in harmonikos.

For the second time in my city life, I am living in a third floor apartment.  For the first time, however, I live above an accordion player.  She is friendly, helpful, and currently practicing her scales while I write.  Also, she sings Italian ballads while she plays.

Many people might be turned off by the idea of living above the owner of Gondola di Venezia (http://www.bostongondolas.com/), but I was thrilled to move in.  She plays, she sings, she stores gondolas in the basement of the house, and she has a parakeet so vocal that I first mistook it for ten parakeets.  But hearing her play the accordion makes me turn off my music, stop what I'm doing, and remain as still as possible so I don't miss a note.

I love Italy.  I spent five months studying abroad in Florence in 2004 ("Firenze" to the Italian speaker), and every day I wish I were still there.  The smallest reminder takes me back: a piece of dried fruit, the smell of basil, the red checkered vinyl tablecloth I spread when I order pizza from Paesan's.  What gripped me about Italy was how comfortable I felt walking the streets, hearing conversations I didn't fully understand, running across bridges that stretched over the Arno river.  What gripped me about Italy is that it took me in as I was and invited me to stay.

It wasn't an easy trip.  Of course, I was privileged that my biggest responsibility was school (art class, wine tasting class, Italian language class, museum class...), and that my housing was arranged through my study abroad program.  But it still wasn't easy.  Even though I grew up in Florida, went to college in North Carolina, and spent a summer in Washington, D.C., Italy was the first new place where I'd really been a stranger - an other.  I arrived knowing 4 people - my roommates and my friend John - but I said goodbye to many people who had met me, then known me, then cared for me, then loved me.

Because I love lists, I will list a few of my favorites...

1 - Marco: cheese vendor in Mercato Centrale; knew that when I arrived I would purchase 1/4 kilo of Pecorino Toscano Stagionato.
2- Marco and Kyoko: dried fruit vendors in Mercato Centrale; let me scoop my own bag of dried fruit every morning, even though customers weren't supposed to.
3- Pietro, Sylvia, Marco, Paolo: loving family; Pietro was the pastor of a tiny church that I went to, and I went to the family's home for Easter, my birthday, and any other Sunday that I wanted a big lunch.
4 - Anastasio, Cinzia, Barbara: another loving family; Anastasio and Cinzia picked me up for church every Sunday morning in the main square in Florence.  They always picked me up in their camper so there would be enough room if I brought along friends. 
5 - Angelo - my favorite gelato scooper; he knew that I liked a scoop of Bacio and a scoop of Pistacchio.  I was mortified whenever he saw me running (faccia jogging) in the mornings, but he always smiled. 

While my time in Italy was my most unique experience, I know that many others have been blessed by the hospitality and vitality of the Italian people.  I had some of my lowest lows (a combination of my own insecurities and my sense of anonymity and otherness), but also the chance for great growth.  I allowed myself to be foreign, to be other, and tried to be as curious, courteous, and respectful of the language and culture as I possibly could.  This worked wonders with a people already inclined to welcome, feed, hug, and laugh with strangers. 

The significance of these people was more than just the joy they brought to those five months, more than the excitement whenever someone I know is visiting Italy and I supply them with my own travel guide, more than the nostalgia when I flip through albums and relive the days of bakery smells, fresh Italian cheese, train rides through the Tuscan countryside to Lucca, Ferrara, Bologna, Ravenna.

The significance was how they taught me acceptance of strangers who come meaning no harm, strangers who come and say, "I'm new here.  Will you help me?"  My broken Italian had a thick American accent; my natural Italian appearance was highly Americanized by my clothes, makeup, and hairstyle; my purpose in Italy was like every other young American's - study abroad, drink wine, escape for a little while.  Yet in spite of all this, I was treated as an equal, as a friend, as a person whose presence in their lives - even for a short time - mattered. 

I can only hope that the last tourist to ask me directions, the last non-English speaker on my train who gestured to the seat next to me instead of asking if it was taken, the last person who paid at the cashier in front of me and took an extra minute to figure out the American money in her hands - I can only hope that all these people, these others, feel that to someone in America, they matter.