Sorry I haven't blogged in a long time!! I have so much to catch up on (Fall break, Paris, my second trip to Rome, and now after this weekend, Greece!)

But this is from the first part of my fall break, while I was waiting for my parents, Amanda, and Michael to come.

Oct0ber 17-20

They call themselves i nonni, or “the grandparents.” Their faces are creased with age lines upon age lines, their skin weary and permanently tanned from decades of summers running around their Italian childhoods. The three of them, Walter, Benito, and Evalina, sit at the same table in the little piazza right outside of my friend Lauren’s bedroom window everyday. They pass their days watching passers-by, drinking espresso, smoking, yelling at each other with flailing hands one minute, then the next chuckling, the crinkly laugh-lines around their eyes piling on top of the age lines. Time has stopped flying for them – they say it seems as though it’s going backwards, so there they sit, inviting anyone and everyone they knew to stop by and chiaccare, to chat.

It’s difficult to write of each of them separately, as all I know of them has been as the trio, with every moment playing off of each friend in turn, a playful game of tag perfected by years of practice. I met them during the first part of my fall break, while I waited anxiously for my family to come visit me. I was introduced by my friends who live in the apartment above i nonni’s piazza, who was introduced to them by another foreign student, and so on. I’m beginning to see that I am the latest in a chain of frazzled, flighty foreign students who have gravitated to these calm, wise souls patiently guiding us along our quest to practice our italiano, but giving so much more than an opportunity to fumble along in broken Italian; without us even realizing it right away, they slow down time, and in this quiet suspended moment, they teach us more of the Italian way of life and the depths of the Italian language than could ever be absorbed in real time.

First there’s Walter, the joker of the triad, always stretching his mouth into a teasing grin, the whole left side of his goofy smile missing all its teeth, making the effect even more hilarious. Immediately after being introduced to us, he furiously beckoned over the waiter from the café across the street and ordered us each an espresso. The waiter lazily returned with each espresso and a little pitcher of cold milk which he promptly took back when Evalina scolded him as only a grandmother could, saying in Italian, “Why would you bring us cold milk?! What are we supposed to do with cold milk?!” Evalina speaks quickly, her sweet voice trembling with emotion, and the words flow ceaselessly. She kept poking her tongue with her finger saying her mother would tell her she had una lingua lunga, a long tongue, because she never stopped talking. Her husband Benito, on the other hand, hardly speaks at all, but his calm, steady presence at the table is a constant to be relied upon. Their guests, including us students, change daily, hourly even, but Benito continues to sit there, the quiet ying to Evalina’s chattering yang. They, like most couples that have been married for over fifty years, have become two comfortable halves of a whole, and only as a whole do they balance each other out.

As we sat and drank our espresso, Evalina reached over and patted my arm, her big eyes brimming with heartfelt advice to bestow. She told me how she loves talking to i giovani, the young people like us, because our spontaneity and good-heartedness keeps her young at heart. I’m using all my energy to focus and comprehend everything she’s saying that I can hardly come up with adequate responses other than si, si, è vero, or yes, yes, it’s true, but Evalina doesn’t seem to notice – she just keeps going, her paper-thin hands fluttering through the crisp fall air as she rattles on. She advises me in emphatic Italian to parlare con il cuore, to speak with the heart, and pats her chest above her own heart while looking deep into my face. “This way,” she says in Italian, “you will have ‘un’anima tranquilla,’ ” or a tranquil soul. She rests her hand on my cheek as again she searches my face, and apparently finds what she’s looking for as she nods once, and smiles her peaceful smile. Together we glance up from this penetrating conversation for a brief moment to see my friends Angie and Lauren talking with Walter about what they had for lunch. When they tell him we had paninos again, he throws his hands up in disgust and cries “Basta questi panini! Spaghetti! Mangi spaghetti!” or “Enough of these paninos! Spaghetti! Eat spaghetti!” We all take a moment to pause and chuckle at his indignation, before Evalina taps my arm and pulls me back to our conversation.

As I listen, I glance over at Benito. He is still silent as ever, but I now, as I look closer, I see his gaze is intent upon my face as he listens to my feeble responses to Evalina’s heart-to-heart advice. His honest gaze makes me think of the Italian verb sentire which can mean either to listen or to feel. I think maybe these Italians are right, that the act of listening and the ability to feel compassionately are irreversibly intertwined. If only everyone could listen with the earnestness of Benito, or to take a moment to pause from our daily rush and instead, just listen to these gems of the elderly and their stories, our ability to empathize with the people would be so much more pure and patient. I smile shyly at Benito in response to his gaze, and my cheeks burn with intense love for this group of old friends and all their personality quirks that make up the chaotic, but balanced dialogue of their trio.

Eventually time did catch up with Lauren, Angie, and I, and we remembered groceries to buy, hostels to book, plans to make, and the second-hand of our mental clocks groaned as it started its vicious circle again. We made our excuses to i nonni, promising to come back soon, and each of them kissed us on the cheek, and Evalina patted my face again, smiling her trusting smile. Flurries of arrivederci and ciao-ciao flew back and forth until we reluctantly tore ourselves away. Fall break continued, and time flew, as always, but for those two simple hours of speaking cuore a cuore, full of carefree laughing, and endless joking, time stopped out of respect for i nonni, and waited.