Yesterday's wild leap was something most people take for granted... I haven't been home much since I moved in with Italians so I've only exchanged "ciao's" with my roommates. With so little time and so few words, I was pretty concerned they would have no tolerance for the odd American impinging upon their space. This apartment has a better common area than my last one and is small...it allows for a lot of face-time with roommates if I don't keep my bedroom door shut.
For someone who has lived alone for so long, I'm pretty pleased to say that I am thrilled to be living with others. I like it that there is noise coming from the other room. It's cool to hear conversations that I'm not necessarily involved in. I like to be around life. I don't care to live alone ever again. Two months of various hostels and apartments has all felt good. In some ways, I feel that I really am back in college, re-doing my younger years, but with the confidence of someone who has already survived that stage in life.
Back to the leap out of my comfort zone: the roommate who I've really had almost no communication with was home yesterday. I took a deep breath and asked, "Come stai?" (How are you?) Why so scary? Well, it means I need to try to understand the answer, which will be more than one word. I will see if she just rolls her eyes and walks away. I give her a lot of credit. She answered my question and we had a conversation. She spoke clearly so I could understand.
Tonight after class, my head hurt from thinking too hard. 6 hours of class in a day is a lot of Italian (not that there can be too much). In between class, I went home and watched Grey's Anatomy and the news in Italian. Active listening is truly a workout. It's easy to fudge real listening in one's native language. With another language, pretending isn't an option. My body was also super tired. The Gran Fondo really caught up with me today. I was hungry all day and the bruise from yesterday's crash was a little sore, too. Walking up stairs was hard with the tired muscles. A nice two hour nap tonight was essential.
After napping, it was time for dinner and time to dig into the salami. My roommates were home so I asked them how the salami should be consumed. They were so sweet, they cut off some pieces, brought out their bread and cheese, I offered up some sangiovese vino and we enjoyed the food together. They talked, I couldn't understand much. But it was fine with them that I was there. I really don't mind being in this sort of situation. I'm quite comfortable being the stranieri (foreigner). They had pizzas in the oven, they insisted I have two yummy slices. (I think they felt sorry for me, I was eating black beans that I made earlier today. I described them as "brutto" (ugly) which they were, but they're also fine with me.
Good thing there isn't a blender here, I'd be making green smoothies and really freaking people out. I don't miss the smoothies much or much other food from the U.S. Part of this is that it's a survival mechanism to not focus on the things that can't be obtained. It would only be super frustrating. Besides, the fresh kiwi fruits sitting next to me have asked to be savored and they substitute quite nicely for other things I used to enjoy.
Right now I await my laundry to finish. A 4-hour cycle is the "regular" mode. :)
One of the very nice guys at the race last weekend just shot me a picture that's pretty cool because it's so in the moment and candid. I had *no* idea there was a camera around. This was taken just moments after finishing Saturday's race:
1 comment:
how wonderful
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