Estrella

Reflections from My Time in Italy As I write this memento on my trip back to the States, I don’t leave Italy with any regrets because I lived. No, I didn’t visit every small town on the weekends or travel to Brussels or Geneva for fun, but I can say I became integrated into the local thread of Bologna. I entered Italy knowing zero Italian to speaking Italian every day with my italiana roommate. And I could understand between 60 to 70 percent depending on the context and accent. I had an Italian boyfriend and became exposed to the culture of love. We visited the palazzi , danced in the streets and drank classic red wine in Eataly and local bars on Saturday nights. There is no better life than the one the Italians live. Yes, it was hard adjusting to European culture those first two months. I didn’t know the language, I had to commute via cycling (which was frightening among the taxis, motorinos , and other cyclists), and I broke my foot. And let’s not even mention the devast...

Christmastime is the time to be extremely happy, right? We all try to hold onto that giddiness and magic we had as children when we become adults, but sometimes life wears us down. This year's Christmas in the U.S. after three months in Italy added some culture shock to my experience. Jet lag mixed with a highly commercial culture and fast food economy was making me nauseous the first few days back home in Missouri. My saving grace was my family and the time I could spend with them away from mainstream society. But Christmas wasn’t easy. Meeting my sister’s boyfriend had its bumps, and watching how my grandfather struggled with his dementia broke my heart. Wasn’t Christmas supposed to be all bliss like the good old days? But then I remembered how Christmas happened those 2,000 years ago, and it was anything but bliss. It was a hot, dirty, messy, depressing and tyrannically violent world for the Jews in the Roman Empire, so happiness was far and fleeting. A people ...

The story goes as the following: the American woman comes to Italy, falls madly in love with an Italian, and she stays and raises her half-American and half-Italian children with the love of her life in the most romantic country in the world. Sounds like a dream... Many American women have had similar experiences in coming to Europe, I being one of them, but I’m not staying in Italy after January. It’s not that I don’t love the country or the culture, or I didn’t have an exciting relationship with an Italian man for a moment, but duty is calling me home to the States to be involved in the movement to make the voiceless heard. Why? How can I return to the country where conservative politicians eat minorities for breakfast in Tweets about Michelle Obama being the ape in the White House? Wasn't I happier in Italy than in the U.S.? Do I want to return to a country that undermines my value with racial bigotry and sexist agendas? I must, as I remember this story from my grandmother. A f...

"Nobody with a dream should come to Italy. No matter how dead and buried you think it is, in Italy, it will rise and walk again" - Margaret Johnson, the mother in The Light in the Piazza . This was her most memorable and striking quote from the theatrical musical , based on the 1960 novella by Elizabeth Spencer. Victoria Clark as Margaret Johnson (L) Katie Rose Clarke as Clara Johnson (R) What are our dreams? And what is their significance to us? And how do they change over time and with our experiences? I came to Italy for the sole goal of studying, but my old dreams arose: romance, a trip for my mother and me to visit Tuscany. As soon as they began, life's cruelty crushed them. No more romance, no more dreams - even if that wasn't what I was originally looking for. Just like Clara's mother, Margaret Johnson (the musical's protagonist), she felt that her bloom for love had entered winter while her daughter Clara's chance for love was in spring...

“ITALY! You’re going to ITALY!” That’s how everyone responded when they heard that I would be spending the fall semester of my graduate program in Bologna. Now, Bologna is a great city itself, and with quick access to other Italian cities like Venice, Rome and Florence, I was sure to be in heaven on Earth. And I am in many ways. The air is clean; the food tastes better here; and the work-life balance makes living to 82 years old a piece of cake. But what makes me stutter in my breath when I say that I am doing fine here in Italy? Why the sadness behind the smiles? Maybe because I don’t belong to Italy’s people. I’m not talking about the color of my skin or my English language. Italy has long been a country of different cultures meshed together under multiple empires – before and after the Romans. Sicily and Northern Italy are practically different countries culturally, an Italian would tell you. That “uh” feeling doesn’t reflect that I’m a foreigner or my ethnicity, but my faith – m...