As the two month mark of my return to America approaches I feel as if I am almost ready to write the conclusion to my Storia Italiana. I guess the reason it’s been so hard is that I don’t want to write a conclusion. I want to leave it as a dreamy, perfect, extremely difficult but momentous time of my life filled with crowded cobblestone streets, motorini, wine on church steps, and Renaissance architecture.
I left Firenze at 5:30 a.m., May 19th, on a train headed for Rome, my two giant suitcases packed to bursting, my roommate by my side, silently sipping my last caffè latte packed for me by Luciana. I had slept only a few hours that night, getting in my goodbyes to friends and my host family. Luciana pulled out tequila after dinner as a goodbye treat to me, she said it was given to her by a visiting Mexican professor she had hosted who used to drink it and say “tequila makes you happy!” She tried to make me as happy as possible before leaving. Even with the tequila warming my stomach and blurring my vision, and the inevitable tristezza that awaited me at the end of the night with that train ticket and flight information I had tucked away in my carryon bag, the only emotion I could muster was disbelief.
Tomorrow? I would leave? Not hear the bells of the duomo all morning, noon, and night? Not enjoy a mid-morning cappuccino at the local Tabacchi-Bar served to me by Lorenzo or Stefano? Not see my Italian friends the next weekend, running into them at any one of our usual hangouts? Not be served a steaming hot three course Italian meal at precisely 8 p.m. the next evening? This was my life, how could all of that just disappear?
But I learned quickly it would be me that was disappearing. I watched the tears build in the eyes of my friends as I hugged and kissed them on both cheeks goodbye. I watched Luciana turn abashedly away from me and cut off her usual incessant chatter after making me promise to write. But for me the tears didn’t come, the belief never came. It was I who was variable, who had grown dependent on the consistency of this city, these people: static in the ever more futuristic modern world. But I who would leave, my return uncertain.
The Italians have different ways of saying “goodbye,” there is the informal “ciao” or “bye,” the more formal “Arrivederci,” “goodbye,” and then there is “Addio,” “goodbye forever (farewell, perhaps?)” As I said my goodbyes I couldn’t help but wonder which would be most appropriate, my rational side leaning towards the latter, but never admitting that. “I’ll be back soon! Come visit in Seattle! Keep in touch!” "Ciao-ciao!"
Even as the train pulled out of Stazione Santa Maria Novella and I watched my city recede on the skyline my throat did not choke, my eyes did not fill with salty tears, in my mind I sent my salutations to the red rooftops as they blurred past my window: “Ciao Firenze. A dopo.”
Now, two months later and still finding myself longing for my city, my lifestyle, the stability I had found in the unfamiliar, I wonder about that return. As time passes however, and my once reality slips farther into my memory, the impossibility of returning seems to grow. If I go back it will be to stay, at least for a while, Firenze was not my tourist stop, I could never just go walk across the Ponte Vecchio and visit the David and call it a vacation. Florence was for living, for eating, drinking, filling the streets at night, dodging tourists and high prices, meeting locals with a passion for their own history and a working knowledge of The Divine Comedy, and uncovering a culture as rich and unexpected as it is classic and romantic.
Italy made me both discover and accept that I don't know what my future holds, but that what's most important is where I've been and who I've become; and forever Italia and Firenze will have been a part of that winding road that led me to where I am, no matter where that may be.
