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I am learning about twenty new Italian words a day. I’m always studying, flipping through
my index cards while I walk around the city, dodging local pedestrians. Where am I getting the
brain space to store these words? I’m hoping that maybe my mind has decided to clear out
some old negative thoughts and sad memories and replace them with these shiny new words.
I work hard at Italian, but I keep hoping it will one day just be revealed to me, whole, per-
fect. One day I will open my mouth and be magically fluent. Then I will be a real Italian girl, in-
stead of a total American who still can’t hear someone call across the street to his friend
Marco without wanting instinctively to yell back “Polo!” I wish that Italian would simply take up
residence within me, but there are so many glitches in this language. Like, why are the Italian
words for “tree” and “hotel” (albero vs. albergo) so very similar? This causes me to keep acci-
dentally telling people that I grew up on “a Christmas hotel farm” instead of the more accurate
and slightly less surreal description: “Christmas tree farm.” And then there are words with
double or even triple meanings. For instance: tasso. Which can mean either interest rate,
badger, or yew tree. Depending on the context, I suppose. Most upsetting to me is when I
stumble on Italian words that are actually—I hate to say it—ugly. I take this as almost a per-
sonal affront. I’m sorry, but I didn’t come all the way to Italy to learn how to say a word like
schermo (screen).
Still, overall it’s so worthwhile. It’s mostly a pure pleasure. Giovanni and I have such a
good time teaching each other idioms in English and Italian. We were talking the other even-
ing about the phrases one uses when trying to comfort someone who is in distress. I told him
that in English we sometimes say, “I’ve been there.” This was unclear to him at first—I’ve
been where? But I explained that deep grief sometimes is almost like a specific location, a co-
ordinate on a map of time. When you are standing in that forest of sorrow, you cannot ima-
gine that you could ever find your way to a better place. But if someone can assure you that
they themselves have stood in that same place, and now have moved on, sometimes this will
bring hope.
“So sadness is a place?” Giovanni asked.