forte (strength)
I have relocated my entire household *twice* before for longer stays than 7 weeks. I know how to do this. But this trip had other things stacked against success.
The first ten days I was in Italy I was in the Italian mode. I tried to form all of my thoughts in Italian. I wrote all of my messages home to Allen in Italian. He would write to me in English and my phone would translate them to Italian. It was great practice. But I can do that without being in Italy. I came to Italy to be immersed in the sound of the language and start to understand it better.
Florence was not the right city for those goals. I thought choosing a place with a lot of English speakers would be helpful. Instead, it was an obstacle to getting me over the mental barriers so I could really start thinking and hearing the italiano language better. I would walk into a shop and speak italian, but they would just answer me in English. Asking them to stick with italiano was just annoying and more time-consuming for them.
At some point, I realized I stopped writing my messages to Allen in Italian. I just couldn't stay in the Italian mode when I was continually being pushed back to English. If I were staying longer, like months, I'm sure I could work on it more and improve. But we had only a few weeks.
The older man we bought Henry’s bike from did not speak English. He had said in a message he’d love to visit and “have coffee” sometime. I thought maybe he’d be interested in chats, so I boldly asked if he could help me with Italian. It was like my last desperate attempt to find someone to practice speaking with. He gave a polite answer. We didn’t meet up.
Henry was also quite isolated. He wasn't in school so he couldn't meet friends his own age. There was not a social support system at church like I had expected (for either of us). I tried to connect with homeschool families there, but that isn't much of a practice there. I found one group but they met only once a week and it was a 90 minute (at least) bus ride. It wasn't really feasible to FaceTime friends at home because his friends were either asleep or at school when we were awake. Keeping his spirits up everyday was hard. I was trying to demonstrate proactive methods to avoiding despair: exercise, sunshine, healthy food, and purpose with reading, writing and small goals of learning more Italian. But he was struggling. Jetlag was pretty intense for both of us. What was I thinking asking this of a 12 year old. He gave up friends, his bike, social connections.
Outside of busses, we had bought bikes intending them to be our main form of transport. But everyday the forecast said rain. Every day. It was hard keeping our spirits up when it looked like it was just rain and no one to talk to. Eventually we learned to read the forecast better. Sometimes the rain was really only at 6pm, but it was depressing seeing this all the time:
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| (Those temperatures are in Celsius. It wasn't as cold as it looks to people accustomed to Fahrenheit.) |
So we rode busses more often. Florence bus service covers the entire city and you can get anywhere, but it is unreliable. You never know what route the app is going to recommend and you never know when the bus is actually going to come. Some routes that said 45 minutes actually took 90. The route suggestions were never the same. Sometimes the bus stop was the one right by our apartment, sometimes it was two blocks east, or two block north. One time it took us to a bus stop that didn't even exist!
Florence had a lot of history that I wanted to see and show Henry. But that was not enough to sustain him. Henry obliged me in going to galleries and historic sites, but it wasn't his bag. And truthfully I can only enjoy looking at art and reading placards so much. It's also expensive to do that everyday so entertaining ourselves with endless sightseeing wasn't feasible.
When there was so little otherwise to do, I could see the writing on the wall. We decided to switch to tourist mode and come home sooner. We had planned to do day trips just once a week, but moved through only the essential sites that could interest a 12 year old. I even decided not to go to galleries that sounded boring and exhausting only because I'm "supposed to" see them. We nixed the day trips to Lucca, Siena, Vinci, and San Gimignano. (I've sworn off travel forever, but truthfully I know I won't rest until I get to Vinci). We also cancelled a two-night stay in Venice (didn't want to deal with cold weather and water). I was okay with this because our main goals were not endless tourism. It was about overcoming the mental challenges of being in a place where you don't speak the language, and pushing ourselves to learn more italian. But it didn't look like those goals were feasible here.
With a shorter timeline ahead of him, Henry's mood lifted and he became more engaged in the plan. I was pretty proud of his skill at getting around and keeping his annoyance at bay when I was doing things he was less interested in. He walked a LOT. And he was looking forward to going to Rome. (We loved Rome!)
Truthfully, I am remarkably disappointed to be home. I wake at 3-4am and it takes me a moment to realize I'm in America, and then I'm overcome with the disappointment of the familiar and ordinary. My life is good, I like it here, but I could have waited a few more weeks to get back to it. Especially since everything was already paid for and I had made so so so many arrangements to be gone, including giving up my classes at BYU.
I have heard of other families doing things like this, but with children that have siblings. Henry needed more peers. I couldn't find any for him there. I asked him one last time the day before we left for Rome if there was any chance he'd consider staying. He said, "I haven't spoken with anyone my age for 2 1/2 weeks."
Ok. So 7x7 becomes 7x3.
ancora (still, yet)
I still trust that all of this will be a useful experience in our future. We've learned the importance of having people to talk to in our life. We have learned the impact of jet lag, regular meals, culture shock, and a peaceful place to land at the end of the day. We recognized the mental load of figuring out simple tasks like doing laundry, figuring out transportation, not having measuring cups, or how to take out the trash. And we realized that all those things will pass in time. So next time we are in unfamiliar settings, we can calibrate for it. And really, that is mission accomplished. I don't know why, yet, but one big reason for this trip was to walk through those difficulties with Henry to help him navigate it. So even though we didn't spend as much time as we planned, I am glad we went.
I am just not glad to be home.
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