Soon it will be my birthday. My 31st Birthday. I am now well and truly into my ‘30’s.
Hi. It’s mid-January. If I were in Australia in this moment, I would be experiencing the hot summer, (or lack thereof… possibly it is overcast and raining right now…) and it would be the summer holidays. As a teacher off school I would be spending time with other teachers or students who share the same holidays, as everyone would have returned to work shortly after New Year’s Day unless they had scheduled time off. We would be heading to the beach or enjoying the cool summer breeze out at a beer garden, or even kicking back in the backyard – the garden… here in Italy if you have a house with a large garden, you are most probably rich and your house and property are referred to as a ‘villa’.
I live in an apartment on the first floor. I have a balcony. It’s winter now. The snow has ceased, there wasn’t much of it this year, it has stayed up in the mountains and only fell near and around home on a few days. Now there is a lot of ‘nebbia’ (fog) – a lot. Some ice and still settling at 0 degrees Celsius or a little more on most days.
I’m looking forward to spring. I miss the bike rides through Valle, the nature park near our house. The track has twists and turns and forks into little passageways beneath green leafy canopies. I want to hang plant pots all along our balcony railings and have green leafy creeping plants cascade down the bars and wrap around them. Maybe some flowers; but I do prefer lots of green.
This post, if I dare discuss it mid-creation, is about living in Italy – truly. I am feeling less and less like a traveler, an outsider or a migrant – a ‘stranieri’. Apart from not having any proper and competent skill with the language – I feel like I have achieved a nice level of comfort here. I have created another comfort zone for myself. And it is here in Bovolone, province of Verona, and the city of Verona itself, especially now that I work there every week day. I’ve made friends through work, who have all been a great support and I feel, after the post- newborn phase of a seemingly disappearing social life due to both the huge and wonderful responsibilities of being a new parent and also people assuming that you can’t socialize at all if you have a baby; now I feel I that have regained and rebuilt ‘Michelle’ and enjoy socializing with like-minded and very likeable people. I enjoy my job and don’t recall ever settling in quite so well into new employment as I have at my present post. It’s been four months now, but I do believe I was feeling near to 100% comfortable within my first month. The people I work with make all the difference.
Ho imparato piu’ Italiano, e ho capito meglio. Gramatica, e parlare – non ‘e molto bene… ahah anch’e scrivere. Spero, imparare meglio. ‘E difficile’, perhce’ ho lavora a scoula internatzionale, e parla Inglese tutto giorno. Ma imparato un po’ Italiano perche’ parla Italino ogni giorno con la altra maestra di mia classe, (lei e una maestra di Italiano per miei studenti) e anche’ ho provato parlare con i miei studenti in Italiano qualche volte, perche’ qualche di loro non capiscono Inglese bene. Gli altri studenti conoscono Inglese e Italiano bene, auitanno me con mia grammatica – insegnanno me!
So, I’m not doing too badly. I know what I just wrote is not fantastic, but it’s a huge improvement from when I first arrived in Italy.
I think that one of the hardest obstacles when relocating is accepting the culture. This is an obstacle that, as an Italian (born and raised in Australia in an Italian family, with the language, food and culture) I did not expect to be facing any culture shocks.
Oh how I was mistaken.
Granted, we all love to watch movies and read books about Italy – to be swept away by the romance, the architecture, the history, the energy, the loud, verbose, melodic Italians preparing spaghetti as a family with fifty cousins running around and the grandmothers and mothers chopping tomatoes and basil, drinking red wine, the men drinking grappa and all of the family eating and laughing and dancing and singing together. Shall we take it even further? Driving vespas, FIAT 500s and Ferraris, drinking espressos and smoking long white cigarettes, debating passionately or quietly playing cards.
There is a scene in an Australian movie about an Italian family living in Sydney, where they have the annual ‘tomato day’ – when the family gets together and makes a year supply of tomato based pasta sauce, bottle it and distribute it to each house in the extended family. It rings true. My family always had ‘tomato day’. Though we didn’t play Italian 45” records and dance with joy like the scene in this movie… I don’t remember being present at a tomato day but I’m sure it involved my grandfather being annoyed for one reason or another and criticizing another family member’s technique of something or other. But I’m straying from the point.
Yes, Italy has been shown through rose-coloured, romantic, charming specs through film and literature. It is truly mesmerizing… when you’re on vacation here. Living, as it is anywhere, is just that… living. And, I think it’s safe to say that a lot of the stereotypes… for example, the cute old men sitting on rickety old chairs on the sidewalk in front of the bakery playing cards and arguing and the people singing old Italian folk songs at the bar are indeed in existence but they exist either in the past or in the south of Italy.
I’m certainly not living in any Sofia Loren movie. It is sort of quiet here. I went to a bar with work friends and we were ‘shh-d’. In a bar. On a Friday night. The quiet Veronese patrons looked up from their library-quiet tables and glared at us for being a tad loud and the bartender apparently told us to be quiet. I was too tipsy and therefore unaware but I blinked in disbelief when I was informed later.
I don’t mean to disappoint you and it’s opinion really, but that’s just my take on the general atmosphere here. There are still stereotypes and expectations in existence. Coffee. You can get a good coffee anywhere – even the train station has a Lavazza machine. Pizza. Oh my, what splendid, mouth-watering pizza. Thin, fluffy lighter-than-air bases so you can eat a whole pizza and not feel like you would sink to the bottom of the ocean. Simple, no fuss toppings. FRESH ham, not that horrid processed little stick-like strings of what is referred to as ‘ham’ in some places. Fresh ingredients in most places, especially when you eat at restaurants and more so, Trattoria’s outside of Verona and in the towns, as each town is surrounded by farmland and therefore, more than likely the ingredients of whatever you are eating was still growing or living no more than a day before.
The general standard of food in Italy is very high, as the expectations of Italy and it’s relationship with food reigns on with force. Even in the schools, the children eat a three course meal (the third course being fruit and once a week, a piece of cake,) beginning with a pasta dish followed by a nice balance of meat and vegetables. There is always bread on the table and natural water. The children can sometimes have seconds and other times thirds and eating well is always encouraged. I don’t see any weight problems – the children look fit and healthy. Yes they sit down and eat for forty minutes straight, but most of them play a sport and in addition to that… eating a balanced meal encourages less snacking and considerably less junk food. The local shops sell bread rolls with salami, at worst. There might be the odd ‘patatine fritte’ (hot chips) stand, kind of akin to the kebab vans parked around Melbourne. The difference is, instead of being able to buy a giant kebab that has greater mass than your stomach itself, the patatine are small, thin and served in a little container no wider or longer than your hand and no higher than your thumb. Small servings… and most of the food available is nutritious and wholesome enough to be satisfying in small amounts. Chalk it up to a history of excellent and quality cuisine.
School here is blackboards, chalk and dictatorial style teaching, lines of desks and writing, copying and writing some more. I learnt early on that I can’t change the way it is, nor dare I try to completely change the atmosphere of my own classroom. It’s not so much a matter of resigning to it – but merely because if I have the children grow accustomed to a 21st century learning space, then they will suffer greatly when faced with new classrooms in elementary, depending on the teaching style and especially when they reach high school. So, I’ve achieved a nice comfortable balance of both worlds. I have three boxes of hands-on activities (some brought and some made) consisting of one English box, one maths box and one games box. When each lesson is finished and the required amount of writing is completed in their books, then they are free to choose from a subject appropriate box.
The wonderful thing is, they willingly take out a packet of alphabet letters or counters and spell words or count. I see them work independently, in pairs or as a group and form new strategies and games without any input from me. They take on new learning opportunities such as these even in their playtime, when it is too wet or cold to play outdoors.
They thoroughly enjoy our classroom and I feel that together we have achieved a ‘learning is fun’ atmosphere. Every week day I wake at 6am, shower, dress, scull a large caffe latte, take five minutes to put on my coat, scarf, hat and gloves and one minute to walk to Bovolone train station to catch the train that heads for Verona. Two stops and I arrive at Verona Porta Nuova train station and then it’s a twenty minute walk to school. I like walking through the station every morning, past platforms that have trains bound for Bologna, Venezia and Milano, that I can be in and around cities that I used to only experience through photos and movies.
I walk amongst a crowd of teenagers along a street with much too narrow paths and a narrow space between the line of trees and brick wall that turns an almost two-way path into barely a one-way on a rainy day as you run the risk of locking umbrellas like stag antlers. I have moments of feeling like a part of the crowd, as if, I dare say and please don’t cringe too much… sometimes I feel as if I’ve always been here. Me in my scarf, beanie and winter coat, listening to Red Hot Chili Peppers ‘One Hot Minute’ an album from my sixteenth year… I am whisked away to my teenage years and then it occurs to me: ‘I AM youthful’.
Seriously. I feel young and I don’t think that’s going to change. I have absolutely no fear of turning 31 or 32 or 52. It’s all good. I feel happy, at peace and there is nowhere else I’d rather be right now. Of course, I miss my family and friends in Melbourne very, very much. But missing won’t keep in me Melbourne right now. Melbourne is comfortable, easy and secure. I know the streets and love it all. Here, yes I have found some comfort… but it’s not easy. There are still moments of apprehension, doubt and uncertainty. For sure, I had all these feelings at times in Melbourne, it’s not Pleasantville or some kind of Utopian paradise. It’s still as any mode of life. But living in Italy is something I’ve always wanted to do and I’m doing it. Teaching in another country is something I’ve always wanted to do and despite all the odd contrasts and eccentricities, it has been a great experience adapting and getting to know a completely different system.
I could sit here and list all of the negatives but I’m not going to. It will just make me feel tired.
Instead, I’m going to sit and ponder now, without boring you by putting it in print, of all the things that I have learnt that I will take back to Melbourne, whenever that may be…
Vediamo – we’ll see.
It’s not downhill after 30 as I guess is the age old notion that I feel my generation is breaking out of and 30 is the new 20, is it not? It’s a road that keeps going and the way it goes all depends on how you drive and which turns you make.
And choose to remain calm most of the time, if not all.
Ciao for now!
Michelle
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Thursday, December 2, 2010
He would make people laugh through tears with his funny stories and jokes and make people fear for their lives with his angry glare.
Well here I am several months after my last relevant post, relevant to the name of this blog that is... but right now I'm not here to make observations and reflections about living in Italy. Though there is much to say about that. Like in my most recent poem, if any of you happened to read on Facebook: 'It's all good'. And it is.
But right now I am here to think and reflect about my father. Which I guess my last post reflected, in my little memory lane trip via the Augie March song 'Asleep in Perfection' in a sort of build up to where we are now with this post.
Dead people sort of get that invisible title. With all of our faults, worst mistakes, quirks and eccentricities, when we die, those who loved us or even liked us, remember us as some perfect soul. Even those who didn't particularly like us much in life, remember us for all of our positive aspects, even if those who disliked us had the smallest ounce of general respect and good manners.
But I'm rambling. I'm not up at almost midnight on a school night to write a polished piece or even something remotely inventive. I'm not even going to do a spellcheck.
I just need to empty my head and tell the internet blogging world thankyou for providing an avenue to vent and bare all. Because that's all I can remember wanting to do ten years ago. Well, it's almost the 3rd of December so it was 9 years, 11 months and 19 days ago, I think. I was never really good at math but please don't tell my student's parents that.
I felt the need to tell any person who asked even the vaguest question the story of how my father slipped away. I didn't want to spare any gruesome, sorrowful or heartbreaking detail. I would imagine people's reactions. But I rarely did tell the story. A few details seemed to overwhelm people with deep hurt, sadness and a level of uncomfortable and awkward that I would rather not inflict. So, most of the time I would reply with a few vague comments, a brave face and a positive attitude.
I was standing in our backyard, between the veranda step and the lawn, eyes fixed on my mother as she stood at the driveway facing our labrador Charlie. He was gazing at her, clearly confused and somewhat saddened as she sobbed to him that Frank wasn't coming back. He waited at the gate every day for weeks, ears pricking up and a hopeful expression every time a car drove up, only to sink back to the ground moments later with his head on his paws.
I opened the front to door to find my Uncle Peter, his Uncle Peter, only four years his senior and more like a brother, the first words he said to me was "He loved you so much" followed by a big hug and the first tears I'd ever seen him shed.
I thought of my cousin Vince back at the hospital, I could hear him but I was staring at the flowers my Aunty Carmen brought as Vince was slowly saying "Fuck. Fuck. Not him too. Fuck."
I remember the women who came to our house that I had never met before in my life, who sat in our loungeroom for an hour talking about death, one about her son who died in his twenties, his picture hung around her neck in a wallet size open locket.
I remember sitting on the footpath infront of our house in my long black skirts and, however ironically black, hippy shirts, smoking Cartier and my friends sitting beside me as I stared at my toenails and suggested to them that I should paint them purple, before my mum and sisters called me inside to ask me to write a poem to go in the funeral card.
I remember my cousin Lucy telling me about a song that made her and her sister sad everytime they heard it, before realising that it was because it was playing in the limousine between the church and the cemetary. The song was 'I hope you dance' by Leanne Womack and Lucy later bought me the CD single. The songwriter wrote it for her children. I really like the line "I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean... and when you get the choice to sit it out or dance, I hope you dance."
I remember my Aunty Shirley writing in the newspaper "He's ain't heavy, he's my brother" and Nonno writing that he lost the jewel in his crown. I remember seeing my Aunty Grace crying a lot for the first time in the funeral parlour, at the viewing.
I remember my big sisters tucking my hair behind my ears and giving me glasses of water.
I remember my friend Priscilla taking me for a drive and telling me to scream as loud as I possibly could. I told her I couldn't. I remember Jon and Anna and Tania there, like permanent fixtures on that footpath infront of our house.
I remember opening my Dad's wardrobe and pushing my face against his jackets and shirts before quickly closing the doors against the back of my head to keep as much of his smell trapped inside as I could, as I breathed it in.
I remember the hairs standing up on my arm whenever I sat in the loungeroom and wishing, willing him to appear even though the thought scares the shit out of me.
I remember my older cousin Vince looking down as the coffin was lowered into the ground as he said "Bye Frank".
I remember my Dad.
But not as much as I would like. I feel like the memories are fading and it scares me. It has been almost ten years. It will be ten years on the 12th of December, 5.30am-ish to be almost exact.
I can't remember his smell. I can hear his voice if I think really hard, though it echoes and rises and falls and I just can't seem to grasp it. It doesn't seem fair to have to go to so much effort. I can picture his face. But I can't recall every detail, the exact shape of his nose, his chin, every line, every crease, where exactly the ginger and the black and the white of his beard started and stopped and were his eyes really brown with a dark blue outline or did I just imagine it and were his teeth really thirty-a-day smoker yellow or were they not that bad and was his voice nasally at times, especially when he laughed and it seems almost not likely that he still had great biceps for a 50 something who didn't work out although I suppose he lifted car transmissions every day for most of his life, and did his fingernails always have grease under them from working on cars, because he was a bit of a neat freak or did I make that up. He wore blue a lot. And brown.
He used to laugh at his own jokes. He had a whole repetoire of bad jokes as most fathers do. Every New Years Eve, all of the family would say to him, "New year, time to get some new jokes". He fixed everyone's car. He invented things. He was a great storyteller, complete with accurate voice immitations to expression and gestures so he would have everyone in the room locked in. He really liked Christmas and he used to dress up as Santa for us and the cousins. He hated public crowds and waiting in lines. When he was annoyed, he would breath through his nose loudly like a horse. He loved movies and would watch his favourites on repeat. He most admired Steve McQueen, Clint Eastwood, Bogart and Brando to name a few. He loved music, mostly 50s and 60s Rock and Roll and Country. He cooked a mean fritata with salami. If he made a trip to the deli, it meant he would come home with a big bag of fresh cured meats, cheese, olives and bread to share for lunch. If he went to buy something like an appliance or a tool, it had to be the best brand. He never bought himself clothes and we had to threaten him several times before he threw out his old haggered brown cardigan. He was a collector of philosophies and affirmations of peace within yourself, courage and reality as he saw it. He called himself a pessimist, ("A pessimist is a well informed optimist," he would say when I called him negative,) but I think he was just a realist. He was optimistic without being foolish. He was cautious and thought things through. He was both patient and impatient. He was both placid and hot-tempered. He was a jokester, a prankster, an actor and an artist. He would make people laugh through tears with his funny stories and jokes and make people fear for their lives with his angry glare.
He called me 'Mickey' and often said it in a sobbing Sylvester Stallone voice to mimick the scene in Rocky 3. He was Frank, frank... true to his name. He always told it like it is, he never lied and he never stole. When he was young he went to school every day, he did his homework, when he was older he went to work every day and got the job done. He always kept his word. He taught us manners, respect and self-worth.
Perfection? No, don't be ridiculous. He was real and he is real because he will always be my father. I get it, we only hold on to the positives because the positives breath air into us.
Well.
I suppose now after all of that, I think I can almost recall his smell. Cigarettes, and I mean the hardcore 16mg cigarettes, old clothes, engine oil and a vague scent of Old Spice and fragrant soap. I think that's as close as I'm going to get.
Love you Dad. Rest in peace. When I think about it, I really do hope there is a heaven and then I hope that you're up there with Uncle Peter, laughing your nasally laughs together and making Nonna smile. Oh and maybe kicking back with Brando on occasion, too. Mimick a few voices and quote your favourites.
Ciao for now.
But right now I am here to think and reflect about my father. Which I guess my last post reflected, in my little memory lane trip via the Augie March song 'Asleep in Perfection' in a sort of build up to where we are now with this post.
Dead people sort of get that invisible title. With all of our faults, worst mistakes, quirks and eccentricities, when we die, those who loved us or even liked us, remember us as some perfect soul. Even those who didn't particularly like us much in life, remember us for all of our positive aspects, even if those who disliked us had the smallest ounce of general respect and good manners.
But I'm rambling. I'm not up at almost midnight on a school night to write a polished piece or even something remotely inventive. I'm not even going to do a spellcheck.
I just need to empty my head and tell the internet blogging world thankyou for providing an avenue to vent and bare all. Because that's all I can remember wanting to do ten years ago. Well, it's almost the 3rd of December so it was 9 years, 11 months and 19 days ago, I think. I was never really good at math but please don't tell my student's parents that.
I felt the need to tell any person who asked even the vaguest question the story of how my father slipped away. I didn't want to spare any gruesome, sorrowful or heartbreaking detail. I would imagine people's reactions. But I rarely did tell the story. A few details seemed to overwhelm people with deep hurt, sadness and a level of uncomfortable and awkward that I would rather not inflict. So, most of the time I would reply with a few vague comments, a brave face and a positive attitude.
I was standing in our backyard, between the veranda step and the lawn, eyes fixed on my mother as she stood at the driveway facing our labrador Charlie. He was gazing at her, clearly confused and somewhat saddened as she sobbed to him that Frank wasn't coming back. He waited at the gate every day for weeks, ears pricking up and a hopeful expression every time a car drove up, only to sink back to the ground moments later with his head on his paws.
I opened the front to door to find my Uncle Peter, his Uncle Peter, only four years his senior and more like a brother, the first words he said to me was "He loved you so much" followed by a big hug and the first tears I'd ever seen him shed.
I thought of my cousin Vince back at the hospital, I could hear him but I was staring at the flowers my Aunty Carmen brought as Vince was slowly saying "Fuck. Fuck. Not him too. Fuck."
I remember the women who came to our house that I had never met before in my life, who sat in our loungeroom for an hour talking about death, one about her son who died in his twenties, his picture hung around her neck in a wallet size open locket.
I remember sitting on the footpath infront of our house in my long black skirts and, however ironically black, hippy shirts, smoking Cartier and my friends sitting beside me as I stared at my toenails and suggested to them that I should paint them purple, before my mum and sisters called me inside to ask me to write a poem to go in the funeral card.
I remember my cousin Lucy telling me about a song that made her and her sister sad everytime they heard it, before realising that it was because it was playing in the limousine between the church and the cemetary. The song was 'I hope you dance' by Leanne Womack and Lucy later bought me the CD single. The songwriter wrote it for her children. I really like the line "I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean... and when you get the choice to sit it out or dance, I hope you dance."
I remember my Aunty Shirley writing in the newspaper "He's ain't heavy, he's my brother" and Nonno writing that he lost the jewel in his crown. I remember seeing my Aunty Grace crying a lot for the first time in the funeral parlour, at the viewing.
I remember my big sisters tucking my hair behind my ears and giving me glasses of water.
I remember my friend Priscilla taking me for a drive and telling me to scream as loud as I possibly could. I told her I couldn't. I remember Jon and Anna and Tania there, like permanent fixtures on that footpath infront of our house.
I remember opening my Dad's wardrobe and pushing my face against his jackets and shirts before quickly closing the doors against the back of my head to keep as much of his smell trapped inside as I could, as I breathed it in.
I remember the hairs standing up on my arm whenever I sat in the loungeroom and wishing, willing him to appear even though the thought scares the shit out of me.
I remember my older cousin Vince looking down as the coffin was lowered into the ground as he said "Bye Frank".
I remember my Dad.
But not as much as I would like. I feel like the memories are fading and it scares me. It has been almost ten years. It will be ten years on the 12th of December, 5.30am-ish to be almost exact.
I can't remember his smell. I can hear his voice if I think really hard, though it echoes and rises and falls and I just can't seem to grasp it. It doesn't seem fair to have to go to so much effort. I can picture his face. But I can't recall every detail, the exact shape of his nose, his chin, every line, every crease, where exactly the ginger and the black and the white of his beard started and stopped and were his eyes really brown with a dark blue outline or did I just imagine it and were his teeth really thirty-a-day smoker yellow or were they not that bad and was his voice nasally at times, especially when he laughed and it seems almost not likely that he still had great biceps for a 50 something who didn't work out although I suppose he lifted car transmissions every day for most of his life, and did his fingernails always have grease under them from working on cars, because he was a bit of a neat freak or did I make that up. He wore blue a lot. And brown.
He used to laugh at his own jokes. He had a whole repetoire of bad jokes as most fathers do. Every New Years Eve, all of the family would say to him, "New year, time to get some new jokes". He fixed everyone's car. He invented things. He was a great storyteller, complete with accurate voice immitations to expression and gestures so he would have everyone in the room locked in. He really liked Christmas and he used to dress up as Santa for us and the cousins. He hated public crowds and waiting in lines. When he was annoyed, he would breath through his nose loudly like a horse. He loved movies and would watch his favourites on repeat. He most admired Steve McQueen, Clint Eastwood, Bogart and Brando to name a few. He loved music, mostly 50s and 60s Rock and Roll and Country. He cooked a mean fritata with salami. If he made a trip to the deli, it meant he would come home with a big bag of fresh cured meats, cheese, olives and bread to share for lunch. If he went to buy something like an appliance or a tool, it had to be the best brand. He never bought himself clothes and we had to threaten him several times before he threw out his old haggered brown cardigan. He was a collector of philosophies and affirmations of peace within yourself, courage and reality as he saw it. He called himself a pessimist, ("A pessimist is a well informed optimist," he would say when I called him negative,) but I think he was just a realist. He was optimistic without being foolish. He was cautious and thought things through. He was both patient and impatient. He was both placid and hot-tempered. He was a jokester, a prankster, an actor and an artist. He would make people laugh through tears with his funny stories and jokes and make people fear for their lives with his angry glare.
He called me 'Mickey' and often said it in a sobbing Sylvester Stallone voice to mimick the scene in Rocky 3. He was Frank, frank... true to his name. He always told it like it is, he never lied and he never stole. When he was young he went to school every day, he did his homework, when he was older he went to work every day and got the job done. He always kept his word. He taught us manners, respect and self-worth.
Perfection? No, don't be ridiculous. He was real and he is real because he will always be my father. I get it, we only hold on to the positives because the positives breath air into us.
Well.
I suppose now after all of that, I think I can almost recall his smell. Cigarettes, and I mean the hardcore 16mg cigarettes, old clothes, engine oil and a vague scent of Old Spice and fragrant soap. I think that's as close as I'm going to get.
Love you Dad. Rest in peace. When I think about it, I really do hope there is a heaven and then I hope that you're up there with Uncle Peter, laughing your nasally laughs together and making Nonna smile. Oh and maybe kicking back with Brando on occasion, too. Mimick a few voices and quote your favourites.
Ciao for now.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Asleep in Perfection – A Memory Lane Moment, 29/07/2010
Asleep in Perfection – A Memory Lane Moment, 29/07/2010
It’s a wondrous thing, how one particular song can cause a surge of memories, sometimes simply because it was a song that you listened to a lot at a particular stage in your life.
I was on the train home from work, Mantova to Cerea, with my MP3 player earphones wedged into my ears, primarily to drown out the terrible music blaring from another commuter’s cell phone.
‘Asleep in Perfection’ by Augie March started to play…
This song, this very MP3 file that I was listening to, was sent to me in 1999 via the internet, through the old ICQ chat program, (does anyone use that anymore? It’s like msn…) by a friend from Uni, first Uni… back in the good ol’ days of Latrobe.
This friend introduced me to a lot of new music – The Cure, Augie March, Joy Division – yes, he was I suppose what I like to call a ‘Classic Goth’, of the Goths that were before any of the ‘Emo’s’ that plagued the genre a decade or so later.
We went to a Goth club once, called ‘Abyss’, one of the best clubs I’ve ever been to – I loved to watch the crowd in all their glorious style, their hand-sewn or hand-picked, fished from various Op Shops and matched with expensive stylized garments inspired and blended from various eras of Gothic, Baroque and Victorian – they were then referred to as the ‘Classical’ or ‘Elegant’ Goths, then you had your ‘Bondage’ and ‘Punk’ Goths, names purely given for the amount of spikes, chains and PVC they wore, combining black with splashes of hot pink or red. It was truly a visual feast for any appreciator of interesting and original style.
It was from that night onwards that my wardrobe began to transform into a mass of black attire – I fell in love with the Goth image, adhering more to the ‘Classical’ Gothic look; even though my clothing was always much less subdued than some of the more extreme Goths, and I never wore the extreme Gothic make up – just ivory foundation and dark yet subtle, (in comparison) eye makeup.
At Latrobe University, we would hang out in the main square, during our long, drawn out two to three hour breaks, (typical for an Arts Degree,) and talk about music, movies and the like. Friends from other classes would come and go and we would linger, until the close of Uni that year and, upon the realization that my friend would never return to finish the course as he had completed little to no assignments, (even though he was capable of doing very well,) we exchanged contact details and arranged to meet up over the summer.
Over the next few months our friendship became this strange, indifferent interaction where we would hang out at his house, listening to music, watching MTV and barely talking, as we were both painfully shy at the time. Then I would go home. He would never offer me any food or drink, even if I stayed there all day, yet he would comment on the loud noises rumbling from my belly with an odd tone in his voice. Albeit, an odd friendship. Albeit – that’s a word I learnt from him also, as we shared all of the same classes at Uni and this word came up in one of his stories that we work shopped in the class ‘Writing Your Life’. It seemed a rare occasion to have both chosen the exact same subjects within the hundreds to choose from in an Arts Degree, which is how we began talking, (however sporadically,) in the first place.
Though, now looking back, perhaps there was reason to our strange, virtually wordless interaction. Both of our parents – his mother, my father – were very sick …and had little time left.
We were numb.
Our long, drawn out silences were not so awkward. Perhaps because we shared something – that there were no words to articulate how we were feeling. And sometimes when the weight of it all overwhelms you… talking, even small chit chat, seems useless and unnecessary in light of things to come.
His mother died on my 20th birthday and my father followed ten months and eleven days later.
I went to his mother’s funeral. He explained it was too painful for him to then come to my father’s funeral months later. “Not another funeral of a parent...” He said.
We lived an hour’s drive away from each other and shared the same dislike for phone conversations; so keeping in touch, especially at the time, was becoming taxing. Our friendship lulled and came to a close soon after, of its own momentum.
Life, as it was, shifted – like pulling a block out from the bottom of a child’s toy block tower. That’s how it is. A cliché’ phrase: “World crumbles…” but it does truly and then you have to rebuild.
Although, for the first year of Dad not being there, I was not rebuilding. I don’t think anyone was. I stood back from the collapsed tower and turned my back on it. ‘Dad must be here somewhere...’ It seemed impossible for someone to just disappear.
I had been living in my sister’s apartment with my other sister, up until he passed. Then, I moved back into my parent’s house… my mother’s house.
For the first few weeks of being back at home, my double bed mattress lay on the floor. I don’t know why, I can’t remember the reason. Maybe no-one could get it together to bring the base over.
My belongings remained in boxes lining the walls. I lit candles and incense and heard my father’s footsteps down the corridor. I smoked cigarettes and the occasional mix of green with tobacco from broken cigarettes, stuffed into a little pipe that my sister bought for my father from Thailand the year before.
I stayed up until sunrise and only slept one or two hours in the morning, eyes stinging from utter exhaustion. Every time I closed my eyes, I dreamt of my Dad: sometimes young and healthy, other times thin and frail. Sometimes lying in his hospital bed, other times in his coffin; sometimes I dreamt of decaying bones and once I dreamt that Dad was right there in the room with me, but he was a mere cloud of dark grey smoke and I cried as I tried to clutch and hold on to it as it spread thin in the air and disappeared.
That’s why (, I told myself) I ‘smoked’. Not every day and hardly a pinch, but enough to make the nightmares go away and allow me to achieve a few hours of sleep.
Some two months after he died, I turned 21 and had a small gathering of friends and family at home. My family bought me a new computer with internet, my first home connection.
It became my new vice. I stayed up all night and only exited my room during the day to use the bathroom and for meals in the kitchen, though I often brought my plate back into my bedroom to eat. I scanned chat rooms and talked about death. Everyone had a sad story to share. I found comfort in that.
Soon it was March – time to start my third and final year of my Arts Degree. Time to stop ‘smoking’ – knowing that my brain is my one tool to do something with my life – I didn’t want to jeopardize that any longer.
I recommenced my part time job at Toyworld and a kind work colleague gave me a C.D of relaxing, soothing music with subliminal sleep messages. I started buying herbal Valerian (sleep) tablets and drank peppermint and other herbal teas.
The nightmares became less frequent, slowly transforming into mere dreams – no longer horrific. Though they usually contained a plotline as follows: [“Dad’s alive, he didn’t really die!” Enter Dad, glowing, with a healthy smile. Conclude the dream with Dad getting sick and dying – for a second time. ]
Not pleasant, but eventually I got used to them. They lessened over time, slowly to once a week, then once a month – until now I might have that dream once or twice a year.
And now… I look at Valentino and I see glimpses of my father. I feel like I have a little piece of him back forever.
Asleep in Perfection.
The song has since finished, on to the third or fourth song on shuffle, as I sit here and write. I examine my MP3 Player for a moment, considering skipping back to listen to Asleep in Perfection once more. I hesitate, and let it rest on my lap again as Led Zeppelin plays. I stare out of the window, smiling, the sun warming the window glass, as the train rushes me home.
It’s a wondrous thing, how one particular song can cause a surge of memories, sometimes simply because it was a song that you listened to a lot at a particular stage in your life.
I was on the train home from work, Mantova to Cerea, with my MP3 player earphones wedged into my ears, primarily to drown out the terrible music blaring from another commuter’s cell phone.
‘Asleep in Perfection’ by Augie March started to play…
This song, this very MP3 file that I was listening to, was sent to me in 1999 via the internet, through the old ICQ chat program, (does anyone use that anymore? It’s like msn…) by a friend from Uni, first Uni… back in the good ol’ days of Latrobe.
This friend introduced me to a lot of new music – The Cure, Augie March, Joy Division – yes, he was I suppose what I like to call a ‘Classic Goth’, of the Goths that were before any of the ‘Emo’s’ that plagued the genre a decade or so later.
We went to a Goth club once, called ‘Abyss’, one of the best clubs I’ve ever been to – I loved to watch the crowd in all their glorious style, their hand-sewn or hand-picked, fished from various Op Shops and matched with expensive stylized garments inspired and blended from various eras of Gothic, Baroque and Victorian – they were then referred to as the ‘Classical’ or ‘Elegant’ Goths, then you had your ‘Bondage’ and ‘Punk’ Goths, names purely given for the amount of spikes, chains and PVC they wore, combining black with splashes of hot pink or red. It was truly a visual feast for any appreciator of interesting and original style.
It was from that night onwards that my wardrobe began to transform into a mass of black attire – I fell in love with the Goth image, adhering more to the ‘Classical’ Gothic look; even though my clothing was always much less subdued than some of the more extreme Goths, and I never wore the extreme Gothic make up – just ivory foundation and dark yet subtle, (in comparison) eye makeup.
At Latrobe University, we would hang out in the main square, during our long, drawn out two to three hour breaks, (typical for an Arts Degree,) and talk about music, movies and the like. Friends from other classes would come and go and we would linger, until the close of Uni that year and, upon the realization that my friend would never return to finish the course as he had completed little to no assignments, (even though he was capable of doing very well,) we exchanged contact details and arranged to meet up over the summer.
Over the next few months our friendship became this strange, indifferent interaction where we would hang out at his house, listening to music, watching MTV and barely talking, as we were both painfully shy at the time. Then I would go home. He would never offer me any food or drink, even if I stayed there all day, yet he would comment on the loud noises rumbling from my belly with an odd tone in his voice. Albeit, an odd friendship. Albeit – that’s a word I learnt from him also, as we shared all of the same classes at Uni and this word came up in one of his stories that we work shopped in the class ‘Writing Your Life’. It seemed a rare occasion to have both chosen the exact same subjects within the hundreds to choose from in an Arts Degree, which is how we began talking, (however sporadically,) in the first place.
Though, now looking back, perhaps there was reason to our strange, virtually wordless interaction. Both of our parents – his mother, my father – were very sick …and had little time left.
We were numb.
Our long, drawn out silences were not so awkward. Perhaps because we shared something – that there were no words to articulate how we were feeling. And sometimes when the weight of it all overwhelms you… talking, even small chit chat, seems useless and unnecessary in light of things to come.
His mother died on my 20th birthday and my father followed ten months and eleven days later.
I went to his mother’s funeral. He explained it was too painful for him to then come to my father’s funeral months later. “Not another funeral of a parent...” He said.
We lived an hour’s drive away from each other and shared the same dislike for phone conversations; so keeping in touch, especially at the time, was becoming taxing. Our friendship lulled and came to a close soon after, of its own momentum.
Life, as it was, shifted – like pulling a block out from the bottom of a child’s toy block tower. That’s how it is. A cliché’ phrase: “World crumbles…” but it does truly and then you have to rebuild.
Although, for the first year of Dad not being there, I was not rebuilding. I don’t think anyone was. I stood back from the collapsed tower and turned my back on it. ‘Dad must be here somewhere...’ It seemed impossible for someone to just disappear.
I had been living in my sister’s apartment with my other sister, up until he passed. Then, I moved back into my parent’s house… my mother’s house.
For the first few weeks of being back at home, my double bed mattress lay on the floor. I don’t know why, I can’t remember the reason. Maybe no-one could get it together to bring the base over.
My belongings remained in boxes lining the walls. I lit candles and incense and heard my father’s footsteps down the corridor. I smoked cigarettes and the occasional mix of green with tobacco from broken cigarettes, stuffed into a little pipe that my sister bought for my father from Thailand the year before.
I stayed up until sunrise and only slept one or two hours in the morning, eyes stinging from utter exhaustion. Every time I closed my eyes, I dreamt of my Dad: sometimes young and healthy, other times thin and frail. Sometimes lying in his hospital bed, other times in his coffin; sometimes I dreamt of decaying bones and once I dreamt that Dad was right there in the room with me, but he was a mere cloud of dark grey smoke and I cried as I tried to clutch and hold on to it as it spread thin in the air and disappeared.
That’s why (, I told myself) I ‘smoked’. Not every day and hardly a pinch, but enough to make the nightmares go away and allow me to achieve a few hours of sleep.
Some two months after he died, I turned 21 and had a small gathering of friends and family at home. My family bought me a new computer with internet, my first home connection.
It became my new vice. I stayed up all night and only exited my room during the day to use the bathroom and for meals in the kitchen, though I often brought my plate back into my bedroom to eat. I scanned chat rooms and talked about death. Everyone had a sad story to share. I found comfort in that.
Soon it was March – time to start my third and final year of my Arts Degree. Time to stop ‘smoking’ – knowing that my brain is my one tool to do something with my life – I didn’t want to jeopardize that any longer.
I recommenced my part time job at Toyworld and a kind work colleague gave me a C.D of relaxing, soothing music with subliminal sleep messages. I started buying herbal Valerian (sleep) tablets and drank peppermint and other herbal teas.
The nightmares became less frequent, slowly transforming into mere dreams – no longer horrific. Though they usually contained a plotline as follows: [“Dad’s alive, he didn’t really die!” Enter Dad, glowing, with a healthy smile. Conclude the dream with Dad getting sick and dying – for a second time. ]
Not pleasant, but eventually I got used to them. They lessened over time, slowly to once a week, then once a month – until now I might have that dream once or twice a year.
And now… I look at Valentino and I see glimpses of my father. I feel like I have a little piece of him back forever.
Asleep in Perfection.
The song has since finished, on to the third or fourth song on shuffle, as I sit here and write. I examine my MP3 Player for a moment, considering skipping back to listen to Asleep in Perfection once more. I hesitate, and let it rest on my lap again as Led Zeppelin plays. I stare out of the window, smiling, the sun warming the window glass, as the train rushes me home.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Laika
16th of June 2010
The other day, as Giuseppe, Valentino and I were getting ready to leave for our daily bike ride, I was perched on my bike, one foot on the ground and one foot on a pedal, waiting at the electronic gates of our yard for Giuseppe to ready Valentino in the toddler seat of his bike.
Laika, one of our dogs, appeared from between the rubbish bins behind our shop. Laika has been with the family for seven years, since she was a pup. She is a mix of breeds: black wavy fur and in my opinion, has the face of a Labrador, with soulful eyes and gentle expressions.
The first time I saw Laika was a photo that Giuseppe sent me over the internet, before we had met. She was sitting, curled up in a blue bucket and looked very cute indeed. Giuseppe spoke of her often, telling me all about her gentle nature and how she quickly learnt how to stay within the yard when the gates were open or not enter the house even though his parents often leave the back door to the shop wide open all day, to access the bins and storage rooms.
Our decision to bring our dog Lupa, the Jack Russell terrier, from Australia was largely based on the fact that Laika is extremely gentle and intelligent. The idea that Lupa would learn the rules of the house quickly by having Laika as her ‘mentor’ helped to convince us that we were making the right decision.
And it was. Lupa seems to have matured a year within a few months and she found a friend in Laika.
They would walk daily through Valle, the local nature park, with Giuseppe’s brother Ettore and Laika would almost always return drenched from a swim in the lake and rivers.
Coming out from in between the bins, she seemed to stumble and I noticed one of her back feed was not flat on the ground, as she ambled awkwardly and slumped down again to rest. She had withstood being hit by a car about six weeks ago, but this affected her front leg which was now almost healed.
She had been to the vet again a few days ago for an eye infection, but this also seemed irrelevant to her present condition. I pointed out her weary state to Giuseppe, who grimaced and shook his head. “I don’t know” he sighed, “Poor Laikina”. And we reluctantly wheeled out of the yard and the gates closed behind us.
***
“Laika è morta” Ettore lit a cigarette and stared at the empty yard as we pedaled back up the driveway and halted to a stop.
“Where is she?” I asked quietly. We stored the bikes away.
“I don’t want to ask,” Giuseppe answered, and we went inside.
We passed Lupa on the way in, who, despite her earlier successful lessons from Laika, attempted to come inside the house a handful of times that night.
We supposed she was looking for her friend.
R.I.P Laika
The other day, as Giuseppe, Valentino and I were getting ready to leave for our daily bike ride, I was perched on my bike, one foot on the ground and one foot on a pedal, waiting at the electronic gates of our yard for Giuseppe to ready Valentino in the toddler seat of his bike.
Laika, one of our dogs, appeared from between the rubbish bins behind our shop. Laika has been with the family for seven years, since she was a pup. She is a mix of breeds: black wavy fur and in my opinion, has the face of a Labrador, with soulful eyes and gentle expressions.
The first time I saw Laika was a photo that Giuseppe sent me over the internet, before we had met. She was sitting, curled up in a blue bucket and looked very cute indeed. Giuseppe spoke of her often, telling me all about her gentle nature and how she quickly learnt how to stay within the yard when the gates were open or not enter the house even though his parents often leave the back door to the shop wide open all day, to access the bins and storage rooms.
Our decision to bring our dog Lupa, the Jack Russell terrier, from Australia was largely based on the fact that Laika is extremely gentle and intelligent. The idea that Lupa would learn the rules of the house quickly by having Laika as her ‘mentor’ helped to convince us that we were making the right decision.
And it was. Lupa seems to have matured a year within a few months and she found a friend in Laika.
They would walk daily through Valle, the local nature park, with Giuseppe’s brother Ettore and Laika would almost always return drenched from a swim in the lake and rivers.
Coming out from in between the bins, she seemed to stumble and I noticed one of her back feed was not flat on the ground, as she ambled awkwardly and slumped down again to rest. She had withstood being hit by a car about six weeks ago, but this affected her front leg which was now almost healed.
She had been to the vet again a few days ago for an eye infection, but this also seemed irrelevant to her present condition. I pointed out her weary state to Giuseppe, who grimaced and shook his head. “I don’t know” he sighed, “Poor Laikina”. And we reluctantly wheeled out of the yard and the gates closed behind us.
***
“Laika è morta” Ettore lit a cigarette and stared at the empty yard as we pedaled back up the driveway and halted to a stop.
“Where is she?” I asked quietly. We stored the bikes away.
“I don’t want to ask,” Giuseppe answered, and we went inside.
We passed Lupa on the way in, who, despite her earlier successful lessons from Laika, attempted to come inside the house a handful of times that night.
We supposed she was looking for her friend.
R.I.P Laika
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
20 Short, Zen and 20 and a Train Ride.
20 Short.
What a terrible day. I spent my day with a bunch of five year olds who made me almost want to cry. They didn't listen to a word I said, bar a few of the more introverted children, who sometimes listened and sometimes went along with the crowd.
This week I am relieving a teacher from the other campus of the Montessori school I am now employed at. Next month, I will start my own class of roughly thirteen children at the Nido campus, aged 18 months, together with another teacher who speaks fluent Italian.
But today, I have not gained much confidence for my ability to manage a classroom. There were children running in and out of the classroom, hitting each other and overall not doing what they were supposed to. Other teachers sympathised "It's Monday, they are always unsettled," "They don't know you," and other words of consolation. But by the end of my school day, at 1pm, I was inconsolable. I started off for the bustop in a huff.
However, I failed to calcuate train and bus times, this location being different from last week when I was helping out at my future work location, and I wound up at Mantova train station with a three and a half hour wait for my one and a half hour train ride home.
Now verging on tears, exhausted from my 5am start and my seemingly failed attempt at teaching, I called Giuseppe. I plonked my guitar and satchel down on the steps of Mantova station and sat down to wait for Giuseppe's forty minute to an hour commute in heavy traffic.
I counted the coins that we scraped together from his mother's car. He drove me to Cerea station this morning in her car rather than his because she needed her car parked at the front of the shop later that morning to do the vegetable and fruit pickup. Four Euro and 60 cents. Or centessimi. However you spell it.
I approached the girl at the bar while scanning the cigarettes on the shelves behind her. I was relieved to find a familiar brand at an affordable price: Peter Styvo's for 3.80 Euro. But I am an ex-smoker, purely on a post-smoking, nervous binge. Therefore, I also required a lighter. Which cost 1 Euro. Through broken Italian peppered with 'Thank you's' and 'sorry's, I managed to communicate what I wanted before realising I was 0.20 cents short. She waved me away, smiling as she took my coins, leaving the smokes and lighter on the counter as she turned away. Perhaps sensing my aura of 'I'm having a crappy day', she let me off. Finally, a plus for today, but it kind of cancels itself out, because I shouldn't be smoking.
Why is it, that when a negative occurs, I reach for another negative?
That’s all I have to say about today. I’m tired and extremely pissed.
Basta.
Zen and 20.
Shutup Michelle. What was I complaining about? I am lucky to have work, we’re in an economic crisis here!
I had simply forgotten how to gain respect from a class – because realistically, I haven’t had the experience since April 2009. That’s over a year of being away from a classroom. Of course there are rust spots.
This morning, I walked into the classroom determined, strong and calm... determined to make an improvement – in my classroom management skills, in my composure and my rapport with the students.
Success.
I achieved the above by reminding myself of the same fact twice, each with different perspectives.
1. They are only five years old – so they need affection, they need to feel safe and loved.
2. And – they are only five years old – yet they are still capable of being disobedient... 'furbo' in Italian; therefore they need clear, defined boundaries...
And then it comes full circle – they need strong boundaries in order to feel safe and loved.
When a teacher feels angry (and I feel that I can fairly generalise here) it’s because they are more so angry at themselves, rather than at the students.
Yesterday I felt angry at myself, angry for not being able to do my job properly, thus feeling almost hopeless. It’s those nagging questions: “Why can’t I manage them?”, “Why can’t I get them to listen to me?” and so on.
It takes time and bundles of patience, a level of patience parallel to the level of mind power and beyond required to break a pile of bricks with your head.
When this level of patience is achieved, it’s like achieving a kind of zen. You enter a special, protective dome where it seems that no amount disobedience or mischief can penetrate your fortress of calm. It’s awesome.
And so, today I am Michelle, Master of calm, the tranquil teacher, an achiever of improving rapport with my students. Because students sense your zen.
Today, all twelve students completed at least one or more Montessori activity. They achieved solitary work and also working collaboratively – fair and peaceful play.
At 10.20am, the classroom was then transformed back into a clean, orderly room and then a perfect circle of children seated on the floor formed, as if by some sort of magic or divine intervention.
I got the guitar out and every child sang in harmony and every child listened enthusiastically during the reading of ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’. They ate biscuits and listened while I played ‘Better Man,’ (Robbie Williams,) on the guitar, singing my own adaptation: “...I’m doin’, all I can, to be a better person...”
We changed into our ‘outside shoes’ and went to play. Three students needed to sit out for five minutes because of earlier mishaps, (hitting, interrupting and throwing water.) Two protested but remained nonetheless, one I had to cuddle as he cried, “Voglio giocare, voglio giocare!” (I want to play!) but I held him and we talked about how hitting is wrong and he said tomorrow, ‘domani’, he will not hit anyone. After lunch, he did hit another child, but so lightly a tap on the forearm that the other child simply furrowed their brow and walked away. Hence, a big improvement, since he did not even enter my classroom yesterday until after lunch – today I even got some smiles.
We ate lunch and the children started to call be my first name, instead of yesterday’s ‘teacher, maestra!’
I then explained that I had to leave early or I miss the last train home. I told them I was very happy – we had such a good day – and I am looking forward to seeing them tomorrow.
They applauded.
Tutto Posto.
P.S.: I paid back the girl at the bar 0.20 cents.
Train Ride.
Fields of poppies and lavender. Rice fields – stretches of water with tiny green stalks peeking out breathing air; acres of corn, peas – ploughed and sewn. Tractors. Tractor makeshift roads of two lines of trodden down grass, dirt and muddy tracks. Irrigation channels bordering, travelling up, down and across from lakes and rivers. Green. So much green. Red. Purple. Symmetry – lines of growing buds. The ground creeps forward under the buds, moving with the train, the oblique perspective. More poppies. Fields of. Lining the streets. Lavender. More green. Grass, green, lush between lines of trees – fir, willow, oak. Red. Green. Flowing water. Poppies. Streets. Street lights. Houses. Trees. More houses.
Station.
Giuseppe and Valentino, waving from the platform.
Home.
What a terrible day. I spent my day with a bunch of five year olds who made me almost want to cry. They didn't listen to a word I said, bar a few of the more introverted children, who sometimes listened and sometimes went along with the crowd.
This week I am relieving a teacher from the other campus of the Montessori school I am now employed at. Next month, I will start my own class of roughly thirteen children at the Nido campus, aged 18 months, together with another teacher who speaks fluent Italian.
But today, I have not gained much confidence for my ability to manage a classroom. There were children running in and out of the classroom, hitting each other and overall not doing what they were supposed to. Other teachers sympathised "It's Monday, they are always unsettled," "They don't know you," and other words of consolation. But by the end of my school day, at 1pm, I was inconsolable. I started off for the bustop in a huff.
However, I failed to calcuate train and bus times, this location being different from last week when I was helping out at my future work location, and I wound up at Mantova train station with a three and a half hour wait for my one and a half hour train ride home.
Now verging on tears, exhausted from my 5am start and my seemingly failed attempt at teaching, I called Giuseppe. I plonked my guitar and satchel down on the steps of Mantova station and sat down to wait for Giuseppe's forty minute to an hour commute in heavy traffic.
I counted the coins that we scraped together from his mother's car. He drove me to Cerea station this morning in her car rather than his because she needed her car parked at the front of the shop later that morning to do the vegetable and fruit pickup. Four Euro and 60 cents. Or centessimi. However you spell it.
I approached the girl at the bar while scanning the cigarettes on the shelves behind her. I was relieved to find a familiar brand at an affordable price: Peter Styvo's for 3.80 Euro. But I am an ex-smoker, purely on a post-smoking, nervous binge. Therefore, I also required a lighter. Which cost 1 Euro. Through broken Italian peppered with 'Thank you's' and 'sorry's, I managed to communicate what I wanted before realising I was 0.20 cents short. She waved me away, smiling as she took my coins, leaving the smokes and lighter on the counter as she turned away. Perhaps sensing my aura of 'I'm having a crappy day', she let me off. Finally, a plus for today, but it kind of cancels itself out, because I shouldn't be smoking.
Why is it, that when a negative occurs, I reach for another negative?
That’s all I have to say about today. I’m tired and extremely pissed.
Basta.
Zen and 20.
Shutup Michelle. What was I complaining about? I am lucky to have work, we’re in an economic crisis here!
I had simply forgotten how to gain respect from a class – because realistically, I haven’t had the experience since April 2009. That’s over a year of being away from a classroom. Of course there are rust spots.
This morning, I walked into the classroom determined, strong and calm... determined to make an improvement – in my classroom management skills, in my composure and my rapport with the students.
Success.
I achieved the above by reminding myself of the same fact twice, each with different perspectives.
1. They are only five years old – so they need affection, they need to feel safe and loved.
2. And – they are only five years old – yet they are still capable of being disobedient... 'furbo' in Italian; therefore they need clear, defined boundaries...
And then it comes full circle – they need strong boundaries in order to feel safe and loved.
When a teacher feels angry (and I feel that I can fairly generalise here) it’s because they are more so angry at themselves, rather than at the students.
Yesterday I felt angry at myself, angry for not being able to do my job properly, thus feeling almost hopeless. It’s those nagging questions: “Why can’t I manage them?”, “Why can’t I get them to listen to me?” and so on.
It takes time and bundles of patience, a level of patience parallel to the level of mind power and beyond required to break a pile of bricks with your head.
When this level of patience is achieved, it’s like achieving a kind of zen. You enter a special, protective dome where it seems that no amount disobedience or mischief can penetrate your fortress of calm. It’s awesome.
And so, today I am Michelle, Master of calm, the tranquil teacher, an achiever of improving rapport with my students. Because students sense your zen.
Today, all twelve students completed at least one or more Montessori activity. They achieved solitary work and also working collaboratively – fair and peaceful play.
At 10.20am, the classroom was then transformed back into a clean, orderly room and then a perfect circle of children seated on the floor formed, as if by some sort of magic or divine intervention.
I got the guitar out and every child sang in harmony and every child listened enthusiastically during the reading of ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’. They ate biscuits and listened while I played ‘Better Man,’ (Robbie Williams,) on the guitar, singing my own adaptation: “...I’m doin’, all I can, to be a better person...”
We changed into our ‘outside shoes’ and went to play. Three students needed to sit out for five minutes because of earlier mishaps, (hitting, interrupting and throwing water.) Two protested but remained nonetheless, one I had to cuddle as he cried, “Voglio giocare, voglio giocare!” (I want to play!) but I held him and we talked about how hitting is wrong and he said tomorrow, ‘domani’, he will not hit anyone. After lunch, he did hit another child, but so lightly a tap on the forearm that the other child simply furrowed their brow and walked away. Hence, a big improvement, since he did not even enter my classroom yesterday until after lunch – today I even got some smiles.
We ate lunch and the children started to call be my first name, instead of yesterday’s ‘teacher, maestra!’
I then explained that I had to leave early or I miss the last train home. I told them I was very happy – we had such a good day – and I am looking forward to seeing them tomorrow.
They applauded.
Tutto Posto.
P.S.: I paid back the girl at the bar 0.20 cents.
Train Ride.
Fields of poppies and lavender. Rice fields – stretches of water with tiny green stalks peeking out breathing air; acres of corn, peas – ploughed and sewn. Tractors. Tractor makeshift roads of two lines of trodden down grass, dirt and muddy tracks. Irrigation channels bordering, travelling up, down and across from lakes and rivers. Green. So much green. Red. Purple. Symmetry – lines of growing buds. The ground creeps forward under the buds, moving with the train, the oblique perspective. More poppies. Fields of. Lining the streets. Lavender. More green. Grass, green, lush between lines of trees – fir, willow, oak. Red. Green. Flowing water. Poppies. Streets. Street lights. Houses. Trees. More houses.
Station.
Giuseppe and Valentino, waving from the platform.
Home.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
The San Marchese Sicilian Working Driving Australian in Bovolone, Verona
Firstly, I'd like to thank all who have been reading this. Is that OK, to start a blog with a thank you? Is there a blogger code?
It's almost midnight and I'm wide awake. Today, I set about trying to make myself super tired so that I would sleep well tonight.
I woke up at ten though. I intended to wake earlier. Oh well. I woke up, brought Valentino down to change his nappy and Giuseppe made cafè lattès. We had breakfast together and after, I made scones. From my mother's recipe. Then I peeled and sliced three eggplants, salted them and set them aside. Then I chopped up a kilo of beef, marinated it and refridgerated it. Then we had lunch. After lunch, I started making the pasta sauce. Long story short, tonight we had dinner with the whole family and I was the cook. We ate penne with beef napoli sauce, almost like my nonna Lucia used to make. Penne with pieces of beef in the pasta sauce reminds me of Thursday night dinners at my Nonna's house when I was small. We went every week until I was maybe ten years old.
I also made melanzane parmigana. I've never attempted to make it before, and I didn't work from a recipe. So, it was far from what my nonna Nella used to make... when she made it I nicknamed it 'Heaven in a dish'. Nonetheless, it all turned out pretty good. A combination of San Marchese, (nonna Lucia, my father's mother,) Sicilian, (nonna Nella, my mother's mother,) and good ol' English/Aussie scones with whipped cream and jam, (mum's recipe.) A nice triptych of dishes that, in a way, kind of make up who I am.
Now I am the Australian living in Verona... Bovolone, to be precise, as quaint and friendly as any small town. People know who I am. It's pretty much how I imagined it. People wave, say ciao and ask me how I like Italy. I reply 'si si, bene, mi piace,' or something to that effect.
Tomorrow, I will start my new job, my first work in Italy. How appropriate that it will be at a Montessori school, a school that was born here, some 100 years ago or so. I like the fact that I will be the English teacher, the English speaker, yet I will inevitably learn more Italian because perhaps one or two teachers speak English there, but their English is very limited. Giuseppe told me to call him if I get stuck in translation. I told him to install an English-Italian dictionary on my phone. I don't think he got around to it yet, so it will be an interesting day.
The school is approximately fifty minutes drive away or atleast two modes of transport. The first step to transporting my way there though would be to somehow get to the next town, Cerea, because the train does not pass through here, nor does a bus go from here to there. I suggested that I bike ride to Cerea... but everyone dramatically replied 'No!' (That doesn't need to be translated, it's the same word, only with an 'o' sound like in 'dog'...) Apparently, a bike ride to Cerea is very dangerous, as there is only one, narrow, winding road that cars hoon down. I wonder if there is a direct translation for 'hoon'? There better be, because I love that word. 'Hoon' ...and 'lout' is also a favourite.
So, Giuseppe will drive me tomorrow for my first day. When I finish work, he'll pick me up and then I will commence learning to drive in Italy. I have to get used to three main aspects: driving on the right side of the road, driving manual and coping with the general hoon-like way the majority of people seem to drive here. My father would always say 'Watch out for the dickheads on the road'. He would be pressing his lips tightly together and breathing loudly through his nose with the thought of any of us, (my sisters and I,) driving anywhere outside a 15km radius of home. It's as if home radiated some sort of invisible protective dome and anything beyond it's boundaries was fraught with perils.
Oh and the signs are white or blue here, no Melbourne greeness. Traffic lights are half of the Melbourne traffic light population, as they are situated only on one side of an intersection. Sometimes you have to slightly turn your head to check the colour. And there aren't any give-way signs, they are for the most part, painted on the road, just a big upside down triangle, white outline.
I've been driving for twelve years. I'm sure I can handle it. Though I was looking forward to a bike ride every day, a purposeful one. When exercise becomes a part of travel, you hardly think of it as exercise. And a daily train ride. I love the train. I have read the most books in the least amount of time during times in my life when I have caught the train daily.
Well, I better sign off, I have only about six hours to get some sleep. Wish me luck! Notte!
It's almost midnight and I'm wide awake. Today, I set about trying to make myself super tired so that I would sleep well tonight.
I woke up at ten though. I intended to wake earlier. Oh well. I woke up, brought Valentino down to change his nappy and Giuseppe made cafè lattès. We had breakfast together and after, I made scones. From my mother's recipe. Then I peeled and sliced three eggplants, salted them and set them aside. Then I chopped up a kilo of beef, marinated it and refridgerated it. Then we had lunch. After lunch, I started making the pasta sauce. Long story short, tonight we had dinner with the whole family and I was the cook. We ate penne with beef napoli sauce, almost like my nonna Lucia used to make. Penne with pieces of beef in the pasta sauce reminds me of Thursday night dinners at my Nonna's house when I was small. We went every week until I was maybe ten years old.
I also made melanzane parmigana. I've never attempted to make it before, and I didn't work from a recipe. So, it was far from what my nonna Nella used to make... when she made it I nicknamed it 'Heaven in a dish'. Nonetheless, it all turned out pretty good. A combination of San Marchese, (nonna Lucia, my father's mother,) Sicilian, (nonna Nella, my mother's mother,) and good ol' English/Aussie scones with whipped cream and jam, (mum's recipe.) A nice triptych of dishes that, in a way, kind of make up who I am.
Now I am the Australian living in Verona... Bovolone, to be precise, as quaint and friendly as any small town. People know who I am. It's pretty much how I imagined it. People wave, say ciao and ask me how I like Italy. I reply 'si si, bene, mi piace,' or something to that effect.
Tomorrow, I will start my new job, my first work in Italy. How appropriate that it will be at a Montessori school, a school that was born here, some 100 years ago or so. I like the fact that I will be the English teacher, the English speaker, yet I will inevitably learn more Italian because perhaps one or two teachers speak English there, but their English is very limited. Giuseppe told me to call him if I get stuck in translation. I told him to install an English-Italian dictionary on my phone. I don't think he got around to it yet, so it will be an interesting day.
The school is approximately fifty minutes drive away or atleast two modes of transport. The first step to transporting my way there though would be to somehow get to the next town, Cerea, because the train does not pass through here, nor does a bus go from here to there. I suggested that I bike ride to Cerea... but everyone dramatically replied 'No!' (That doesn't need to be translated, it's the same word, only with an 'o' sound like in 'dog'...) Apparently, a bike ride to Cerea is very dangerous, as there is only one, narrow, winding road that cars hoon down. I wonder if there is a direct translation for 'hoon'? There better be, because I love that word. 'Hoon' ...and 'lout' is also a favourite.
So, Giuseppe will drive me tomorrow for my first day. When I finish work, he'll pick me up and then I will commence learning to drive in Italy. I have to get used to three main aspects: driving on the right side of the road, driving manual and coping with the general hoon-like way the majority of people seem to drive here. My father would always say 'Watch out for the dickheads on the road'. He would be pressing his lips tightly together and breathing loudly through his nose with the thought of any of us, (my sisters and I,) driving anywhere outside a 15km radius of home. It's as if home radiated some sort of invisible protective dome and anything beyond it's boundaries was fraught with perils.
Oh and the signs are white or blue here, no Melbourne greeness. Traffic lights are half of the Melbourne traffic light population, as they are situated only on one side of an intersection. Sometimes you have to slightly turn your head to check the colour. And there aren't any give-way signs, they are for the most part, painted on the road, just a big upside down triangle, white outline.
I've been driving for twelve years. I'm sure I can handle it. Though I was looking forward to a bike ride every day, a purposeful one. When exercise becomes a part of travel, you hardly think of it as exercise. And a daily train ride. I love the train. I have read the most books in the least amount of time during times in my life when I have caught the train daily.
Well, I better sign off, I have only about six hours to get some sleep. Wish me luck! Notte!
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Standby
This isn't really a proper post. I don't know how to start.
I have a list building up on things I want to write about.
Such as:
1.The time I stayed awake all night making melanzane in the jar with Giuseppe's mum, Teresa. It's a long process, a very southern method of salting the melanzane (eggplant,) letting it sit in vinegar and then finally layering it in jars with olive oil, garlic and oregano. The salting and the vinegar is four hours waiting time each, plus an hour each time for preparation, depending on how much you make. I made it once alone and Teresa was interested in learning how to make it. So, I found myself at 3am in the industrial kitchen with Teresa, the aroma of vinegar and garlic weighing heavily in the air as we patted slices of melanzane with paper towels. And we talked. A lot. My Italian, however improved, is still at basic level but I got by with animated expressions, gestures and a great deal of theatrical storytelling. We learnt a lot about each other.
2. Nella, my sister, came to stay with us for a week and ended up staying for two weeks because of an Icelandic volcano. I felt very strange with her being here - stoked, wrapped to see her, (for people living out of Australia, stoked and wrapped means really happy,) but it was like a George Costanza 'worlds collide'... because up until when she arrived, being here felt like a dream. Post Nell, it really hit me how far away I really am, more so... and how long it may be until we see each other again. Even if I only stay in Italy until the end of this year, it's still longer than we have ever stayed apart. Prior to this, it was a seven month stretch when she travelled through South East Asia. But then I think about when Lucia, my oldest sister, lived in Florence for three years. The time seemed to go by so quickly and Skype and the like always makes the world seem that bit smaller.
3. Valentino turned one year old on May 2nd. One year. He's really not a baby anymore. Here comes toddler time, already. He's been through eating solids, growing first teeth, walking - what's next... potty training? Talking? He says Mama, Papa, almost distinctively... and a word 'yowie' which I think is his way of saying 'I'm having lots of fun right now!'. Sometimes he seems to be speaking in a sort of Star Wars dialect. I really don't see how he can get any cuter but he seems to be increasing in cuteness every day. Sometimes we have to count back from twenty just to compose ourselves when he is just too wonderful. How did we make such a boy? We often ask each other. My dear friend Anna reminded me of a question she once asked me, a few years ago: "Who are you most inspired by?" And my reply was "I haven't met them yet.." When she approached me with a follow-up question, (which she almost always does, the natural journo that she is,) I expressed something along the lines of that my future child will be my inspiration. That's the best thing I've ever said.
I'm trying to make a pact with myself to stop whinging and moping. I know we all have to whinge and mope to a degree, probably a small dose is somewhat healthy for venting purposes, like a car with exhaust, but I am attempting to kick my arse if I do it excessively. Born in the year of the goat, I am prone to excess. Makes sense.
I've been playing video games. When I get into that mode, parts of my brain go into standby. But I think because they've been working overtime, they need to rest a little. Even when in standby, they are collating, analysing, doing stuff, (the part of my brain that holds the word I needed is in standby so I had to use 'stuff'.) When I go into gamer mode, it's because my brain is sorting stuff out. It needs extra resources to do so.
My point being, I have a lot of things that I want to do, but I just can't function well enough lately to do them. And I know why. When we arrived here, I made a big, long list for myself and set on a road steep and winding. Get a job teaching at an English school, tutor English at home, write a novel, co-pilot a creative project, learn Italian, learn to cook, become an athlete, learn tennis and write a blog. See Italy. On top of trying to maintain a small world by sending text messages, emails and calling in any spare moment. On top of being a mum.
That's first. And whether we stay here or not, if I don't learn Italian properly then our time here seems... well I did always say that I could only learn a second language by living it. In other words, bisogno parlare Italiano con Giuseppe ogni giorno. Perchè adesso, parla solo inglese con lui, e poi, non impari tanto.
It's all OK, tutto posto... I have to reshuffle.
Stand by.
I have a list building up on things I want to write about.
Such as:
1.The time I stayed awake all night making melanzane in the jar with Giuseppe's mum, Teresa. It's a long process, a very southern method of salting the melanzane (eggplant,) letting it sit in vinegar and then finally layering it in jars with olive oil, garlic and oregano. The salting and the vinegar is four hours waiting time each, plus an hour each time for preparation, depending on how much you make. I made it once alone and Teresa was interested in learning how to make it. So, I found myself at 3am in the industrial kitchen with Teresa, the aroma of vinegar and garlic weighing heavily in the air as we patted slices of melanzane with paper towels. And we talked. A lot. My Italian, however improved, is still at basic level but I got by with animated expressions, gestures and a great deal of theatrical storytelling. We learnt a lot about each other.
2. Nella, my sister, came to stay with us for a week and ended up staying for two weeks because of an Icelandic volcano. I felt very strange with her being here - stoked, wrapped to see her, (for people living out of Australia, stoked and wrapped means really happy,) but it was like a George Costanza 'worlds collide'... because up until when she arrived, being here felt like a dream. Post Nell, it really hit me how far away I really am, more so... and how long it may be until we see each other again. Even if I only stay in Italy until the end of this year, it's still longer than we have ever stayed apart. Prior to this, it was a seven month stretch when she travelled through South East Asia. But then I think about when Lucia, my oldest sister, lived in Florence for three years. The time seemed to go by so quickly and Skype and the like always makes the world seem that bit smaller.
3. Valentino turned one year old on May 2nd. One year. He's really not a baby anymore. Here comes toddler time, already. He's been through eating solids, growing first teeth, walking - what's next... potty training? Talking? He says Mama, Papa, almost distinctively... and a word 'yowie' which I think is his way of saying 'I'm having lots of fun right now!'. Sometimes he seems to be speaking in a sort of Star Wars dialect. I really don't see how he can get any cuter but he seems to be increasing in cuteness every day. Sometimes we have to count back from twenty just to compose ourselves when he is just too wonderful. How did we make such a boy? We often ask each other. My dear friend Anna reminded me of a question she once asked me, a few years ago: "Who are you most inspired by?" And my reply was "I haven't met them yet.." When she approached me with a follow-up question, (which she almost always does, the natural journo that she is,) I expressed something along the lines of that my future child will be my inspiration. That's the best thing I've ever said.
I'm trying to make a pact with myself to stop whinging and moping. I know we all have to whinge and mope to a degree, probably a small dose is somewhat healthy for venting purposes, like a car with exhaust, but I am attempting to kick my arse if I do it excessively. Born in the year of the goat, I am prone to excess. Makes sense.
I've been playing video games. When I get into that mode, parts of my brain go into standby. But I think because they've been working overtime, they need to rest a little. Even when in standby, they are collating, analysing, doing stuff, (the part of my brain that holds the word I needed is in standby so I had to use 'stuff'.) When I go into gamer mode, it's because my brain is sorting stuff out. It needs extra resources to do so.
My point being, I have a lot of things that I want to do, but I just can't function well enough lately to do them. And I know why. When we arrived here, I made a big, long list for myself and set on a road steep and winding. Get a job teaching at an English school, tutor English at home, write a novel, co-pilot a creative project, learn Italian, learn to cook, become an athlete, learn tennis and write a blog. See Italy. On top of trying to maintain a small world by sending text messages, emails and calling in any spare moment. On top of being a mum.
That's first. And whether we stay here or not, if I don't learn Italian properly then our time here seems... well I did always say that I could only learn a second language by living it. In other words, bisogno parlare Italiano con Giuseppe ogni giorno. Perchè adesso, parla solo inglese con lui, e poi, non impari tanto.
It's all OK, tutto posto... I have to reshuffle.
Stand by.
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