In Which She Feels Very American

Milan, Lombardy, Italy

A couple of weeks ago I took the advice of a fellow expat and registered online as a member of "Democrats Abroad," a pretty self-explanatory sort of organisation. A few days later I received an email invitation to a dinner and conference call with U.S. House Representative Nancy Pelosi at the home of a Democrat living in Milan, and I thought that's be a sweet event to attend so I got the day off from au pairing, found a host for Friday night (coincidentally another graduate of Colorado College, 1978 - thirty years before me), and took the 90 minute train from Turin to Milan.


The dinner party was held in one of the nicest houses in the entire city, a 500-square-meter flat with high ceilings, marble floors, and four Filipino maids in grey and white uniforms. Yikes. I arrived an hour and a half too early, in boots and jeans, and was mildly alarmed to find two thin, tan, stressed PTA-mom types setting up the wine glasses... but then everyone else started arriving, namely a dashing theatre actor who reminded me of the bad hot guy from "The Devil Wears Prada" and kept replacing my glass of wine, and I felt more comfortable. The 50ish of us crowded around the laptop to listen in on Nancy Pelosi's international phone call - broadcast also to American Democrats in Bologna, Florence, Naples, and Rome - during which she urged us to continue supporting Obama and Biden, encourage other Americans to vote for members of the SENATE (or Congress? Oh, dear...) so the Democratic candidate wins by a landslide rather than a margin, and thanked us for our involvement from overseas. We do indeed have a unique perspective on this election, and as there are not just hundreds but thousands of us in Italy alone, we do have an impact on the final result. After the phone call, we mixed, mingled and milled about two long banquet tables laden with a variety of gourmet catered lasagnas, fresh bread, an exquisite salad, and who knows how many bottles of alcohol. Someone commented to me over a cigarette on the balcony that it was ironic that our Democratic meeting should take place in the home that looked most like it was owned by a Republican.


It was interesting to rub shoulders with other expatriates and to swap explanations as to why and for how long we are (or have been) in Italy. Made me think a lot about what it would be like to live here instead of the United States... no definitive answers yet.

Another event that revealed some of the finer cultural differences between Americans and Italians took place in our living room, the assembly of twin IKEA dressers for my bedroom. We'd had the parts lying about boxes for two days, awaiting an evening when A--- was available to help me put it together. Or so I thought. Wednesday night, he's home, I'm home, and I mentioned the dressers. I told them I've had much experience assembling IKEA furniture by myself, and will probably just need him to help me move it once it's done. He, however, has already called his 19-year-old nephew to come over and help us. But why do we need him?, I asked. I know how to do it. No, he shakes his head, last time it took us three hours to put a piece of furniture together. We need him.

Three turned out to be a crowd, of course, and I ended up being the one to turn this piece over in the right direction, to exchange this screw for that peg, because they seemed to have no idea what they were doing. I was surprised to find that A--'s metal toolbox contained only the barest essentials: three small screwdrivers, one somewhat odd wrench, a hammer that was more like a mallet. I thought about my dad's toolbox at home, the one I began to sift through with curious interest as early as 3 or 4 years old, exuding the smell of metal and oil, stuffed to capacity with wrenches of all sizes, drill bits, big hammers and little hammers, several pairs of pliers, wirecutters, and sprinkled with countless, mismatched pieces of hardware. This toolbox, however sounds hollow upon closure, its contents rolling around the empty space when carried. I don't think the boys know the difference between a socket wrench and an open-ended wrench like I do. I also know (from an art class, actually, go figure) that it's faster and more effective to hold a hammer low down on the handle, letting the weight of the head drive the nail, rather than holding it close to the head and keeping all the tension in your wrist; but no one else - not even the adult men - seemed familiar with that rule.

Construction experience aside, however, I found that my attempts to help were gently refused. I was allowed to hammer some tiny nails into the backboard, and press pegs into pre-drilled holes. Screwing and lifting were out of the question. At one point I stood up and put my hands on my hips, knowing for sure hat I could do this work much more quickly if I were working alone. P-- mistook my sigh of exasperation for something else, and said with great sympathy, "Good thing he's here to help [the nephew]. Mens' muscles are just stronger than ours!" I suppressed a humorless laugh. Conclusion: A girl who knows her way around a toolbox = very, very American.

Lastly, I received my absentee ballot in the mail, to my great delight! They were fascinated by the little check-boxes and bold, official headings, "President of the United States Of America" having not only two but six candidates. Who are these other people?, they wondered, and so did I... no one really cares about them, I replied, the tiniest bit ashamed that I hadn't heard of most of them. I need to read up on some of my local issues so I can make decisions about Berkeley and Alameda. For the first time in my life I'm beginning to actually feel my own nationality, and, to my great surprise, I like it.

Post Script: some excerpts from an email to a friend (because I'm pressed for time and find cutting and pasting easier than rephrasing the same ol' thangs):

"Kids: They started the academic year on Monday, so now we have a schedule. Yahoo! The littlest one has just begun school, so this week he got out at 12,30 each day, while his brother is in school until 4,30-- long days! Next week they'll both get out at 1 on Mondays and Fridays, then at 4.30 each other day. They'll also begin tennis (Fil), maybe judo (Ruggi), and maybe soccer (Ruggi), and I'll be in charge of trucking them around via bus/walking to their various activities. What a glamorous life I lead, with juice boxes and boogery tissues floating around the bottom of my purse. They've begun to settle down energywise, thank the gods above, and I think it's going to be an awesome time from here on out.

Life: Generally good. Today I had a quick walk around the city center with a 24-yr-old guy named Patrick who just moved here from Sweden and hopes to work in a ski lodge this winter. Good luck, dude. And I met two other American au pairs today, one from Colorado (!) and another from... one of the states we often forget about completely... Indiana, maybe? They're really sweet, and we're all venturing out tomorrow morning to a free Italian lesson through the visa office. If it's good, I might go to that a couple times a week. I'm also on the hunt for a dance class, but not much is offered in the mornings (my only free time). I managed to locate a salsa class that starts in October... but salsa doesn't strike me as a morning kind of dance, at least not in the same way as modern or, say, yoga... whatever. Beggars can't be choosers, right? Anywho, things are going well. I need to make more time to write for this blog site, so I can make more MOOOONNNEEEYYYYYY.

Crazy adventures: Lately, none, just playing. I was "in prison" today for close to two hours, under the care of Sheriff R---, for the alleged offense of "stealing eleven cows." It was pretty rough. I got snacks, though (crackers), as well as some sunglasses (for when the sun came out in the prison), a snowglobe (for winter) (????), a cell phone (walkie talkie without batteries) "to call my mother," a mirror and a brush "to fix my hair," a pen and paper for drawing, some Scotch tape "to put my drawings up on the walls," and a blanket. Apparently prison is not unlike a two-star hotel, or elementary school."


* post-script

Speaking of American, a Smithsonian writer says of Frank Lloyd Wright, "In his unshakable optimism, messianic zeal and pragmatic resilience, Wright was quintessentially American. A central theme that pervades his architecture is a recurrent question in American culture: How do you balance the need for individual privacy with the attraction of community activity? Everyone craves periods of solitude, but in Wright's view, a human being develops fully only as a social creature."

Bought My First Pack of Cigarettes

Mom and Dad heard this one already, but it's worth sharing at the very least for its humor. My first and somewhat anticlimatic attempt at world-weariness. Accept my apologies for the melodrama.

Important to know that only a couple of hours before my frustrating phone call to vayama.com, I had closed Truman Capote's "Breakfast at Tiffany's" with the lasting impression that fear and sadness can be easily avoided with a martini buzz, the right accessories, and a rather loose (albeit vague) attitude towards men. Aubrey Hepburn's Holly, at the time, was my heroine.

Picture me nearing end of my last day of freedom before the C-- family returns from their week of vacation in Normandy, during which I stayed alone in Torino. It's early evening and the fading afternoon sunlight filters across the hardwood floors to me, barefoot at the marble-topped dining table upon which I've opened my laptop to read the email containing my international flight itinerary. I have the black cordless phone up to my ear, fingers beginning to cramp from their clutched position, and I'm thanking Jamie at Vayama for all of his help, accepting with strained civilty his scripted apologies about my situation. Long story short, I've just discovered that I paid close to 1800.00USD for what turned out to be not a round-trip but a one-way flight from SFO to Turin, Italy, and although that's considerably less than most international one-way flights nowadays it's enough money lost to make me hiss, "Shit. Shit. Shit," into the empty house. I sit for a bit like that, one foot up on the chair, the other on the floor, muttering aloud to myself, eyes going in and out of focus, until I get up and go into the kitchen to hang up the phone and realise that I need to get out of this house NOW. My frustration about losing the battle with the airline companies and third party, my impatience with telephone transactions, my anger with myself for not buying a one-way ticket at the start, underlined by an immense fear accompanying my spanking new lack of a conrete return date: all of these combined, if left to fester within me in this small space would soon leave me in no condition to receive the family back into their (my) home. Still had on the running shorts, wild hair and grubby t-shirt I had this morning. I paced the kitchen like a tense, caged animal. I had to get out.

Recalling the unshakeable composure of Capote's Holly Golightly, I thought what better way to take a furious walk than in style? It might lift my spirits to gussy up for all the strangers out there, all those unsuspecting people past whom I will boldly stride in my brisk walk down to the River Po to burn off some of these brittle, bright red feelings I have bundled up like so much tinder. I donned the black mid-thigh jersey dress from Old Navy that Mom sent me a few weeks back; slipped on my new black flats with sturdy, audible heels; cinched a little red belt around my waist, applied a generous amount of eyeliner and my new rose lipstick from Paris; angrily stuffed into a shoulder bag my wallet, mobile, an apple, journal; and then, with my chin up and unnecessarily huge sunglasses on, strode out of the apartment building onto the warm sidewalks of a European city transitioning from late afternoon to early evening. Ha-rumph! I hate you, vayama.com! Stupid United Airlines! Stupid three-month limit on my round trip ticket! Stupid lady who gave me the wrong info the first time I called!

Destination: The River Po. (When I came to this part of my story, Dad said, "No! Don't jump!") More or less fifteen minutes away from the house on foot, I figured I could steam along the oft busy Corso Vittorio Emmanuele II until the park near the River, then sit for awhile and vent into my diary like the predolescent schoolgirl I sometimes am before going home again. I walked two blocks in a blink, anxious anger settling into more of a vague mauve depression, when some mangy young "tamarro" (Italian word for the guy who drives by in a tricked out outdated sedan that once belonged to his uncle, wearing reflective aviators and blasting techno) approached me on the right, muttered something rude-sounding into my ear, grabbed a huge handful of my ass and squeezed it, HARD, before jogging away. I had just enough time to widen my eyes in serious, serious disbelief, and gasp aloud-- but, because of my dark Olsen-twin glasses, I think he registered only the lipsticked gasp, and I can hardly bear to think of the satisfaction he probably gathered from that. Ugh. What a PERV! My fury flared up anew, though this time shaded with indignation and disgust, and having no one to turn to I said to myself, You know what? That does it. I'm fed up with

being lonely,
with
sucking up my frustration!
and
impatience!
and
sadness,
with
not having any G.D. friends in Turin,
with
THIS
and
THAT, and
that other thing...

and worked myself into such a huff that I may have alarmed the poor guy who sold me my first packet of cigarettes in a convenient shop near the train station, Porta Nuova. I don't even know what kind they are, or what led me to choose the box I chose. Whatever I saw behind the counter that wasn't Marlboros (because that makes me think of the anti-smoking cowboy ads of my youth, the tan denim men toasting frothy beer mugs with body bags (Remember those?), and then I feel REALLY bad). While I've smoked a cigarette or two in my life, I've never before actually bought my own pack: a streak I was, afterward, somewhat remiss to break. The remaining seventeen now cower pathetically in the bottom corner of my handbag, ashamed of themselves for sharing my purse with the kids' juice boxes and afternoon snacks.

I digress. Basically, I was tired of being so danged healthy about my feelings and my body and everything, for taking care of myself for such a long time, being a good girl who generally does the right thing, and decided that I had experienced in this day two moments of such profound disappointment - in the travel companies that should have secured for me my passage home from this crazy job I've undertaken, and in Men (Yes. ALL of you.) for grabbing girls' butts. It's just. not. nice. So I bought some cigarettes halfway between my house and the River, eventually sat down on the lawn in Parco Valentino to write in my journal and proceeded to smoke three in a row. Also burned a couple of holes in the page, just for kicks. After ten or fifteen minutes of chain-smoking I stood up, brushed all the dead grass off my butt, noted the nasty blisters forming on my heels on account of the new shoes and not-so-leisurely stroll, and headed home. At a pedestrian stoplight I reached into my purse to light up one more, clinging stubbornly to my waning rage like the kid whose tantrum was interrupted by someone saying, "Don't smile! Don't smile!," keeps whimpering after the tears have stopped, when my hand instead brushed the apple... and Good, Rational Lauren shook an admonishing finger at wannabe Hepburn's movie character Lauren, brought the apple to her lips instead of the cigarette. When I got home I showered, hung my dress outside to dispel any odor of nicotine, and tidied up the house. Later that evening after a raucous reunion with the C-- family, I sat in the living room with the parents and told them about my cancelled plane ticket. P-- was mildly surprised at my frustration. Spreading her hands wide and lifting her eyebrows, she said, "Oh, but, Lauren. It's only MONEY." And very secretly in my head (next to the cowardly box of cigarettes nestled deep in my shoulder bag) I screamed at the top of my slightly-blackened lungs a series of ugly words in two different languages.