something is easier said than done -but how much more poetic!

The Italian language is passionate, playful, descriptive and melodic. I am always enchanted (and jealous) to hear tiny Italian children trill their R’s and roll long musical words off of their tiny tongues. In the meantime, my Italian friends tease me as I clunk tovagliolo (napkin), chiacchierone (chatterbox) or stuzzicadenti (toothpicks) painfully into the conversation. When I am lazy, I might resort to cosa, which means “thing”, although by cheating, I disappoint myself.  It helps to remember that there was a time when even the dogs in Siena spoke better Italian than I did.

In working so hard to learn this new language, I’ve come to appreciate even more the richness of the language I take for granted. To notice the differences is to be reminded of the beauty of finding just the right word, coining the perfect phrase. There isn’t just blue here in Italy, there is azure, celeste…descriptive words we have in English but don’t call on often enough.

Most profoundly, in opening my mind to this new experience I find I have discovered a better version of myself. Happier. Lighter. When I first arrived my vocabulary was focused on immediate needs and responses. Italian was the only language my new friends and I had in common, so our interactions were uncomplicated and straightforward. Past trials and tribulations were left unnamed because I simply didn’t have the ability to articulate them in this new adventure. By the time I learned those words, I no longer needed them to define who I am. I didn’t realize the weight of the past until it was lifted because the words were not there to describe it. I find who I am right now is abbastanza bene…good enough. Even when those pesky little vowels betray me.

She stands in the doorway of the tiny beauty shop, white coated, spiky hair the color of polished copper. Her eyes are blazing and she speaks quickly and with obvious annoyance. His feet are planted at an angle to her, his stance is relaxed, back curved, shoulders forward, one hand holding the elbow of his other arm. He gazes softly at her, a slight smile on his face.
I have three seconds to take this in. We’re banging through the stone streets of Siena in Alberto’s little scratched up Renault and as always, it feels like Mr. Toad’s wild ride. Hard left, hard right, hard brake, rapid acceleration, a sudden stop. Everyone drives this way here. No longer white-knuckled during these moments, I try now to stay present and delight in the little vignettes that appear around each corner.
The scolding aesthetician and her bemused-what?- boyfriend? brother? husband? – is the star of this particular scene. In the few seconds available, I take in the visible clues and use my imagination to fill in the blanks. What happened before this snapshot? Why is she angry? Is he the cause or a friend lending an ear? What happens next? And then I fall against the car door during the next turn and the scene changes.
This time it’s an older man. He’s outside of a home with a walled garden, hands behind his back in the way of so many older Italian men. He’s staring at what appears to be an air-conditioning unit. This is a sequel to a glimpse from yesterday, except yesterday there was a repair man taking the unit apart while the man watched from the same place, in the same stance. Why is he there again? Was it not fixed? Is he waiting for the repairman to return? Is he not the owner of the home but instead the nosy neighbor? With little prompting my imagination takes off again.
The scene changes. I see two little ballerinas, tights askew, arms and legs akimbo and intertwined, heads resting together as they sit on the hard marble doorstep of the dance studio. Another turn and there are a trio of teeny wiener dogs running in circles as fast as their little legs will move, sniffing, bumping, jumping as their respective humans exchange buon giorno’s. The road opens and there is a waiter at the corner cafe struggling with a broken awning as a group of regulars watch and gesture but at this moment at least, seem to offer only benevolent supervision.
Three seconds to tell an entire story. I love these moments; the punctuation of a point in time, a curtain opening to reveal an intimate- or ordinary- peek at the life of another person. The sense of commonality gained by observing what happens to complete strangers in the blink of an eye.
When I think about the 16,000 day quest- the effort to live my life to the fullest and not squander a second, I am grateful for these moments. Grateful that they don’t always go by in a blur while I am too busy thinking about something else. Grateful for the practice of awareness because it does make a difference in the quality of life.
Yesterday, I stopped to admire a beautiful wall of flowering plants on the street where my sweetheart lives. Today as we walked by there again, he told me that although he had passed those same flowers many, many times he had never noticed them. He called this a difference in anima, or soul, between the two of us.
It may be as intrinsic as the quality of one’s soul, but I believe that “seeing” is possible for all of us. And important. How can we stop to smell the flowers, appreciate a beautiful smile, comfort a friend’s sadness or delight in the playfulness of two tired little ballerinas if we never focus enough to see them? It only takes a second…or three.  

 

Grazie di Esistere

This little post is a birthday gift from me, on my birthday, to all of you, my family and friends. Lucky girl that I am, I woke up today to another gorgeous day under the Tuscan sun. When he heard my footsteps on the stairs, sweet Alberto put a song on the CD player to greet me. It's a beautiful song of love for another person with the refrain “grazie di esistere” or, thank you for being here, thank you for existing.

What more simple, wonderful statement of appreciation can there be from one person to another? Thank you for existing. No single reason is needed, but all are implied. Thank you for being here. For being a friend, for bringing happiness, for easing the pain when things are not going well. For kicking me in the ass when I need it. For biting your tongue sometimes and not saying the obvious.

My friend Richard was commenting this week on the devastation in Nepal. Homes and monuments lost. Ancient history and modern lives indiscriminately devoured in seconds. A reminder that every second is precious. That not only are we as individuals just a flicker in time, but whole civilizations come and go with relative speed. The same theme emerged as my friend Mari comes to terms with saying goodbye to her dad. Who will tease her when her car is filthy? Who will drink with her and her sisters? What happens when someone so integral to life is suddenly not there, no longer “exists” in the way we too often take for granted?

So today I say to all of you, grazie di esistere. Thank you for touching my life. For inspiring me and making me laugh. For saying the hard things. For keeping in touch over the years and miles. For so many heartfelt birthday wishes. But mostly just for existing. You make the people in your world that much better by just being there. Stop and savor a minute of your own unique existence. Know that you are loved and that you have made a difference. Grazie di esistere!

 

 

 

 

“If man is to survive, he will have learned to take a delight in the essential differences between men and between cultures. He will learn that differences in ideas and attitudes are a delight, part of life’s exciting variety, not something to fear.”

― Gene Roddenberry

This woman learned long ago that what makes us different makes us interesting. Travel is one of those things that can open our eyes to different ways of thinking and different ways of living. Or not.

It still amazes me that some people pay money to travel…plan trips, take time off of work, pack their bags, drive to the airport, sit on a plane for long periods of time and then proceed to bitch moan and complain about everything that is different where they, presumedly, wanted to go.

Toilets and bathrooms in Italy are one example of something that causes much lamenting. The facilities can range from what Americans might consider normal, to seatless commodes, to literally a porcelain lined hole in the floor with helpful footprints painted on either side so one knows where to stand to make the least mess -to put it delicately.

Some bathrooms, in restaurants and bars especially, are located downstairs in the bowels of the building somewhere behind a curtain or an unmarked door and are so small it is difficult to turn around. Some have shared sinks with toilet stalls and can be disconcerting as you enter the bathroom with a member of the opposite sex.

Most of these buildings are literally ancient and have been retrofitted with so much stone making renovation tricky. And so the sink might be controlled by a foot pedal or simply by a brass button sunk into the floor. Flushing is also often a puzzle to be solved with the actual mechanism not apparently connected to the “toilette.” Soap can be scarce as can toilet paper unless you are in a pay facility which may not be as clean as you would like but is usually adequately stocked.

Read the guidebooks, be prepared with a few supplies and small coins and it’s no big deal. But how many times in the Rome airport waiting to go back to the states have I heard someone complain bitterly that they can not wait to be home to use their own bathroom? Silly me, sitting there with my carry-on packed full of all things Italy, feeling so sad to leave. Reuniting with my toilet seat is definitely not top of mind.

As I write this, my host in Siena is hanging the laundry out to dry. Clothes dryers are rare in homes. Supermarket eggs are not refrigerated. There is a comma in numbers where we put a period. Temperatures are in celcius. Shoes sizes are different and here I don’t wear a medium anything, but usually a large. Air conditioning is not a given, nor is heat during certain times of the year. There is no tipping in restaurants and you can buy a bottle of great wine for a third or less than what it would cost you at home. When a commercial break arrives on Italian TV, there is a note on screen beforehand that a promozione is coming.

If you start to put these differences in mental pro and con columns, you are missing the point. These differences, as Roddenberry wrote, are part of the delight and variety in learning about different cultures.

I wholeheartedly embrace this diversity….with one tiny exception. Italian mops. Now that I’m here for long stays, I happily help out with the daily chores like grocery shopping, cooking and cleaning. After vacuuming the apartment the first time and insisting on washing the floors, I was handed a basin, a cloth and a stiff push broom. Still hopefully looking past Alberto to the supply closet to see at least a sponge mop, he re-directed my attention to the process. Fill the basin with soapy water, dunk the cloth in the water, wring it out, place it on the floor, push it around with the broom. Repeat.

Now that it’s a familiar process, it’s not so bad. I usually shake my head and laugh then launch into a chorus of “this is the way we mop the floor, mop the floor, mop the floor” as I work. But I can’t help wondering if an O’Cedar spin mop is on the TSA list of forbidden items? Or better…Swiffer people, are you listening?

 

It’s market day in Siena. Every Wednesday the area surrounding the park at Fortezza becomes the social, commercial and culinary center of this medieval Tuscan town. Juxtaposed next to the massive stone walls of the ancient fort, hundreds of awnings rise and spread in the early morning darkness.

Rain or shine, merchants of every sort set out their wares, flea market style. In this section there may be purses, shoes and other leather goods. Tablecloths over here and garden tools over there. Clothing vendors provide makeshift dressing rooms with full length mirrors tipped precariously against nearby boulders or trees. Women pour over tables with massive piles of coats, shirts, T-shirts and even bras and underwear. At one end, food sellers offer prepared foods, produce, herbs, meat and fish. My favorite, the ancient man who sells honey of every sort imaginable, wraps the precious jars in sheets torn from old phone books, slowly, carefully creasing the paper around the glass with his thick fingers.

I’ve come to the market this morning to look for a birthday gift for Costanza, the grand niece of my Sienese sweetheart. But truthfully, I would have come without any real reason at all. I love the mercado. It is early April and the weather has been stubborn about warming. Today’s sunshine has brought out both tourists and locals…we are elbow to elbow in the narrow aisles. The pace is a slow shuffle. Older italian men wander and watch with their hands clasped comfortably behind their backs. Young women with little ones balance their bags and their babies on their hips while searching for bargains. Older women shop in pairs or small groups and are more aggressive about quickly sorting through the offerings, commenting to one another and the vendors regarding quality, style and value. Mostly value. I’d like to stop and savor the little bits of sun filtering through the patchwork of awnings but as slowly as the traffic moves, it continues to flow and stopping for long is impossible.

Drifting by the tables and listening to the market sounds, I note that my italian has improved a bit. (Piano piano, they say in italian, slowly, slowly.). I smile as I recognize snippets of conversation. The ever polite italian discourse between two donne continues after one has provided her counter opinion to the other; comunque, hai un punto…(however, you have a point…). A vendor describes a frying pan as il migliore, the best, as a doubtful gentleman listens politely. A quartet of old friends converge near the gorgeous bundles of baby artichokes and create a knot in the flow of shoppers as they catch up on family news. (There’s a new baby! A brother is just home from the ospedale.) They are oblivious to the jam they have created.

I see a gaggle of tired tourists with their giant camera lenses bouncing off of backs and shoulders in the crowd. They grow frustrated as they discover there is no fast way out once tunneled in here with the masses. Relax, I want to tell them. You want to see Italy? It’s right here, all around you. Look. Listen. Go slow. And for heaven’s sake, stay the course. People watch. Taste a sample of salami and pecorino. Savor the sweet smell of fresh strawberries. Part with a few euro and bring home a jar of the best honey you’ll ever taste. Souvenier page of old italian phone numbers included, no extra charge.