Leaving is hard.

The coming reality of heading home is the warmest feeling I have ever experienced.

Honestly, without shame, I just want to hug my mom. It is my personal opinion that people from other countries don’t engage in enough friendly touch each day. In e-mails and text messages, Italians write things like: “Ti abbraccio,” or “ Un abbraccio,” which translates into, “I embrace you,” or “A hug,” but the written word has proven to be a lame substitute for the real thing. So, now, after six months living outside of America’s warm embrace, I am seriously lacking in the nourishment of a good, long, hug. Lucky for me, my momma’s picking me up at the airport!

So, back to “leaving is hard.”

There are people and places and activities that I am leaving. People like my friends Eline and Aoi. People like my teachers Barbara, Sara, and Giuliano. People in our community like baristas, fruit vendors, waiters and waitresses, and the acquaintances you make over six months of frequenting the same locales. Places like the park at the top of the city. Places like pizzerias and bars and friend’s houses where you shared a meal or drink with someone special. Places like the stairs and escalators that are particular to this very tall city. Activities like daily language class, afternoon tea with your best friends, going to concerts in a “Sala”, “English Language Movie Mondays,” Italian language movies, making a daily passegiata (stroll). (I never said my life here was “hard,” just “real.”)

And, then there’s coming to terms with what I have done: It’s what I said I would do. I said, more than a year and a half ago, “I want to go back to Italy and finish learning the language.” I did it. I have learned all of the grammar. I have practiced speaking. That is to say that, so long as the person sitting across from me speaks slowly and without dialect, I can hold a conversation on all sorts of topics using conjunctive phrases and the like without having to raise my left eyebrow or shrug my shoulders too often.

It has passed. I have finished it. I can’t do it again.

There’s a fear that is setting in as that last statement rings in my ears. I was talking to my brother on the phone last night and I was just babbling to his very kind and listening ear, in a way only his baby sister could. And at some point I heard myself saying, “I came here with this staggering fear, and now there’s just not any. It’s way cool,” but, I kind of lied, to tell you the truth. There is a fear.

Real Life Part 2

Maybe it’s just that some days hurt more than others. Take, for instance, Mondays. Today was a Monday and in it was a classic sequence of events that gives Mondays their fame.
1. Locked self out of apartment
2. Arrived late to class
3. Cell phone rang during lecture
4. Lesson was dismal
5. Vented loudly to a friend in public
6. Desired internet sites out of service
And thoughts begin to pile on the pain. All of the things I have ever been sad or angry about, come to the surface. My eyebrows join in great furor, my upper lip begins to snarl, and everyone seems to be staring and thinking: “Geez, what’s with her?” And, if they actually asked me, I would tell them. Oh, would I ever tell them! Problem is, they never ask. They stare, they think, some joke, but they don’t dare to ask. And I am left to deal with my personal case of the Mondays alone. That’s right, now I have realized how very alone I am. Not just today, but every day. Every single day…

Are you beginning to understand how the sorrow escalates throughout the day, until even the most adrenaline pumped competitor would have to sit down, find a friend’s shoulder, and have a good cry?

Well, so that’s also very real. We may call those feelings “exaggerated,” but they are real. I call them exaggerated, because those are feelings we are led to by a chain of events that are triggered by a solitary happening. For example: Had I not left my keys in my apartment behind my automatically locking door, I would not have been so self-deprecating as to call myself stupid all morning. However, in the circumstance that I had been thoughtful enough to check for my keys before closing the door, like I do every other morning, I would have been raving to myself, in my thoughts, as I walked to class as to how silky soft my hair felt that day. In fact, all day I would have been smiling with glee over my triumphant hair day (it’s a personal fetish), rather than lamenting my sorry existence! So, just as my exaggerated lamentations are “real” enough to induce tears of great sorrow in need of an entire roll of toilet paper for clean-up duty, so was my exaggerated joy in the simple victory of correct shampoo and product combination. So, sometimes life can be "real" happy, and at other times "real" sad, and the potential for extremities can occur by way of peculiar events. Thing is, however spectacular or crummy a moment may be, it's always real.

Note: These entries are not challenges as to what wisdom has been offered me in the past, they are simply my efforts at creating something during a period of my life when I am without my “sword,” as my brother once put it, when my mother wanted to put my cello in her car, as opposed to mine, on my first move to college. We all need an emotional outlet, I’m taking a stab at articulating my thoughts in a manner that differs from stream of consciousness.

What is real life? That is, when is it gonna hit me? Is this real life? This living in Italy, learning another language thing, is that the real life that mom’s, dad’s, professor’s, mentor’s and the like have been telling me about all my life? Or is their yet another link?

What separates the “real” moments from those that are “unreal?” If I were to hear about the life that I have been living for the last 5 months from another person I might conclude, in exclamation, that this very “real” experience sounds quite “unreal.” Out of this world, in fact. So, what’s the definition?

In response to my own question, I have the following thoughts:

Suggested “Real Life” Moments:
• Death
• Exam Week
• Pop Quizzes
• Faulty Alarm Clock Mornings
• Interviews
• Diagnoses
• Performances
Feel free to include and suggest other moments of sheer panic, stress, sadness, or anger to this list as you feel inclined.

Why is “real life” named the culprit of all of the tough stuff? Each of those previously mentioned moments was a moment in which I can remember my head spinning, therefore inducing a feeling quite “unreal.” Not drunken, or drugged (You are in control of what you put into your body; therefore, manipulating substances to create a desired feeling is considerably “real.”), but more like my head was growing to a size beyond capacity for the world. Literally. That’s pretty “unreal,” right?

So, here’s my latest example of the real unreal: I found myself riding in the back of Giuliano, my teacher’s, car. I was looking out of the window over the Umbrian countryside as he navigated the winding roads of the mountain necessary to scale and descend in order to meet our friends at their home. The Italian sky (literally translated into “heavens”) is clearer, bluer, and more seemingly tangible than any I have ever seen, something that I am marveled by with every coming day. The clouds are of a density that gets me surmising a plan for how I could take a seat up there, allowing me to take in the view of those going for a drive on this lazy Sunday. We were discussing educational theories. We were talking in Italian.

Aoi was giving directions from the front passenger seat: “Gira sinistra. Qui. Si, si, qui. Davanti al bar. Si, si, sono sicura.” As Giuliano parked and we tumbled out of his tiny car, I found myself standing between an olive grove to my right, a vineyard straight ahead, a panorama of the countryside below to my left, and the heavens above. Our friends appeared with smiles on their faces, taking our shoulders in their hands and kissing our cheeks, welcoming us into their home in classic Italian form. It’s only their physical and audible features that keep them from hiding their Irish-Scotch heritage.

My impressions of today continue in much the same fashion until, 7 hours later, familiar signs of my city began to appear beyond the windshield of my teacher’s car. And, even now, a few hours later, sitting on my bed, refining my thoughts to a mere few words, my conclusive feeling is one of awe. A feeling often induced by things deemed to be rather “unreal.” Yet every bit of it was as real as you and I to the touch, but not a bit of it was tough.

Places I've been

So, we've been doing a little traveling as of late. The girls: Eline, Aoi (sounds like owwweee!), Tomomi, and I, that is. About a month ago we took a trip to the city of Lucca (looo-kah). It's a beautiful city surrounded by a great wall from the Medieval era. The wall served as protection for the citizens from possible attacks. The wall, today, serves as a historic monument, walking path, and park for the city. You can walk the circumference of the city outside of the wall, but you can also walk on top of the wall and take in the view of the city within and without. Really interesting.

So, below, in no particular order whatsoever, the pictures are of the wall, my friends, city map of Lucca, the duomo and bell tower, and then the walking path on top of the wall.







Enjoy!
~Grace

p.s.
Friday marked the one month until my plane departs for the U.S.A.!