Speechless

Sometimes you can speak Italian without ever saying a word of it.

That's the plan anyways.

The language barrier.  This is going to be interesting.  I'm okay in Spanish.  Not fluent by any means, but I can manage the basics, even more than that on a good day.  But this Italian thing (or eye-talian if you're from the Midwest) is getting the better of me.  My nonna, bless her heart, is trying to teach me.  Whenever I talk to her she slips in a few new vocab words, though she usually just explains the difference between the Tuscan dialect that is considered to be "standard" eye-talian and the Piedmontese dialect she grew up speaking.

[Interesting side note.  Dante, of Divine Comedy fame, is the singular man we can attribute the modern Italian language to.  Because he wrote in the "dirty" vernacular language of Tuscan and not the "high" language of Latin (one reason that the Divine Comedy is NOT considered to be a work of epic poetry...Wikipedia page I'm glaring at you here), he not only gave the people of Florence a poem they could all understand, he also, perhaps unknowingly, became the linguistic father of a nation (though I do like to think he had enough hubris to know he was doing something more than simply writing a poem that could save).  When Italy was unified in the 19th century and it came time for the newly formed nation to streamline the new official language, officials turned to Dante.  Basically, Dante owns.  But if you're reading this you've probably talked to me for more than five minute and thus are keenly aware of my general Dante advocacy.]

The more important idea here is that I'm going to live in a country for the next five months and all I can really say is "Why is that not possible for you?", "I'm sorry.", and "I want to buy everything."  All important phrases (the last on in particular), but perhaps not enough to get me from point A to point B.  My other problem is that when I think in Italian it comes out in Spanish.  Or, if on the rare occasion that I manage to actually say something in Italian, it's weighed down with a Spanish accent.

The plan, then, comes down to me simply dressing the part.  This is going to be 24/7 Glamour - Italian Edition.  I've reading my Italian Vogue (for fashion and language help), working on walking on cobblestone is heels and blasting Italian pop music.

How many days left in the states?  14.  How many things do I still need to do? 45,989,086,535.

Say My Name

I'm going to Italy.

That statement still hasn't fully sunk in yet.  It's still this far off concept; me, living in Rome for five months.  Yes, the flight has been booked, yes, I have my Visa (finally getting it is a story unto itself), it's all happening, but it's still abstract.  And then every once in a while it hits me THAT I'M GOING TO LIVE IN ITALY.

The title of this blog is possibly the most accurate thing I've ever written in my life.  My entire life, starting from the moment my parents gave me this crazy name, has been building up to this.  Last semester, when I was but a young sophomore, it got into my head that I should study abroad in any place but Italy.  Poland, England, Spain, any place but Italy.  Maybe I felt like spiting my parents one more time, maybe because I thought it was exactly what was expected of me, but I did not want to go.  And then my Dad gave me some of the best unwanted advice of all time.  He said "Why would you go anywhere else?"  He talked about the family he has back in Alba and Churrina and the Morizios I've never met who live in Abruzzo.  He talked about how I should get to know them better so that, in five or ten years time, I can go back and visit them and stay connected to the land where my ancestors toiled in the sloping countryside and drank good wine and lived their lives.

Which brings me back to my name.

My name and I have always had a tumultuous relationship.  Sure, it's gotten me a few hot dates, but I also received a childhood marred by mispronunciation and computers that always auto-correct my last name into something decidedly not Morizio, but mostly, it gave me something that ties me to the land my Father's family lived and love in.  No matter what life throws at me, I always have had that heritage to fall back on.  Being an Italian American, with all the baggage that comes with it, is who I am.  That sounds cheesy (because it is), but it's true.  The Polish and Czech part got lost in the loudness of the Morizio clan (sorry Mom, but you knew what you were getting into.).

When I really thought about it, Italy is the place I need to go.  I need to understand where I came from so I can know where I want to go.  I'm on the brink of the rest of my life and currently my compass is pointing every which way but north.  I want to walk the streets and feel the sun and eat the food that my family has walked on and felt and eaten for centuries.  Being 20 is a weird age.  In the US you're almost to the second to last most important age (the last important age related milestone being turning 65) of your life, you're almost done with college, it's time to pick a career that will consume your energy for the bulk of your life.  The choices I make now begin to really matter.  Which is absolutely terrifying.

I'm hoping Italy will help me with all of this.  Even if I don't figure out my life in the next six months, I'll at least eat good food and drink good wine while I ponder.  And if I don't figure it all out then, I suppose I'll just have to go back.


I love that Wilde sonnet.  Read The Picture of Dorian Gray.  In fact, read everything Wilde had ever written (Except maybe Salome.  Unless you're into John the Baptise era feminism.  Because, surprise!  It can't exist.)  I'm currently reading some of Dante's Vita Nuova because I miss the Commedia so much and I needed few more descriptions of Beatrice's smile to really feel that our relationship is over.

A Sonnet on Approaching Italy

I reached the Alps: the soul within me burned,
Italia, my Italia, at thy name:
And when from out the mountain's heart I came
And saw the land for which my life had yearned,
I laughed as one who some great prize had earned:
And musing on the marvel of thy fame
I watched the day, till marked with wounds of flame
The turquoise sky to burnished gold was turned.
The pine-trees waved as waves a woman's hair,
And in the orchards every twining spray
Was breaking into flakes of blossoming foam:
But when I knew that far away at Rome
In evil bonds a second Peter lay,
I wept to see the land so very fair


Oscar Wilde, Torino, Italia