Week 40; 1-8-22

Hello friends,

I'm writing this final update from a cafe in good ol' Media, PA. I've been back in the states since last Wednesday, and I've been looking forward to this writing session. This practice has served me in such beautiful ways, and before I go any further, I want to express my deepest gratitude to my mom's friend Marylou (Marilu`) for planting the seed for this newsletter. I cannot imagine this year without this anchor.

As testament to that, I opened this draft 4 weeks ago as a place to organize my thoughts and feelings on the end of this experience -- from moving updates and favorite memories to synthesizing takeaways (which is one of the many roles this practice has played in my life).

My final week in Mondragone was hectic -- one social engagement after another. I saw 4 out of 8 of my groups of students, said goodbye to my colleagues (only the ones I liked), and spent so much quality time with my host family. And, in the midst of all that, I was fielding calls for the apartment and job hunts (more on that below), and also carving out time for myself to thank all of the places I feel connected to. Fittingly, I hit 400 miles on my running shoes during the last 3 miles of my final run in Mondragone. Despite this torrent of goodbyes, and the pulling back of even more layers of normalcy (no hand towel in the bathroom, final time walking in the door with my keys, actually folding up and putting away the drying rack for the first time since I arrived), the realization that I was leaving hit on Monday night, as I was watching the sunset with a colleague who I so deeply wish I'd gotten to work more closely with. And from there, the tears didn't stop until I got off the plane in Boston.

Now, 1.5 weeks out, my heart hurts if I think too hard about Mondragone. I know that world is continuing on without me. My students have sent me selfies from the beach, asked if there will be more penpal letters next year, told me they miss me. I miss them, miss being a part of it, miss the beauty of the place and the freshness of the produce. I miss the pace of life (sometimes, that one is hit or miss), and I miss my host family, including Regina (don't tell Socks). My heart also hurts out of sadness. The day that I left Italy, there were a lot of wildfires. My train to Rome was delayed twice because of a wildfire near the tracks, and, most impactfully, my final view of Mondragone, looking backwards out the train from the Formia-Gaeta stop, was my mountain in flames and all of Mondragone engulfed in smoke. In the 45 minutes we were stopped there, I watched the smoke worsen from being reminiscent of the entire winter, when Mondragone was always covered in light smoke from the pellet stoves and the fireplaces, to being deeply concerning and saddening.

 

I have been trying to convince everybody who comes to visit me to climb up to Vomero, instead of taking the funicolare. With 48 hours left in Italy, I woke up at 5 to take the train to Napoli and do it myself. This is the view from the bottom of the hill.



14 minutes later I got to enjoy one last GF sfogliatella that I'd picked up on the way to the overlook from the train station.



And once I got to the top, I had breakfast and journaled and looked over the city. It seemed peaceful (I have never used that word to describe Napoli).

 

Word pictures
One last time -- these are a mix of final interactions with my students, and the experience of packing up and saying goodbye.

• “Ci siamo sempre per una passeggiata con Antonella.” That’s “We’re always around for a stroll with Antonella,” a line from my senior humanities students during our ‘farewell’ gelato and walk. When I first went out with my students back in March, I’d be walking with the group and whenever they would meet somebody they knew, we’d all stop. That night, I was the reason the group kept stopping because we ran into at least 25 of my students over the course of 2 hours.

• I witnessed an actual spit take for the first time. A few minutes later one student said that she wants to name her first daughter Antonella. This all went down over a pizza dinner at the pizzeria owned by the family of one of my sophomore humanities students. All the students showed up an hour late, and then a few minutes after we’d ordered, the waiter ran out, genuinely distressed, and said “Professoressa, something terrible has happened.” I braced for the worst, and then he said “We’ve burnt our only GF pizza for the night, is fish okay?”

• “Resterai sempre nei nostri cuori.” That’s “You’ll always be in our hearts,” a line from a junior music student (one who was often very disengaged in class), when we said goodbye during one of my many final strolls around “abbasc a mar,” the neighborhood closest to the sea.

• “Non mi piacciono i ragazzi italiani” “A punto, hai ragione.” That’s “I don’t like Italian men.” “Spot on, you’re right.” An interaction from an aperitivo with two other junior music students. Other topics of conversation included mental health, the education system, sexism and music recs. I am sad this type of interaction with my students did not happen sooner in the year – it would have been much less lonely – but this year was what it needed to be, loneliness and all. And professionally I needed to finish teaching before being able to show up fully socially.

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• “Our American house guest, the small American with short curly hair. She’s bravissima, molto in gamba. She ties her shoes onto her backpack and flies off” – That’s how my host family describes me to people around town. Apparently, the shoe comment is where the recognition happens most often. At this same dinner, I saw my host mom laugh as hard as she did when my mom spoke “dialect with an American accent” back in December. Giancarlo was imitating a comedy film, and her older sister’s pajama shorts were tucked into her panties when she stood up, which was “scandalosa.” (she also found it funny).

• Crying on the living room floor with my suitcase between my knees with my clothing strewn about. Sadly, my 5-liter container of homemade olive oil did not make the cut for packing. I did pack my eye drops in my quart-sized carry-on liquids back, anticipating tears followed by dry eyes.

• After that beautiful, cathartic sunset, my colleague dropped me off, at the end of my street, in her old, yellow Fiat Panda – just as she’d picked me up on my first morning at the same spot, in the same car, to drive me to school. I was terrified as we drove through town, disoriented, exhausted, sad, confused. That drop-off was the perfect bookend on my time in Mondragone – and only that – because that first day, somebody else dropped me off, and the day of the sunset, I walked to her home.

• Excerpt from my journal as I was about to go down the mountain for the last time: All my people from this year are down there, living their lives; Fleabag S2E6 quote, “Smile, charm, off we go;” noting how much of the town I’ve not seen despite being in Mondragone for so long, that for as much as I walked, it was often the same paths; Ryn Weaver’s Traveling Song; looking in the distance to the same mountains that captivated me on my first day out the window of the backseat of my Aunt’s car, reflecting on how accustomed I'd become to them as the backdrop to *my* mountain [clarification: this is the next range to the North, behind Formia]; The Grass Harp, both tangibly in that moment and, intangibly, dad reading bedtime stories that were not appropriate and censoring them, but my noticing that the stories no longer made sense and asking questions; the day before I had daydreamed about getting to the top of the mountain and sobbing until my sides hurt, but I couldn’t bring myself to cry, until it was time to turn, to pull myself away from the view, and begin the descent. That was when I think it truly, truly hit me.

• Last time taking the train back from Napoli: Sitting across from a man with a gunshot wound scar on one arm, what looks like fresh dried blood (not his) on his left, and barbed wire tattoos on both. He unwraps and checks a brand new, in the box laptop, then gets on the phone and speaks in very, very heavy dialect with slurred speech. He is sweating bullets, and when the phone call ends, he pulls an electrical wire out of his pocket and begins chewing off the rubber casing. Just in case I forgot that, for as beautiful as Napoli is, it's infamous for its organized crime.

• Last time taking the navetta back from the train station. The bus driver said “You’re welcome” in English as I step down onto the street.

• Last time opening the portone to come home from a walk. Regina walking up to door with a look on her face that said “I’m offended you left in the first place,” and then plopping down with a concerningly loud thud to be pet.

• Excerpt from my journal after waving goodbye to my host family on the platform: “How different this is from any of my other trips from this station, I’ve never been accompanied. I feel so loved. Why did it take this long to soak in? // The woman next to me is also crying, and the old man sitting across from us looks very uncomfortable. // I just asked her for a tissue, and she gave me a whole pack, saying ‘it’s a gift, keep it, I have 3.’”

• Excerpt from my journal as Mondragone disappeared behind the mountain: “So sad and also so, so whole.”

• Excerpt from my journal when I woke up the next morning to go to the airport: “Il venti luglio, caspita, siamo arrivati.” That’s “July 20^th, goodness, we’re here,” after 10 months of responding "il venti luglio" when anyone would ask how long I'm staying.

I have done a thing! Shoutout to David Arato at the White Whale Tattoo Society for this art that now lives on my body. These are all flowers that I took pictures of on the mountain in Mondragone (well, technically Sarah GG took the photos because my Italy phone camera was terrible). This tattoo already has so many meanings -- tranquilla, sempre diritto, blossoming, 'I will go on,' reconnecting with self, responding to adversity by climbing higher/not getting stuck, and so much more. It's also worth mentioning that halfway through the session, the tattoo artist took a "pausa caffe` velocissima" -- a very, very quick coffee break.



As my train was pulling away from Mondragone and I was crying into my N95, watching the mountain disappear from view, I looked down at my arm and it gave me comfort to know that I've got this little piece of Mondragone on me forever.



Final trip up the mountain -- sunrise on my last day in Mondragone.



Naturally I had to document the tattoo on the mountain that inspired it.



This is not one of the flowers on my arm, but it was the only flower I passed on my trek up.

 

From the journal

• Top themes, personal growth: sitting in aloneness without jumping to loneliness (which now needs to transform again to protecting time with self rather than approaching all social interactions with scarcity mindset); using my voice; less hypervigilance around food; sustainable running; adjusting to going on adventures without a car/being “in movimento”; unpacking the male gaze on a new level (thanks, Southern Italy machismo for that one); reconnecting with hobbies and doing things that bring me joy for no other reason than my own joy.

• Top themes, lifestyle: opening the windows to “change the air,” even in wintertime; being surprised when an indoor space has heat or AC; sipping water before coffee; higher standards for chocolate; lower standards for public transit; higher standards for gluten awareness; wearing more black; being more willing to take risks/go without a plan. Contrarily, ways Italy has not changed me, despite very strong trends: no makeup, no smoking, no Instagram, commitment to practical footwear.

• Moments of pure joy and contentedness: plane taking off, sunset runs on the beach, the top of the mountain, marveling at unexpected little life (wildflowers, snails), dancing around the kitchen and singing while I cook, striking up conversations with strangers, being recognized by my students, piano, building meaningful orbits in far-away places (Giulia & Giulia’s friends in the north; Ester, Rosalba, students in Mondragone; Louis in Geneva; Antonio and Zac in Paris; Serena in the UK)   – and allowing myself to sit in and soak in those moments of joy and contentedness.

• Moments of feeling small and awestruck by how connected we are / reckoning with the Anthropocene: on a train noticing the windmills in the mountains of Abruzzo and wondering how many humans have dedicated their lives and careers to the development and maintenance of them; similarly, on a plane looking at a thunderstorm, thinking about weather patterns and all the meteorologists and other scientists who have dedicated their lives and careers to the study of weather and the atmosphere and climate change, not to mention the activists and politicians who uplift their voices; applying for many, many jobs, reflecting on how many HR professionals there are in the world, how many people have dedicated their lives to supporting other people through their career transitions.

• Moments of connection to place: "Mondragone in movimento," the Viale post-lunch as everybody is coming and going, me as a part of it walking home in my running clothes; on a tiring day, feeling as though I was isolated from the rest of Mondragone, despite my physical presence, but then running into 6 students in a row who popped the bubble; looking at Napoli from the window of my airplane, feeling connected to the city, to the mountains, to the contours of the land itself; my thunderstorm cry -- just me and the storm and Mondragone, staying awake for that experience was part of being fully present in that place, first good cry about leaving; Sitting on back step of school building during my free hour on the last real full day at that school with the students, reflecting on how I have existed here, and if I were to die suddenly and someone wanted to retrace my life, to visit the places I lived and worked and built routines and habits, this would need to be one of their stops. It's become a part of my story.

• Moments of disconnection from place: Remembering that the relief I feel leaving Mondragone goes all the way back to my 5th day here when I was driven to run errands in Formia; feeling myself thrive, flourish, show up even more wholly at events that were not in Mondragone (Vassar 2020 celebration, Fulbright conference in Rome, traveling with friends and family) -- there was not room for all of me there; even walking around Napoli I felt more comfortable bringing that vibrant, sometimes loud, wholly present Me; naming the fear of being judged in Mondragone, for anything, the Mondragonesi love to gossip; tightknit community means great potential for true accountability, but does not work if it's selective -- say, if the men miming sex acts from their car are not held accountable but the runner who curses back at them is.

• Moments of connection to food: crying when I had the Italian bread because it evoked memories of ciabatta sandwiches in Cape May in the summer, bread crust towers with Rebecca on holidays, and trips into South Philly with dad; the many pizza dinners where my GF pizza came out first and I insisted on waiting for everyone’s to arrive before I started, the outrage that I would consider eating a cold pizza; having the same pastries as everyone else in the group, at the same pastry shop, but GF, feeling so included; eating GF carbonara by myself in a restaurant in Rome the night before leaving for America.

• Moment of reflection on how culturally-informed habits manifest in our bodies: watching Nonno cut really tough bread with one hand, absentmindedly, while having 2 other conversations; watching Nonna put coffee grinds in moka pot -- after 9 months I still make a mess every time. I thought it was a matter of the size of my scoop in relation to the moka pot but it is not. They know the properties of coffee grinds, where it will rest and where it will settle and how it will fall out of the scoop, at a level that I simply do not. Something to work towards, I suppose.

• Needing to see photos of myself, all the time, more often than ever before – redirecting my sense of self to be less relational, or less tangibly relational, and more grounded in my own body. I am drawing more energy from social interactions, rather than from recharge/alone time, in a total inversion of my life at Vassar – am I changing and growing in a lasting way? Or is this a product of my current environment? Moving forward I need to be mindful of 2 lines: having a sense of self grounded in self // isolating, and b) engaging fully with a vibrant community // having a sense of self that is too reliant on external entities.

• Translation is hard because: a) I value connotation very much, b) in order to translate I need to think about the phrase as a whole, not just the buzzwords I fall back on. A good exercise in reconnecting with root meanings, particularly for facilitation work which is most important to me. It does not help that in both facilitation and academic spaces, we choose our words meticulously.

• Being perceived (catcalls), being recognized (students waving as we walk down the street), and having meaningful connections are all very different ways of interacting with people, and their differences are amplified when, for months, any sort of interaction punctuates seemingly endless aloneness. Which led to my asking myself how I want to be seen when I walk down the street: capable, self-assured, caring, having a good sense of direction, approachable but not to be messed with.

The 16 journals I filled during my grant.

My final sunset. I was leaning on a paddleboat with a colleague, tears streaming down my face (but not crying), alternating between watching the sunset and looking back up at the mountain that I love so, so much. I can't decide which I'll miss more.



My final sunrise -- over the castle from the top of the mountain.



Another one, for good measure.



And, in a break from tradition, I'm closing with this photo rather than the photo of the sunset. Eve took this photo on a disposable film camera when she and Dave visited back in May. It is now my desktop background. 
 

And that's a wrap! In addition to the gratitude I expressed for Marilu at the beginning of this newsletter, I also want to thank everyone who has taken time out of their busy lives to sit and read my updates. I've felt your presence with me this year.

I'm sure that I'll continue to process this experience for a long time. And, this practice is unlikely to fit into my next chapter of this life. While finishing up this newsletter, I kept saying to Sarah that it doesn't feel final enough. I'm not getting that catharsis I'd get when I submitted the final paper for a class. One of my lessons from this year is that endings are messy, abrupt, disorganized -- that chipping-away-at-normalcy that I keep coming back to. And, even when time is carved out to honor an ending, there will be absent students, or rehearsals consistently scheduled during the same lessons. I wonder if it does not feel final because I had intentions to share more cultural differences (I had a whole list of topics I did not get to), and I am sad that I've not shared more creative writing. One of my goals for my next chapter of life is not only to write creatively more, but to do so in community with others. I might revive this listserv to share some of that writing.

Speaking of my next chapter, and to end on a forward-moving, sempre diritto update, I'm so, so fortunate to have been offered a Partnerships role at Protect Democracy. I don't believe in "dream jobs," but this is as close as it gets -- to the point that I am pushing off grad school, again, for a good number of years. And you all know that I'm chomping at the bit to be a student again.

Onward!

Con tranquillita` e tantissima gratitudine,
Antonella


 

Appendix: Ground Rules

1. This is a time for me of reconnecting with a number of practices that have been interrupted by the pandemic; by the 3-part-time-jobs, recent-humanities-grad, gig-economy work routine that I've just left; and by the inevitable ebb and flow of intersecting needs. This is just that -- a practice, a practice of connection, a practice of reflection, a practice of synthesis, a practice of perspective.
2. This is not meant to replace my 1:1 interactions!
3. This should serve me. There is no right or wrong way for me to structure these. Like my bullet journal, if the structure becomes cumbersome, it means my needs are shifting and I need to re-evaluate what I am including and how I am preparing to write.
4. This is not a finished product, ever, by any standard. I will not fret over punctuation, word choice, or syntax. There are many spaces in my life where those things do matter, quite a lot, but they are not a priority here.

In case you missed it!
Here is the link to the archive of my past newsletters