I’ve begun to dream in Italian

sustaining a commitment to something outside of myself

Our family is heading to Umbria, a central region of Italy, for the month of March. You can read about why and how here.

I’ve begun to dream in Italian regularly. Perhaps it’s because I often spend my last few minutes of the day practicing verb conjugations or translating paragraphs (pathetically, I might add)… but in each dream, I’m fluent.

I assure you, I am not.

But while I’m in dreamland, each time, I’m touring around rural Italy… gathering food in my market baskets, writing under the shade of olive trees, and casually talking about the weather with locals. We laugh and wish each other well, each heading towards home as I shout a final “A presto!” over my shoulder.

I’ve only had a few reoccurring dreams in my life and this is now one of them. Again and again I feel the fluency on my tongue, though not without effort. As I’m speaking and proudly knowing what to say next, I can feel my dream-mind encouraging me on: You’re doing it! I remark in my head as I confidently ask the signore at the market how much the mushrooms cost per kilo.

In my dream, I still I know I’m not Italian and that my tongue will never be native. But in my dream, I’m so joyful, finally grateful to be over the road-block that a new language naturally puts in my way. When I’m dreaming, there are now no longer any barriers between me and endless discovery - like a real, proper love, there is never enough time to discover, savor, and appreciate it all.

I felt the same when I began gardening and homesteading fifteen years ago. It positively lit my soul on fire - as new love does.

If that love was a person, I would cradle her head in my hands, gently kiss her cheeks, and tell her through tears how grateful I am for all the joy she has brought to my heart. Endless.

But as with any relationship, it is a give and take. Italy, as with gardening, has much to offer those willing to give. It would grieve me to exploit, empty, and pillage a place that has already been one of my greatest sources of inspiration. That is not how a relationship works. We support each other, offering what we have and taking what we need.

(I hope Stu doesn’t mind the love-analogy here… he knows he’s really my own and only.)

This is why I invest time, money, and effort into learning the language of my adopted land. I don’t have the capacity for it - I’m just somehow finding it. Week by week, I scratch out time for lessons with my tutor, scribble notes and phrases in one of my many notebooks, and mutter small, simple sentences to myself as I tool around my kitchen preparing supper. It drives my family mad and I’m often grateful that they don’t speak Italian and can’t understand how truly incorrect I often am.

But language is a roadblock in my way - a gatekeeper unwilling to let me through the portal into full exploration and understanding.

I’ve already warned my family to be incredibly underwhelmed with my performance during our month-spent-in-Umbria this coming winter. Though I never stop practicing, language, like gardening, isn’t a performance. It is a long, sustained commitment to something outside of yourself.

Still, I will arrive in Umbria with a small gift in my hands… holding out verbs, nouns, and phrases as my offering to a country that has already given me much.

Every once in awhile as humans, we (often by accident) brush up against something and forever remain unchanged. Whitney Houston holds a microphone, Michael Jordan a basketball, Eric Clapton a guitar - they are forever changed.

Almost twenty years ago, I was given a plate of potato gnocchi, swimming in simple tomato passata. And now, I spend my mornings studying the “casa di essere” and attempting to remember that a singular egg (l’uovo) is masculine, but more than one is feminine (le uova).

As with any love, it may not make sense to the world. But in the eye of the beholder, it is a treasure indeed.

Also, for everyone out there who has learned a new language… and especially English… I could not be more impressed. Honestly. WELL DONE.

How many more nouns do you think I can learn before we leave at the end of February?

Love,