We have a five
hour layover in Detroit. This is it, though—this is the gate that will put me
on the actual plane to Rome.
Two Italian
ladies sit across from us, the mother silver-haired and her daughter a lovely
white-blonde. They’re slender and regal, and dressed elegantly. They lean,
heads close, and eye all the other passengers, their faces serious.
“See that?”
Michelle whispers to me, “The way they’re sitting, the way they’re looking?
That is so Italian. You’ll see that look all the time. I even asked about it on
one of my trips. Those women are probably not even annoyed or anything, they
just have that look. You will never know if they’re actually judging you
or if you just feel like it because you feel so American next to them.”
The mother and
daughter leave, and are replaced by a darker Italian woman. She smiles at me warmly.
I’m already
seeing some of the many faces of Italy.
Another
passenger sits next to Michelle and they begin to chat. Like Michelle, she is
an American with Italian heritage, and like Michelle, she has been to Italy
multiple times. Their conversation centers on the pull of heritage.
“I was telling
them,” Michelle says, waving at me and at Petra’s bag—Petra’s off walking the
terminal, getting some movement in before the long plane ride—“that the first
time I went to Italy and got to the village where my family was from, I sobbed.”
“Me too! That’s
exactly what happened the first time I went.”
“And my husband,” Michelle says, “who didn’t even
really want to go, when I took him to his village, tears poured down his face.”
They trade a
look of deep understanding.
“It’s in our
cells,” Michelle says. “They recognize the land they come from. Our souls carry
our heritage.”
Rainbow across the AppeninesPhoto credit: Petra Laster Photography |
I shift on the
black airport seat, looking over Michelle’s shoulder at the two of them,
wishing I had Italy in my blood, wishing I had a village there, waiting
for me. I’ve felt a piece of what they speak of, at Celtic festivals when
listening to live pipe-and-drum bands, the Scottish part of me waking to the
call of the bagpipes and filling me like a balloon blown too full, ready to
burst with the pressure.
What will I
feel when I step into Italy, this country I’ve dreamed of for so long? Will I
have any connection, really? I have no claim on this land. I listen to the
music, I learn of the history, I study the language—but I have never even
spoken Italian with a real person before, and in all the many, many generations
filled in on my family tree, there is no Italian to be found. Will this place
welcome me, let me feel its magic? Or will I just observe as if over someone’s
shoulder, and see the magic in their faces, as I do with these women now?
This is my
biggest fear for this trip.
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