Lessons of Florence

I knew the time would come when it would be obvious what my next words to you would be. I was worried you see, because with my whirlwind tour of the United States - both by plane and in my own emotional experience of seeing too many people I care about (and not all unfortunately) in too short a period of time - I landed here in Florence in a bit of a lump. A lump who really wasn’t sure how she felt about the whole thing. Should I write about the comparisons, the observations? The fact that somehow in the ten short months I was gone someone changed the color of the ten dollar bill to yellow. Or the ones I was given simply were going “bad” or something. And no one told me that we now have cyborgs running around the United States. Everywhere I looked there were things that looked like human beings - mostly in airports and Los Angeles - who seemed to be getting commands through this metal attachment in their ear. Additionally I never knew that Maryland had so many intermarriages. Everywhere I looked there were multi-racial couples. Or it may have always been like that and I only came to notice because of the deep segregation I experience and observe in Italy now as my new norm. No one is black - or hardly anyone - except the people selling illegal rip-off’s of Gucci handbags on the street. Or Dawn who came to visit me several months ago. An occasional tourist, college student. But the Italians don’t seem to know what to do with them. They find them just as shocking as my very tall gorgeous blond friend Anna from Sweden. You remember her. So seeing mult-racial couples everywhere was just a reminder to me that - no matter what we think - the United States has come a LONG way baby ahead of a lot of other lovely “destinations” which we all like to fantasize about.

I didn’t like driving everywhere, I have to admit. I don’t miss that at all. I love being back here and be able to walk in a city. And it is a beautiful city. For the first time I sat on Ponte Santa Trinita the other day and just looked at the Ponte Vecchio like the tourists do. The sky is a beautiful blue now, the clouds white dots and the light illuminates the stones of the buildings as brilliantly as if you are in a post card. Which, I guess, sometimes when the world becomes too brutal it can be nice to live in a postcard. As long as you don’t expect it to be anything but one-dimensional. That’s where the disappointment comes. The harsh reality.

I’m really trying to decide how to tell you about my apartment being robbed a few days before my return. I mean there is not much to say of course — some gypsies apparently according to the police robbed the neighborhood on this holiday on which it happens every year because everyone leaves the city. So, let’s think for a moment. The police KNOW this day is particularly bad. So they must set up lots more patrols and stuff right? NO… this is AUGUST…. people don’t work hard in AUGUST…. including the government. And even if it was MARCH my thought is that they wouldn’t be beefing up the patrols to protect the apartments….. not when there are Gucci handbag rip-off sellers on the street that they have to drive by every hour so in order that the sellers can pick up all their stuff wrapped in their big white cloths, wait until the police drive by without doing anything, put the cloths down again, and nicely arrange the bags for the group of tourists that are coming down the street to peruse after this inconvenient “interruption of illicit traffic.” And, just for you future visitors to my abode….. it is the TOURISTS who get fined - and big time when caught - for this problem, not the Gucci hand-bag rip-off salesmen. You see the logic is that the tourists should know better then to think they can buy handbags and other items on the streets of Florence. Now why they should know this when it is EVERYWHERE and - one would conclude - obviously condoned by the government because it is EVERYWHERE….. well, I’m sure there is a logic in that. Just don’t get caught, we’re talking thousands of euros okay?

So…. what did the robbers take? Let’s see….. some cash from FITC that was in my desk, one or two important pieces of jewelery (more for sentiment than anything) Luckily I don’t wear a lot of gold so since that’s what they were after it wasn’t terrible. They did, however, steal the two gold hoops and ONE of the two diamond studs that my mother gave me many years ago and that has always meant so much to me. Why they left me with one stud I’ll never know. But I’ve decided to wear it as a symbol of …. something. Not sure what yet but it’s going to be positive believe me!! I had to reopen my second hole which hasn’t seen an earring in it in many, many years but I think it’s worth it! (see photo)

What else have I come home to? Well…. in forty minutes I will be officially an illegal immigrant. I have never been an illegal immigrant before. I have to tell you it - along with jet lag, missing my friends and family and anticipating the year ahead for Aaron and myself - is really messing with my digestion. And making me exhausted. I am sleeping hours and hours during the day and can’t motivate myself to do anything. I am calling it “Questura-itis” for the moment. The Questura - if you recall from one of my first notes - is a horrible place. To be avoided at all costs. It’s the police station more or less and where you have to go to get this thing called “Permesso Soggiorno” or permission to sojourn, among other things. Mine - along with my visa - runs out in…. oh now I see about 36 minutes. I made a terrible “sbagliato” with renewing my permesso. I actually believed if I followed the information given on the “official document” which tells you everything you need in order to renew, then I could just waltz in front of all the other people waiting in line outside the Questura before the doors open (remember - I learned early on that lines mean nothing here ESPECIALLY when waiting at the Questura) go to sportello sei (window six), be second in line and happily hand all my paper work in while I was still legal. Why am I so stupida? Doesn’t Aaron always say “everything takes at least three trips” to get anything done? Isn’t MY own experience that it takes 20?! Mama mia! Can I help it that I had “Questura-itis” and couldn’t get out of bed long enough to do it a day or two earlier? So, when I explained to the lady that if I went away to get the original of something that I actually just happened to have a copy of on me that I would not be legal tomorrow she kindly stated “non mi interessa”… (I think that’s pretty understandable in any language). So…. 30 minutes to go! This illegal status thing really does make me a bit anxious. I have everything I need now (or so I think… haha! tomorrow morning will only be trip TWO!) and I will show up in the police station with all my renewal forms but invalid documents for permission to continue staying in the country and do my best with my lack of advanced Italian to deal with whatever comes at me. I am okay with this. If I get deported, Aaron has promised to take care of Matilda. Or I could go to our meeting at the United States Consulate which is scheduled at 10 tomorrow and demand sanctuary.

But why would I want to request sanctuary from a government that is FUCKING ME!!!@@!@$#$@#$?????? Excuse my language. Aaron did advise me to think about calming down before we take our meeting (oops…. 23 more minutes to go!) but I’ve decided not to. Remember the lovely Consul General who was so supportive and offered the Consulate - on October 5th to be exact - as a first introduction of FITC to the community? And what an opportunity that is…. worth writing press releases don’t you think? And sending out via e-mail, oh, I don’t know, 800+ to the press, tv and radio people of Italy? This morning to be exact. And rearranging the performance schedule of the public performance of the play so this date they needed would work, and purchasing plane tickets to fly in a techie who knows the play to help make things easier, and needing to rent lights for one week longer then we would have in order to be able to accommodate the schedule, and telling important people about it, etc., etc…… Now, I don’t want you to think that it’s canceled. No, that would not be the case. Of course I don’t know the case. Because it has not been revealed to us. No you see, the thing is when you work your butt off trying to really launch something well, professionally, properly, when you have been given the opportunity to write an article on the launch of your company in the only English language paper which serves your major market in all of Florence, when you spend months creating relationships, hours devising the best way to approach them and knowing that, one nice thing you have in your pocket, is the support of the Consulate…. then it does get a little. Oh, what might the word be? Aggravating…. when you get a call from your co-Artistic Director that he received an e-mail from said English language paper that stated the United States Consulate has called said paper and told them not run the article on your company because there may be a change in dates. Let’s see. Article - 750 words. Referral to Consulate event - 40. Am I mad at an absolutely last minute change in plans with no respect to the above and which I don’t “officially” know anything about yet….. no….. this is it…. this is what I have to say - with my six minutes left of being a legal immigrant in Italy - is how dare they?!! How dare the U.S. Consulate - which my tax dollars pay for by the way, lest we forget - think they have the right to stop an article which is the core of the major launch of our campaign of introduction without coming to US first. How dare they is all I have to say. And, being that I have four minutes left of legal status in Italy, I also want to say with all the writing I have been doing over the past eleven months of Italy being such a dysfunctionally managed environment — it is my own government that has really hit me to the core.

VIVA ITALIA!!!!

Ciao ragazzi, spero voi state bene,