it’s almost the end of february. as i’ve been going along in this internship i haven’t really been thinking of how eventually it will come to an end. i have been living days that run into days, class by class, punctuated by evenings and weekends. but it will all come to rest at the end of may at sraffa, and in the middle of june at the liceo artistico. after that my crystal ball has no answers, no responses beyond the infinite black that stares back up at me.
yet there are constants right now that lead me to make a fairly easy decision. my love for this country, my adoration of the italian language, my fascination with european culture, my wanderlust, and, on a practical level, the weakness of the american and world economies which makes teaching english abroad comparatively lucrative. now that things have settled down at the liceo artistico and my schedule at sraffa is calming down once again, i’m going to actively start looking for another job for september, closer to or in milan where the opportunities are manyfold, and closer to where simo is. preferably in a private school or english institution where the desire to learn english is the result of a personal decision and not an obligatory academic requirement.
i realize that some of the above-mentioned constants in and of themselves have the ability to be inconstant, but i have to make my decision, jump in, and hope for the best. i also have friends who are in italy and europe teaching, friends who are applying to this program for next year, laura and nate are thinking about staying in italy, and i have many italian friends throughout the country. i know i want to stay for at least another year, and beyond that i will have to decide at that point where the diverse factors stand.
i have also grown up a little more beyond the 21-year-old who was here the last time. i used to be intimidated by natives, by my lack of perfection in and knowledge of the language, by my unfamiliarity with conventions and traditions. yet that is all but disappearing, melting away as i stop seeking perfection (as much as a perfectionist can stop seeking perfection) and seek a natural rhythym, harmony, and connection with this place. and the more i let go, the more i receive. now at times i even forget i’m in italy, in a country thousands of miles away from ‘home’, in a country which has not bestowed citizenship upon me, upon whose soil i have lived for a mere two years, a place which has unwittingly adopted my heart and soul. now, going to the grocery store is no longer fascinating, hearing italian spoken around me no longer stimulating, rushing down the freeway no longer an experience, walking down the cobblestoned streets and gazing up at ancient buildings no longer a history session.
it’s a life lesson that teaches that eventually, tutto fa brodo. eventually all is seen for what it really is. eventually, it’s all the same in the end. the difficulties and frustrations come out from behind the scenes and onto center stage, and sometimes it’s even difficult just to get out of bed when the alarm goes off and all you have to do is confront another day. even that which glitters and shimmers becomes ordinary and quotidian at best. it’s no longer gelato and pizza and wine, the golden fields of wheat bending in the wind and the sun that shines upon your face that is italy. it’s the tired bus driver, the bum who ask for change in the train station, the saleswoman who barely looks at you when asking if you want bags for your groceries that cost you 5 cents each, 4 euro shampoo, walking up and down the central street in town on saturday evenings, the piazza as a meeting place, the economy which never seems to let people get ahead, old women on bicycles, the banks on every corner, the different academic system, the kids you try to inspire, the crucifixes in public schools, the piercings and ripped jeans and wild hair, the lack of a concept of a proper line, the postal post-office workers, the lack of clothes driers, the tiny fridges, the fiercely-strong family bonds. all that and more, as well as the normalcy of getting up in the morning, drinking coffee, and going to work. and it’s bittersweet, that crossing of the invisible threshold to a place where the wrong can’t always be made right, where normal often goes unnoticed, where abnormal becomes absorbed. it is bittersweet because i’m not able to look at it all with the same eyes that i once did. it has simply become a part of who i am.
yet there are some days, like this morning, that i get glimpses of how it was all over again. it’s days like this, the sun making a rare winter appearance, rising above the various colored buildings around me and rays hitting off the side of my balcony, that old stereotypes come back to visit and forgotten feelings are stirred. reminding me of a time when this was how i imagined it all, when the complexity of it all was limited to what i had learned in text books and films. and it’s days like this that i relish in the gaiety that envelopes me, the delight that surrounds me, the particular bounce in my step as i walk down the cobblestoned streets, staring up at the buildings that seem to lean in a little closer, that have something important to tell me today.
