Weeks 37, 38 & 39; 17-7-22
Hello, friends,
48 hours from now I'll be leaving Mondragone, and ~80 hours from now I'll be landing in Philly. More on that later.
I spent a weekend in Paris! It was fantastic. I was supposed to be visiting a friend, but that friend tested positive for COVID 3 days before my flight. I almost cancelled my trip, but decided to go because a) I have not properly traveled solo since getting here (because my whole life is 'solo' and my trips are often to where my friends are), and b) I needed an emotional vacation from the emotional process of extricating myself from Mondragone. I was getting bogged down in the logistics and the emotions, and I am not one to draw energy from stillness. I so enjoyed reconnecting with the French language, and, as has happened during many of my trips North of Mondragone, I was reminded that it's possible to have the experience of living/working/studying in Europe without all of the things that I've not enjoyed about Southern Italy. And on that note, I'm headed back to Mondragone from my final gita around Italy! In the last week days I've been in Napoli, Firenze, Verona, Lago di Garda, Ozzano, Padova, San Vito Chietino, Roccascalegna, Pescocostanzo, and Ortona.
I'm reflecting on how the end of normalcy has crept up on me. First to go was my routine of going to school and seeing my students (which honestly had already started to shift after Easter in April when everyone gave up on lessons). And then school actually ended. And then I went to America and had COVID -- big disruptions! Then I had to make a list of, and therefore carve out some brain space for, all the things I need to do to get ready to go back, including the job and apartment hunts, which take lot of brain space! Last week I started to pack the 'non-essential' items, which means that my apartment is in the slightest of disarray (which is still enough to be notable and irksome to me).
And the rest is going to go even faster. I spent that week away from Mondragone, and I'm halfway through my final 4 days back. And in that time, all my stuff goes into suitcases, I deep clean the apartment, finish up all my handwritten notes (iykyk), finalize travel plans, pawn off the items I will not be bringing back with me (keyboard, bike, cleaning supplies, kitchen spices), pay final utilities -- and that is just the logistical level. I have places and people and routines (some already long-gone) that I want to say goodbye to, have a moment with, thank.
This is the Mondragone mountain spotted out the window of my plane to Munich (where I had a layover). The Napoletano kid sitting next to me was very confused about why the lady with the American accent next to him insisted on taking this picture.
This was the view from my second plane from Munich to Paris. It was 10:30 at night and the sky was still light. I would love to live very far North at some point in my life (but only for the summer). There was also a lightning storm off to the right.
My hostel was near the Canal -- I'd not spent any time in this part of the city before and it's so tranquil, verdant. I sat on the canal and journaled every morning that I was there.
From there I went to see Notre Dame. I was lucky enough to go inside in 2014, long before the fire. It was the first time I'd stepped inside a structure and had my breath taken away by its magnificence. When I saw the cathedral from behind, still across the Seine, the lack of the spire alone felt wrong. The emptiness was staggering.
And it did not get any better from up close. They had a whole exhibit on the restoration process. My friend told me it's expected to be complete by 2026.
I took my favorite mirror selfie ever on my way to the Picasso museum (where, unfortunately, I took no photos).
And then I got into the Pompidou for free (thank you to the kind ticket salesperson who gave me the EU rate instead of the American rate). This was my view from the escalators up to the entrance.
This was one of my favorite art installations I've ever experienced. Respirare l'ombra di Giuseppe Penone. This photo that I took simply does not do it justice, please please click the link. I spent much time in this room journaling.
On Saturday morning I ran my first post-COVID 10K, from my hostel to the Tour Eiffel. My route was mostltly along the Seine and it was absolutely beautiful. This was my first glimpse of the tower (around mile 2.5/6.2).
And here it is from where I finished!
One of the absolute highlights of my trip was getting to catch up with fellow former PASC Grove City Gold staffer Zac!! Zac moved to Paris a few years ago and we've not seen each other since the wedding of two other staffers FIVE years ago. At one point in our stroll around the city, we stumbled upon this street performer. It was the most beautiful, technical piano performance I've witnessed in a long time. Zac and I stopped talking, sat down on the curb without saying a word, and stayed there for at least 20 minutes. There was a bubble for 20 meters on either side of the pianist where nobody was talking and cyclists were doing doubletakes.
On Sunday, in addition to walking laps around the city, I also was completing a skills assessment for a job application. After writing on benches along the canal for a few hours, I decided to head back to the hostel. After a few hours of avoiding the final section of the assignment, I set myself up in the hostel bar with a glass of white wine. A highlights: One of my hostel buddies asked what I was doing, I responded "applying for a job, I'm almost done, I just need to add citations." "Citations? Well we apply to jobs very differently."
Once I finished the assignment I made my way up to Sacre Coeur and Montmartre. I was looking for lunch and found one (1) GF creperie within reasonable walking distance. I got there right at the end of the lunch rush, and almost was not seated (they were avoiding eye contact), but when they saw I was only one person they put me at the best table, inside the A/C but at the storefront so I could see the street. Shortly after I sat down, I realized that they were closing -- they put all the chairs up, pulled in the umbrellas, and began to cook their own lunch. My vegetable crepe was absolutely delicious, and I was very quick to ask for the check. They were surprised that I did not want dessert, and I said no, because I didn't want to keep them from their lunch. They said it was GF and they already had the stove on, and offered me this delicious dessert crepe. At the end I got up to leave and all the kids waved goodbye and thanked me for sitting near them while they ate.
Selfie with the Arc de Triomphe! On Saturday and Sunday I walked/ran over 40k steps each day. Saturday was quite intentional, but Sunday was not. This was taken at the very end of my long trek around the city.
A few months ago I received a request for more food pictures, which I have not delivered on. While in Paris, I tried to make up for that. Here is a photo of my gluten free pastry breakfast, and my vegetable crepe for lunch on Sunday.
And finally, many of my friends know that I've taken to saying "woot!" as a stock response to positive news. I passed this do not enter sign on my way back to the hostel after (yet another delicious GF) dinner.
Word pictures
- On my first day I was saddened by the difficulty of communicating even very basic things in French. However, by the end of the second day it all came right back -- to the point that when I got off the plane in Napoli on Monday afternoon, it was almost difficult to speak Italian. Language is so cool.
- Daylight until 10:30 PM. Enough said.
- A side of climate shock with my culture shock -- in Mondragone it's been 100 degrees for a week straight, in Paris it was in the 60s until midday and hardly went over 70/75 in the late afternoon.
- On my first day in the city, I got a box of GF macarons. I'd hoped to get only 2, but the minimum was 9. So I kept the box in my cubby at the hostel and had a few macarons each day while I was there -- how decadent. They were delicious.
- Thinking of Puccini's La Boheme every time I looked up and saw the rooves/chimneys.
- Responding to time-sensitive, job-application-related emails in the cubism room of the Pompidou. Reflecting on the cognitive dissonance of straddling my life here and the plans I'm laying down for what comes next.
- I'd hoped to sit in the Musee d'Orsay with my journal (when I was deciding whether or not to cancel my trip, this was a pro-trip factor), but it was so, so crowded. However, some reflections: 1) I did not know that Monet planted his entire garden, which means that his many paintings of it were also a memorialization of his labor. 2) The Degas dancers were from the Palais Garnier, which was a reminder for me of how insular, elite and interconnected that art community was.
- I'm sitting on a bench along the canal. A man sits down next to me and asks, in french, if goat cheese needs to be refrigerated. I responded, in french, that I do not know because I do not eat cheese. He nodded, had a cigarette, then wished me a good day and continued strolling.
- The Mondragone friend who was going to host me tested negative on my final day in the city. We went for a walk in the Bois de Boulogne, a massive park on the West side of the city, near where he lives. The park is also known for prostitutes -- and we did, in fact, see many of them -- and we had a very interesting conversation about sex work.
- Final night in the hostel, getting drinks with new folks in my dorm. 1) A Scottish ex-rugby player who just got back from hiking GR20, drank 3 beers to our 1, did an actual spittake when I showed him that Boris Johnson (pre-resignation) blamed Putin's invasion on toxic masculinity, and acted like a bro but was so, so kindhearted. 2) A guy from Colorado who was moving home from working for a VC firm in Tel Aviv, had the most contagious laugh, and was deeply candid and upfront about having no clue what comes next for him. 3) A girl from Canada who I accompanied to get an ass tattoo that afternoon who 99% was coming down with COVID and was in denial of it.
- And because of that interaction, I started my travels back to Mondragone on 3 hours of sleep. Which manifested as my taking the receipt instead of ticket from the guichet in the train station, being uncharacteristically irritated by the hour-long line for check-in at the airport, and being asked while going through security, "Are you late?" to which I responded, "No, I'm just always like this."
- Final pizza dinner with my music students -- bathroom selfies; having my gluten free pizza, which came out 30 minutes before everyone else's, sent back to the kitchen to be kept warm so I didn't have to eat a cold pizza; being kicked off my foosball team because I was a bad goalie; being driven around on the back of 3 different vespas at various speeds (always with a helmet) and shown around Mondragone by night.
- Accompanying my students to their performance in Napoli -- their teacher adapted Cavalleria Rusticana to be Cavalleria Vesuviana. It was entirely in Napoletano, with some of the original score adapted for a jazz group (my kiddos!) and for rap Napoletano. They were in the rehearsal space and scene shop of the Teatro San Carlo and the walls of the rehearsal rooms were covered with old opera posters going back to the late 1970s -- I was nerding out. Some word pictures: all of them standing, switching seats, and lying down on the floor of the 12-seat van, singing classical music together, all while we are speeding down the highway into Napoli; the one kid's mom who joined us and who had a bag full of snacks that all the kids kept asking for, eventually she called in pizza for everyone; I played Chopin but forgot parts of it, they took turns helping me remember the bass line; counting Jonathan's English words (mostly curses).
- Jonathan also had 2 notable quotes: 1) "Antonella e` stata parte di quel quarto anno" -- Antonella has been a part of this 4th year. 2) "Ci vediamo... boh non lo so quando... ci vediamo quando sono famoso in America" -- We'll see each other... huh I don't know when... we'll see each other when I'm famous in America."
- An old woman in front of me at the grocery store had two very very old photos in her wallet. I wonder who they were. I tried to sneak a photo of her wallet from behind her but ended up getting the floor and the empty belt for the register.
- Lisa, in her nightgown at 4 am, "This is Climate Change" -- The biggest, most intense thunderstorm I have ever experienced. It felt like something out of a movie. I'm awoken by thunder and promptly run outside to bring in my (now soaking wet) laundry. Lisa (host mom) runs outside in her nightgown looking for the kitten, followed by her husband and son, all in underwear/PJs. I tell Lisa I've never seen a storm like this, she responds, "Neither have we, this is climate change." I offer to help find the cat but am told that it's "not my problem" and to go to sleep. The rain is coming down sideways in sheets so I do not object. They locate the cat and go back inside but I sit in the windowsill (a classic Antonella move) and watch the storm. It felt like just me, the storm, and Mondragone. I desperately needed the sleep, but decided that part of being wholly present here for these last few weeks meant experiencing this storm. I had my first good cry about leaving that night. One of my acquaintances here said, months ago, that you cry for the same amount of time leaving a place as you did when you arrived -- this storm was 2 weeks to the date, almost the hour, of my departure. That tracks!
- Having a conversation with the bus driver about American politics, being interrupted by another passenger who mansplained American politics to me (incorrectly, he misidentified a few leaders and also was repeating disinformation). I disengaged from the conversation, and afterwards the bus driver and I talked about how we'd both wanted to correct him. While waiting for my train on the platform, the passenger approached me and said "I want you to know that I don't hate America." To which I responded, "I never thought that you did. It's possible to be critical of something without hating it. Criticism is very important. And so is accurate information." He walked away, and I was satisfied with both my response and my ability to express it in Italian.
- I got coffee with the 2018-2019 Fulbrighter. While talking about the difficulty of navigating southern Italy public transit, we said, in unison "because of the navetta!" followed by a wry, "the f*cking navetta," from Maria. (The navetta is the shuttle that I talk about extensively.)
- Sitting alone on the edge of the lake, journaling, looking up at the stars to the soundtrack of someone playing American pop covers on an electric guitar somewhere to the North of us.
- While I've completely forgotten how to read, write and speak German (sorry to my 2019 summer class teacher), I can still understand spoken German. Language is so cool. I learned this because a massive camper came up and parked in front of us, and out stepped a woman asking in German how long we'd be there, and I was stunned that I'd understood. She said this was her campsite, I explained (me speaking in Italian, her speaking in German) that we had a few more hours, and she understood and said she would just park in the driveway. It seemed fine until the Northern Italian man (so far north that he also speaks German) behind us complained that her camper was blocking his view. It became a whole fiasco that ended with him putting on his shirt in order to walk over to the campsite office. Eventually she stayed where she was, we packed up with no problem, and left. The man behind us asked, in Italian, how it is that we speak English so well. I said that I'm American, and Giulia explained that she is an English teacher. He seemed surprised that I am American and said that I have almost no accent. Finally!!! Now to maintain that when I move.
- Singing "Believer" by Imagine Dragons with Giulia in the car to Verona for pranzo with her parents. She had it stuck in her head because one of the Ukranian refugee children who she works with was singing it to herself at class the day before.
- Getting locked out twice within two days -- once in Giulia's apartment because I'd left the keys her roommate lent to me on her desk, once in my airbnb because I could not figure out how to get the door open (got it on the ~4th try).
- I got a tattoo! More to come on that in my next email. But, before the session started the artist offered me a caffe -- I said no, I'd just had one. An hour into the session, he gets up and says that I can get up and stretch because he's going for a "velocissima pausa caffe`."
- Being on the train to Abruzzo, watching the land go by and feeling connected to it, my roots, as I have for the past 4 years. At the same time, looking up an address in Eastern PA and feeling the familiarity and comfort of the tri-state area. When we went up into the mountains to go to Pescocostanza, I noticed how similar the forest was to Ridley Creek State Park (my #1 favorite place in the whole world), and it made me, again, feel the push and pull of ancestry and my own lived experiences through nature.
- I was identified from a distance by my cousin because of my running shoes dangling from my backpack.
- Eating figs from an un-tended-to fig tree underneath Roccascalegna with 2 of my cousins and giggling like children.
- The super moon was fantastic. I got to watch it rise over la Majella from the middle of a vineyard.
- Family dinner: 15 of us around a table; the 12 y o labrador running around like a puppy while my cousin running around the yard with one kid over each shoulder; not being sure whether the fruit gelato had milk in it, everyone praying for me that it didn't. (It didn't).
I decided that I couldn't spent 9 months in Italy without spending some time in Firenze -- all I had time for was Piazza Michelangelo and a GF pizza, but I'm very glad I stopped over.
Then Lago di Garda!! Goodness, it was absolutely gorgeous. This was the sunset from our campsite.
And this was the sky the next morning from the turnaround point on my run.
Sunflower mural! Bardolino is a very international touristy town.
And actual flowers!!
It took us a concerningly long time to locate toilet paper in the touristy town of Bardolino, so we took a photo shoot with it once we acquired it.
Post-swim picnic dinner (with a huge, huge, huge thank you to Giulia's mom who sent us with packed, cooked, delicious GF food for the weekend!).
Surprise picture of me responsibly putting on sunscreen.
This was one of my absolute favorite moments of the weekend. Pure joy. I stopped in the middle of the road to write down something funny that Giulia had done, and did not realize I was being photographed. The second photo is a screenshot from the subsequent video of Giulia asking me to recount what was so important that I'd stopped in the middle of the road to write.
And then onto Padova! The view from my run. More photos from this trip to come in my next newsletter..... ;)
My final stop was in Abruzzo! I took the train right down the Adriatic coast and, don't tell anyone in Mondragone, but I think the Adriatic is so much more beautiful than the Tyrrhenian (at least in Mondragone).
The first day we went to Roccascalegna.
On the way up!
Al poeta ignota
The view looking down towards the chapel from...
Inside the bakery oven
The second day we went to Pescocostanzo, in the mountains. My. Goodness. I am obsessed. First, it was CHILLY! And second, I must carve out space in my life to go hiking in Abruzzo. This was the view from...
On TOP of the bakery oven! This would be a good lesson in prepositions for my students.
A glimpse of the mountain between the buildings
And this is the Altopiano, elevated plain, surrounding the town.
Finally, we stopped at Ortona. This is a photo of my Nonna from approx. 65 years ago. We recreated it, which entailed me wearing a heavy vintage winter coat in 95+ degree weather
This was how I felt about the whole process. Three additional details: 1) This is not the exact same spot as the original photo because, as we learned, the trees have grown quite a bit in the last 65 years! 2) At one point I'd begun to change, I had one red heel on and one white sneaker on, when Gianna suggested that we move farther ahead, so I walked along the street like that. 3) I complained about the heat as soon as I put on the coat, and Gianna quipped "Think about your Nonna! Do it for your Nonna!"
Brain dump
I am a very spatially-aware person. I take pride in being able to identify north wherever I am. (Unfortunately that does not translate directly to my being a good navigator in a car, as many of my friends know, but that is not the point.) Whenever I uproot myself, as I am about to do yet again, the things I long for afterwards are intrinsic to the place. I miss how the light and shadows fall at different points in the day, I miss soundscapes and smells, I miss not needing to fumble to get the key to turn in the lock of the door, I miss being able to predict the water pressure, I miss knowing exactly how many steps it takes to bound across the kitchen and not having to think about where the light switches are, I miss noticing when branches fall and potholes get filled and cracks in the sidewalk get bigger.
Here in Mondragone I will miss the soapy water on the sidewalk outside the pescheria, the very specific smell of the most commonly used laundry detergent when laundry is hung out to dry, the fruttivendolo who knows my shopping list by heart. I will miss the cats, THE MOUNTAIN, running on the empty lungomare (I already miss it, it hasn't been empty since April), the f*cking pellet stove, the (good) chaos of the school system, being scolded for keeping the stove exhaust fan on for too long because I want to keep singing in the kitchen. I will miss bruising my side when I purchase too many heavy groceries at once, the knowing look of the drivers of the little navetta to and from the station because I'm a regular,
A defining element of these final weeks is socializing with my students outside of school. This was an invite I got to hang out with my sophomore music students.
And here is a photo of the hangout!
This photo is from a pizza dinner with my senior (and some junior) music students.
This was the set of the Cavalleria Vesuviana!
I also met up with Maria, the Mondragone Fulbright ETA from 2018-2019, in Napoli!
My tendency to archive got really strong this week. I will not share most of the photos that fall into this category, but here is a very emblematic one: the ceiling that I stared at while I had COVID (and the entire rest of the year).
I've had this photo saved in my computer for months now -- I was hoping to revist my first reflection on Mondragone socially, economically, etc. But after all these months, I stand by that original piece. However, to thicken that narrative a bit, here is a screenshot of a set of comments in the Facebook group about some roadwork near the Palazzo Ducale that took a very, very long time to complete. Translation: "Your observation is right. Their specialty is pushing us residents to the point of exasperation." "The work began before the pandemic, it's been 750 days." "Let it be, it's much better. If you're young, run away!"
I thought this tattoo peeking out between clothing and backpack straps was really beautiful.
Here is the context for that photo -- it was taken while I was standing at the bus stop in Napoli and another bus was passing. I'm very proud of my cheap little phone camera for capturing it. (I am looking forward to having my American phone back!)
Going back many newsletters, this is now what the beach looks like -- I miss winter Mondragone. Shocker, considering I spent all winter wishing there were more people here.
Classic Regina photo - here she is at 6 am waiting for Nonna to wake up to feed her.
As part of my reflection on the end of this Normal, I'm also reflecting on the end of this practice. It has served me so well during this time. It gave me structure, something to write towards; when things were slow, a reminder that even the tiniest details of my existence here were noteworthy; when things were hectic, a reason to slow myself down. I will miss having something to direct my writing towards.
This newsletter, as you may have noticed, was only word pictures. I also did not proof it, so naming that in case of any typos/syntactical errors. I'm slowly working my way through a larger reflection that I'll send once I'm home -- good to have something to work on during my many hours of travel in the next few days.
Con tranquillita`,
Antonella
Appendix: Ground Rules
- 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.
- This is not meant to replace my 1:1 interactions!
- 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.
- 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