Concerned that living long-term in
Italy has somehow damaged my ability to set meaningful goals, my sister does
her best to nurture my undernourished purposeful side’. Not that I have one.
But just in case I do, she wants to be the first to feed it.
Every September, as she prepares to come to Italy,
Nicole asks if I’ve managed to make progress on my life plan. In a futile
attempt to tap-dance under the radar, I remind her that plan’ and slow’ are
the same word in this country and that Italian soil stubbornly resists
quick-growing objectives. Besides, I am allergic to organizational folly. It’s
not my fault that she walked away with all the purposeful genes in the pool
while I was left to wade with the ones that were in no hurry.
Nicole scoffs in response and
temporarily gives in, convinced that she’ll get me’ once she arrives. Then,
she gives me the third degree about this year’s fashion must-haves, about which,
I must admit, I am only slightly better at providing information.
During our last pre-departure style
quiz, I told her that she should consider investing in lamm shoes, necklines
that reach her bellybutton, bug-eyed sunglasses and hairclips that should have
stayed in the 80s.
It usually takes about two weeks of
living on the Boot for Nicole to admit that my analysis did, in fact, harbor a
smidgen of truth. In California, she can afford questions like Who would wear lamm to work?’ and How come it’s taken you nine months to find a new
apartment?’ Fourteen days into Italy she concedes that silver goes well with
all sorts of day-time wear, and that around here everything-not just
babies-gestates in nine months.
But these realizations did not stop
her from giving me the life-purpose book’ that, unfortunately, she hadn’t been
forced to take out of her overweight suitcase. Keep an open mind,’ she said,
It could be really useful.’
Fine. Though I’d much prefer her
generosity be limited to the chocolate peanut butter cups I’d requested, I was
willing to give the book the benefit of the doubt. I took it with me on the bus
and was well into chapter three by the time we pulled up in front of the double
doors of the insurance company where I teach English and all the male employees
wear light blue shirts with collars.
With purpose chapters one, two and
three pulsing through my veins, I burst into the classroom, ready to forge a
new world order. Our English class needs to have goals that go beyond learning
verbs,’ I said with the brand of conviction that can be bought only in the
west. For next class, you need to research something that you’ve always wanted
to learn about but have never had the time. Let’s make a class chart.’
Although lists and knowledge quests
are not really the way things work in this country, the students evidently
considered it a cultural experiment and got going surprisingly quickly.
In less than ten minutes, they produced a series of goals that ranged from
researching maternity benefits in Europe to investigating Italian student
revolutions in the 1970s. One student wanted to learn how to
use chopsticks; another hoped to find out how Catholicism changed after the
second Vatican Council. They wondered about the grand pyramid of Cheops, who
the great English poets were and how contemporary Italy has changed because of
the economic boom. The origins of rugby, the restoration of the campanile and
how to make chocolate chip cookies also ranked high in their race for
knowledge.
Two days later, I watched the group
pile into class, itching to share their answers, like kids back from the creek
bank, dying to show off their jarful of crawdads. Italian mothers get six
months paid maternity leave and a schedule that facilitates breast-feeding once
they get back to work. The 1970s were the years of lead’ and everyone feared a
Red invasion. Successful chopstick users put pressure on their middle finger.
Best of all, their answers had
created new questions, which they poured on the table like jelly-beans turned
sticky in their pockets. Could Elisabeth Barrett really have loved Robert
Browning as much as she says? Who is making money enough for Italy to have a
place as one of the eight world powers? How had the Egyptians known the exact
weight of the world?
The excited buzz of their questions
could have may well become the week’s prime fatto bello, had my niece,
Sofia, not volunteered to help me with spring cleaning in autumn. If I could
sell Sofia’s laugh for a dollar a giggle, I’d achieve personal wealth and world
peace in less than a year’s time. And anyone who can so deftly distract me from
how I should be rearranging the extension cords in the top-shelf box also knows
how to steer the winds of beauty in her favor.
Because she is five, Sofia is
allowed to wear her shiny purple princess platform shoes only inside. But it
was quite a sight to watch her stride through my living room with a sense of
balance that womanhood has yet to bestow on her flat-shoed aunt. She stuck all
the magnets in a solemn line on the freezer door and divided my pyjamas into
various piles based on prettiness. When she was done, she came to me with a
question.
>Zia?’
>Yes, honey?’
>How many more days til I’m big?’
The fact that I didn’t know the
answer should have inspired me to impress her with a rather remarkable number.
Or moved me to pat her head and tell her not to worry a bit about it. Or else I
could have asked exactly what she planned to do after reaching the end of
how-ever-many days. But somehow, I was unable to formulate any of those obvious
options. Rather inexplicably, I looked my niece straight in the face and told
her, Sofia, I finally bought myself a kitchen for the first time in my whole
life. And they are bringing it here in four more days.’
My niece considered this answer
without blinking, her head cocked to one side. You gonna be big then?’ she
asked.
>Maybe.’
>Can we make muffins, maybe?’
>Yes. Muffins are a definite.’
Her grin convinced me that muffins
are probably a perfectly acceptable purpose for the day I turn big. Because
let’s face it-a life plan has much more mysterious a recipe, and many of its
ingredients still escape me. The concoction also takes ages to cook before it’s
actually ready. But that, in fact, doesn’t worry me. There’s loads to do while
we wait. Like believe that Elisabeth Browning really loved Robert or figure out
how the Egyptians knew exactly what the earth weighs. I, for one, am sure it
weighs a ton-because even the little things-like shiny shoes and rugby rules have
a certain weight in this world.
