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May 4, 2005
Scratching the chalkboard Centro Culturale, my school, still uses chalkboards. The chalk-covered hands and labor-intensive erasing that often leaves faded remnants of layer after layer of information piques my art-making self. What a sucker for the dirt of creativity. Literally.
This final semester is not as lively as the other two, but our professor is intelligent and helpful. My classmates, however, are not very energetic, nor are we a cohesive group. Other than myself and Bonnie, whom love to share and talk and question, we have a tall, blond Russian doctor-in-training who speaks like the Spaniard, speedily and impossibly indecipherable to my half-deaf ears. The tall, black, curly-headed African-American from Oregon has been here for several years, on a mission to literally spread word of the Gospel to young Italian students. Yuka, my Japanese friend, taller than anyone in the entire crew, sits in the second row, and is honest and smart. The two Japanese girls, shy but knowledgeable, rarely speak, and when they do it is a whispery song that I’ve long given up trying to hear. It is wonderful to hear Italian spoken with an Austrian, Japanese, Spanish, Russian, Australian, Greek, American accent…as
we each practice each day to merge into Italianism.
The majority of my experience within this school has not matched the horror stories I’ve heard about Italian university classes. But this semester has given me a taste. Does someone answer a cell phone, head bowed to hide the phone call, but the whispery chitter chatter undeniably disruptive, while the teaching is mid-lesson? She glares with the firm eye of disapproval, but says nothing. I, instead, glance my own evil eye…teachers share this facial ability…
75 minutes into our 90 lesson, the door swings open and in struts our Spaniard peer...smiles innocently as he grabs a seat. We are in 10 in total. He is passed the attendance sheet, and signs. I sigh, because our teacher smiles at him and then moves on with the lesson. And I think back to the days of detention…
But this is nothing. Klajd tells me about teachers coming an hour late or more with no warning, no apology, and even more dry and impolite as ever, not only daily to lectures/classes, but to final exams, for which many students stand in line for 3-4 hours only to be told that they must
return the next day. Klajd sits in front of the classroom, as close to the teacher as possible, to be able to hear about the chatter, laughing, walkmans, telephone calls and rustle of the ignorant sitting in the back of the lecture hall.
And class is lecture. Learning about biology? You will spend 90% of your learning opportunities listening to a professor lecturing from the same 500 page document you are asked to read and repeat. Few dissection studies if any. For the first couple of years, no projects, research papers, questions or experiments.
Now, proud as I am to be both artist and teacher, I must tell you that I have attended the classes of one teacher at the Centro Cultural, who makes lectures both entertaining and interesting, puncturing slide commentary with stories that give context by describing the political, social, cultural history surrounding that particular time period…Contemporary Italian Art, specifically Italian Futurism (early 20th century.) His tone of voice is varied and dynamic, moves about the room, interacts with the slide by pointing to details and explaining with his gestures, creates new voices and seems truly, sincerely inspired by and admiring of the artwork he presents us. How wonderful is the history of art in its natural tendency to sweep us into the very life of that which it describes-as we learn the how, why, where and who, and touches each of my senses without ever leaving my classroom chair. If only this were the kind of teacher in every classroom! If lecturing is the way to go, then scratch that chalkboard!
My name is Como, Roma, Imperia, Siena… I received a call one day at work.
“Buon giorno signora.” Ok, let’s hope the Italian is flowing today.
“Mi dispiace, Signor C----- sta occupato a questo momento. Puo lasciare tuo nome e numero?”
So here goes, hope the ears are working too, because these Italians talk so darn fast and telephone reception is no help.
“Va bene. Tuo nome…Bologna…Si.. Orvietto….Ok.. Roma, Ro…”
What? Who is this woman? Is she giving me directions? I have to ask her to repeat. We try again, but 1 minute later, she’s had it. “Mi chiami BORRINI, Signorina.” Firm and with the trilling double rr.
Ahhhh. Yes. Bologna B, Orvieto O, Roma R. So that’s what she was trying so desperately to explain to me. Alpha, Beta, Chocolate, Daphne, Euphanasia, Frank.
Got it. This is a very formal Italian way of being precise when spelling over the phone. Why don’t we use gelato flavors next time, maybe tourist dunces like me would pick up on those consonants a bit better.
A Personal Check-Up April 28th, a second visit to Ospedale Careggi emergency room, with low blood pressure, serious head aches, fainting and nausea. I swore I’d never go there again, after my first traumatic experience with free health care. This time, however, I end up leaving the hospital after 2 hours, as the nurse tells me it may be another 4 hours before I see a doctor. This hospital is the University hospital and very important to the city, constantly moving with incoming ambulances from the various clinics around the city. Surprised, Klajd shows up and convinces me to try the hospital in town, Santa Maria Nuova, which is said to be the oldest working hospital in Italy. I see the doctor in 90 minutes and leave 2 hours later. No anemia and neurological tests are fine (squeeze this hand, walk a straight line with your eyes closed, repeat the alphabet backwards in Italian…) as well as a lack of a fever and now-normal blood pressure. I head home. Perhaps it’s a virus that just doesn’t let go.
A friend tells me the air is different here in Italy, and the body needs to adjust. Not enough water. Not enough meat, or salt, or not eating right, or too much stress.
Or maybe its about letting go.
I dream about family and returning home. We are happy and I do not cry, as if Italy never happened, but I was never present in the lives of my family as well. Oddly cold, but real, almost unemotional. I dream about my nephew calling my name. One time, two of my three brothers showed up as wandering the crowded streets of Florence. A kind grin on both their faces, calm, silent, hands in their pockets, as if they’d been called to guide me home.
But I’m scared to change again. To get to this place, I’ve given it my all. To know and understand it, I’ve become to love it.
Maybe the changing of the seasons, the change in diet, the stress of fear.
My blood runs just as truthfully here as it could. The further you thrust that your hand into the heart of the earth, the more rich earth there is to grab. But the long, painful pull out is like breaking off some newly-grown roots, the sensitive kind. I’m just hoping these little roots are less delicate than I think.
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inwardness
"The further you thrust your hand into the heart of the earth, the more rich earth there is to grab." Continua, ma devi pur trovare una meta precisa ... e poi fermarti per produrre da quella terra tanto fertile ... venuta dal profondo! - Don Alberto