God, I love Italy

A week in which I got to see my son make his first Italian friends.

Happy Friday! 🥳 (Or as I’m calling it, on Italian time, Saturday.)

This will be my last weekend in Italy as I’ve decided to leave next week, to avoid a strike by French truck drivers which is due to start next Sunday. Since my only route home is through the major truck route of Calais, I decided not to push my luck and head home a bit early.

God, I love Italy. I will be sad to leave. It’s not just a physically beautiful place, it’s also gregarious and cheerful — most of the time. Especially this time of year in a town full of holiday makers, it’s a pleasure for all the senses, and the heart.

A bridesmaid and a flower girl make their way down from the church after a July wedding.

And something happened this week that made me love it even more. We met a little girl called Eleonora. 

First, let me say a word about my son, Daniel. He’s funny and tender and warm when you get to know him, but he’s also reserved and deeply private. (If he knew I was writing this, he would kill me.) He absolutely hates showing other kids his emotions. He does not want to stand out. He just finds it painful. So in past years, when we came here, I never pushed him or cajoled him into playing with Italian kids, because I could tell that he wasn’t just being a spoilsport, he was genuinely uncomfortable. And since I know how tough it can be when you are a kid to be out of your own language, I just let him be.

Then Eleonora happened. A nine year old in a frilly swimsuit, with beautiful brown curls made golden in the sun, who we met on the beach. She just kind of took over, and with all the confidence in the world, got Daniel out his shell. She played Uno with him and every time he would win, she would demand he repeat her sentences, in Italian. He complied! I was floored. But then again, Eleonora doesn’t seem like the kind of little girl who tolerates disobedience. If you have never experienced a small Italian female berate someone, then you might not understand how early they learn to make men bow down to them. So out of an instinct for self-preservation, no doubt, he went along with it. And when he made the effort, all the Italians lavished praise on him, and it turns out, he kinda liked it.

Eleonora may have been throwing the Uno games just so she could get Daniel to speak to her in Italian.

After 5 days of this, Eleonora’s older boy cousins arrived, boys I remember from past years boisterously playing football on the beach. This would be the true tell — if Daniel would be confident enough to not just tolerate being bossed around by a cute little girl (I mean, males are literally programmed to humour and protect little girls), but also hang with his actual peers. Which is a much scarier prospect, fraught with potential humiliation. Just last week one of the boys, seeing Daniel dive and play in the water, asked him to join the football, and Daniel adamantly refused. 

We’ve been watching these kids play this game on this beach for years. This year, Daniel joined in for the first time.

Today, he agreed. And he spent a glorious hour, diving for the ball, blocking shots and generally getting along like a house on fire with the Italian boys. And, again, being Italians — who can be effusive in their praise of outsiders  — they clapped and praised and were just generally awesome to him. We all agreed to continue the game tomorrow. 

Daniel holds his own among football-crazy Italian teens.

So I will leave next week feeling immensely satisfied that my son has experienced cross-cultural friendship and solidarity, and that he will look back when he’s older with warm memories of his Italian friends. 

No letter next week, as I will hopefully be on the road headed back to the chilly northern climes.