Piazza Maggiore

Franco has promised me the computer and printer in two days (Wednesday).  I was an absolute wreck.  I cleaned everything twice I think.  I didn’t go as far as hanging the mattress out the window the way many Italian women did — I didn’t have a bed yet and my daughter and I were sleeping on the couch and loveseat that came with the flat.  I baked something with cinnamon to ensure a welcoming scent to the flat.  I looked around and tried to make the place look as inviting as possible for only having lived there a few days.  I had no art, no homemade pillows which were a staple in my house; no flowers on the table.  I felt a ping of sadness.  There was no life other than my little girl’s natural brightness.  I spruced up my kitchen cupboards with pictures that Sasha had painted in her American preschool.  I pulled out one of my great-grandmother’s table scarves from one of the boxes that had arrived ahead of me.  Damn, I didn’t have an iron…. but I had a blow dryer.  I sprinkled water on the cotton cloth and set the dryer on the highest setting.  No one was going to catch me with a house that didn’t look somewhat like a home…. I didn’t care how much I had to improvise.  The table scarf didn’t look half-bad on the antique dark wooden table.  I didn’t much care for the ornately carved wooden chairs, but I was told they were antiques.  I was thankful to have anything to sit on!

I didn’t want to wander too far from the flat in case I would miss Franco, but I still wanted flowers for the middle of the table.  Flowers always brightened up any room.  I thought about all the margheritas I’d seen in the garden outside the building.  Margheritas in Italy are tiny white daises.  I grabbed the cell phone and my daughter (who always wanted to be outside) and commenced flower picking.  I didn’t have a vase, but I did have small glass jars from the yogurt my daughter and I loved.  I took three of the empties and arranged them  in the middle of the table.  I corralled them with a white ribbon that I usually wore in my hair.  Now the flat looked more homey, and I was a bit more relaxed at having Franco in it.

Two o’clock came and went and that was the time he said he’d arrive.  Three o’clock.  I was trying to be patient thinking maybe he would call if he couldn’t find the place.  Three-thirty.  Okay, I would have to call.  When I called he said that he had been very busy, but that I would have the computer tomorrow.  Okay I thought, no problem.  Businesses get busy and things get away from you; I understood.

The next day I went out again to the garden because the tiny margheritas did not survive the night.  I made sure all the dishes were done and again the place looked neat.  I didn’t have the fresh smell of cinnamon like I had the day before so I made cinnamon french toast for brunch.  Franco had said that he would be there around 11.  Eleven came and went.  Twelve.  Twelve-thirty.  I called the shop.  No answer.  My heart was really beginning to sink.  The suspicious American started to creep in, and I wondered if maybe I’d been had.  Finally, at 1:30 he picked up the phone.  He said that he would be there in an hour.  Well it was two and it wasn’t Franco that walked through my front door.

via Ugo Bassi in Bologna

I walked into the coffee bar and felt as though I’d stepped into a whirlwind.  The bar was noisy and crowded and I felt completely intimidated because my Italian was virtually non-existent.  I very timidly said “a coffee?” when the barista asked what I would like.  He replied “un café Americano?”  I knew enough to know that whatever he was asking me was not what I wanted.  I had grown quite fond of the tiny coffees that Italians would drink, and all I could reason was that he was asking me if I wanted something in a typical American style and that wasn’t why I moved to Italy.  “He’s asking you if you want your coffee in the big American style with lots of water,” a fashionable young man sporting D&G sunglasses atop his head explained.  I managed a timid head nod with a shaky “uh no.”  “Regular style, you want it in the normal style?”  “Yes, thank you,” I said almost too quickly.  I was green.  I knew it, and it wasn’t going to serve me well I thought.  These Italians would see that I was just another stupid American wanting to live in Italy and thinking that she can come here and just do it all by herself.  I wasn’t going to fool anyone.  Somehow I managed to also order a juice for my daughter and find a seat to pass the time until Franco’s shop opened.

As I settled my daughter and me at the table, the owner of the coffee bar and I should mention it’s name here, “L’Incontro” (the meeting), came over and introduced himself as Claudio.  His English was very poor, but he really tried to communicate with both me and my daughter.  I was starting to see a pattern in the attention given to her.  She was a beautiful blond-haired blue-eyed charmer and, of course, she was always dressed in dresses, tights and Mary Janes when we went out.  I noticed that most Italian children were in pants and clunky shoes and that their clothes didn’t have the vibrant colors that my daughter always sported.  The clothes looked, well…… poor.  A second barista came over to talk to us as well.  He introduced himself as “Jones”.  I gave him a quizzical look for having such a strange name.  “Jones?” I asked.  “Si, Jones.”  Uh, ok.  His English was a bit better.  I explained to Claudio and Jones that I was waiting for the computer shop to open, when Claudio turned and said “Oh Franco?” and motioned to Franco sitting at a table nearby.  I was surprised that I hadn’t noticed him earlier and kind of surprised that he didn’t say hello to me when he first saw me.  An American woman pushing a baby stroller in a very small coffee shop wasn’t the easiest thing to miss.  Franco greeted me and stood up to pay his bill and leave.  He asked “You are waiting for me?”  “Yes,” I said.  “I want to buy the computer and printer today.”  “Bene,” (good) he said.  “Come with me.”  He expected us to follow yet at the same time, didn’t wait for me to gather Sasha, the stroller and my purse.  I thought ‘okay that’s a little rude’ and had no idea that I had better get used to this type of thing from not every Italian, but definitely Franco, in particular.  The boy needed some schooling.

I said goodbye to Claudio and Jones and thanked them for everything.  They told me to come back and both beamed at Sasha and referred to her as “piccolina.”  That was the second time I’d heard to her referred that way and knew it had to mean ‘small something’ if I took the meaning from the musical instrument, the piccolo.

I crossed the street and entered Franco’s shop.  He was all down to business and I purchased the computer and printer.  He then offered to load all the software I would need, for free!  I didn’t realize that laptops there came ‘bare bones.’  He also offered to deliver everything to my house and set it up for me with my phone lines.  Wow.  That was incredibly nice of him.  I, of course, thought, ‘hooray… now he’ll know where I live and I’ll get another chance to see him again!’  Again, he made small talk with Sasha who hadn’t wanted to get back into her stroller for the trip across the street so she had been left to wonder around the shop and look at all the computer games.  Franco managed to find a small toy in the back for her and knelt beside her to let her take it from him.  His face lit up when he talked to her as mom, of course, ceased to exist.  Whenever this man talked to me and looked me square in the eyes, I swear I couldn’t hear anything…. but my heart felt everything.  I couldn’t explain why I was feeling the way I was, but my heart had been captured, held in abeyance for every word he uttered.

I couldn’t wait to have the computer delivered and as the door to the shop closed behind me, I could breathe again.

The view from my Flat!

It was time to check out my Flat where I would spend the next three years and furnish my house.  IKEA rocks!  Let’s just establish that right off the bat.  After I met with my new landlord, and discovered that I was perhaps moving into Nirvana — I had a view of the San Luca sanctuary on one hill and a monastery turned restaurant on another and was on the top floor of the building (only four stories, but I didn’t have thundering footsteps above me!), I had to go shopping again!  I thought it strange that none of my windows had screens on them, but was assured that I needn’t purchase any as the city “took care of” the mosquito problem yearly.  I still felt weird about leaving my windows open at night, but the place wasn’t air conditioned.  I was assured that I wouldn’t need a fan either.  uh huh.  Who did these silly Italians think they were talking to?  I humored them and didn’t buy a fan on my first shopping trip.  Instead, I bought everything else.  Bathroom stuff, kitchen stuff, a bed plus sheets (the couches, dining room table and washer were furnished) and a TV and VCR.

Now there’s a funny something about buying a TV in Italy.  You have to pay a yearly tax to have a television.  No, I’m not kidding.  I later got out of it by stating to the man who came to the door that my TV was used for lessons for my students and they were learning English through the use of video tapes and that I NEVER EVER watched Italian TV because I didn’t understand a word they were saying anyway.  It was true for the first year.  Based on the quality of the television shows on Italian TV, they should have paid me to put up with it.  All the quality stuff came from America: West Wing, Law & Order, ER, hell I could have just bought video tapes.

Next came grocery shopping.  Stores in Italy keep interesting hours.  I swear they make them up as they see fit from day to day.  You must always keep in mind the National Holidays.  Okay, got that.  Then there are the regional holidays. Uh, okay.  Then the city or suburb holidays.  Umm, what?  And don’t forget the bus and train strike beginning and ending times, because you may get stuck holding onto to dairy products in the sweltering heat and walking home.  I swear I learned to dart out of my house like a damn rabbit at times just to have fresh milk around.  I wondered why Italians kept UHT milk in their homes — I quickly learned why.

In Italian grocery stores, all the portions are much smaller.  Forget about finding four sticks of butter in a carton.  You buy them 100g at a time…… cuz Italian women… well, they don’t bake so much.  They BUY their baked goods because that’s the specialty of their local shop.  What was I thinking wanting to go and make a carrot cake…… and what’s a carrot cake, anyway?

My daughter had fun unpacking and helping me set up our new household while I dodged questions from my father about what the hell was I doing and when was I going to start making some money.  Why did I give my parents my cell phone number again?  I couldn’t remember.  I checked my driver’s license to make sure I was still 38.

Every morning upon awakening I went to my bathroom, opened the windows out to the rolling hills of Bologna (Casalecchio di Reno) and thanked God that he had given me the opportunity to leave out my dream.  Yes, I had a good hand in it because I worked my ass off to get there and had to trade things like the convenience of having a car and just hopping in and heading to the mall, and seeing my family whenever I wanted and my friends, and all the spoils of a life lived in the U.S; I thanked God anyway.  I traded life in America for a slower pace, a richer existence and the opportunity to write…. in Italy.  That alone would have been enough.

Every morning I also thought about the handsome computer shop owner I met.

It was time to return to that shop and buy my computer.  My hands shook as I put on makeup.  I couldn’t recall being that nervous in a long while.  I tried to shake the idea that this was important to me.  It didn’t work.  I piled my daughter into a cab, took it to the city centre and stopped in front of Franco’s shop.  After stepping out of the cab and getting my two-and-a-half-year-old daughter settled in her stroller, I realized the shop was closed.  Damn those “working hours” of the Italians.  I remembered there was a coffee bar just a few doors down and decided to kill a few minutes there.  Little did I know I was about to meet two other men that would become very dear friends to two grateful American ex-pats.

The two towers of Bologna

After three days of exploring Rome and seeing the sights, we boarded a train and headed north. It had been a few years since I’d been on a passenger train (the last being in Chicago) and this was my daughter’s first train ride. As I watched out the window at the passing farmland and countryside of Italy, I thought how very similar everything looked to the U.S. Sort of like the drive across Indiana from Cleveland to Chicago. The farms were smaller, a little more rustic, but you saw the same goats, sheep, and chickens. I remember thinking it strange that I didn’t also see cows. The biggest difference in the countryside was that there were many small tracts with olive groves and vineyards. I also remember seeing a lot more laundry hanging out than I had in a very long time in the States! I didn’t know then that most Italian households didn’t have dryers because of the kilowatts required to run one!

We arrived at the hotel in Bologna and got settled in.  Matteo pointed out a few of the logistics so I could navigate the city alone until we went to my apartment in a couple of days.

The first day in Bologna I was rather timid.  My tour guide had returned to his family home in the city and I was alone with my toddler daughter in a strange city and country.  Did I feel intimidated and scared?  You betcha!  Shaking in my shoes to be exact.  I steadied my nerves with a glass of wine at dinner.  I reminded myself that no one was going to set out to deliberately hurt me; I reminded myself that I was a very smart woman.  I reminded myself that I had a return ticket home should I need it; and I also reminded myself that I had a bank account with tens of thousands of dollars in it should I need it.  I was going to be okay.  I needed a cell phone and a computer in order to start living and working in the country, so I went shopping.

I first got the cell phone and charged it with money.  Having walked around the city a bit, I knew there was a small computer shop, just doors away from the hotel on via Galliera.  As I strode towards the stores pushing my daughter in her stroller, I simply hoped that the laptop I wanted wouldn’t be too expensive.  I pushed open the door to the shop and an inside patron was kind enough to hold the door open for me while I tilted the stroller up the step.  I saw a couple of people standing near a small desk and then from the back of the shop, out HE came.

I’m not sure exactly what happened next because I suddenly couldn’t feel my feet touching the ground any longer.  I had to remind myself to breathe and when I say I had to remind myself… I mean I HAD TO REMIND MYSELF… there was an actual internal dialogue going on where I said “take a breath” and “put one foot in front of the other”.  I had been, as I would later learn, struck by the thunderbolt! There he was, a tall, dark-haired, dark-eyed GORGEOUS Italian man.  I wanted to know his name.  Wanted to know if he was married.  Wanted to know if he had one of those fabulous, romantic-sounding Italian names.  Wanted to hear him speak to know what his voice sounded like, AND OH MY GOD THOSE LIPS!  They were perfect.  I immediately wanted to kiss them.

Something from behind me pushed me forward, and I can only surmise that it was my guardian angel stepping in to make sure I didn’t make a complete fool of myself.  I asked him if he spoke English.  He said “yes_if_you_speak_slowly.”  I tried my best to compose myself and choose proper English words instead of bastardized American.   He understood what I needed and quoted me prices on a laptop and a printer.  He said he could deliver them to my home and set them up for me.  Fine by me, but I didn’t have a home yet.  I told him that I would definitely return to purchase them and let him know where to deliver them.    I asked him name.  “Franco,” he replied.  Oh my God, my heart lurched; it was wonderful and romantic-sounding, of course at this point, he could have said “mud” and I would have thought it romantic.  I introduced myself and motioned to my daughter, ‘Sasha.’  “Ciao piccolina,” he said.

I left the shop still barely able to breathe and not sure what had happened to me.  I hadn’t been looking for a man, hell, I had just arrived in the damn country for cris’ sake.  But my God, he was gorgeous.  And sweet.  And kind to my daughter.  Oh he had to be married or have a girlfriend.  There was no way that a man that good looking or nice wasn’t already taken.

I returned to the hotel, thinking I’d probably see him again only to buy the computer and printer and that would be it.

As we approached Rome, I craned my neck towards the window expecting to see something “Roman”.  Nothing.  I could have been landing in the middle of the plain states.  I worried for a second that I’d gotten on the wrong plane or that I was having a nightmare.  This didn’t feel like Rome.  It didn’t look like Italy.  Only when the pilot spouted the local weather forecast did I begin to feel at ease.  I looked around.  No one else looked like they were about to panic.  Maybe we were in Rome after all.  I wasn’t convinced, however, these people could all be players in some giant ruse designed to placate my 28-year old longings.  I didn’t realize at the time that I was sleep deprived and on the verge of delusions.  I decided to wait until the we taxied to the terminal before waking my daughter.  Once passengers started gathering their belongings, I decided not to wake her until the plane was almost empty, and I could retrieve her stroller from the flight attendants.  I was the last one in line to get off the plane.  I crossed the threshold from the plane to the gate and took the stroller from the attendant.  I turned around to get back on the plane and retrieve my daughter and was immediately blocked.  I was told I was not permitted to go back on board and get my two-year-old who was sleeping.  I explained to them that they told me that they would bring the stroller to me at the end of the flight, but didn’t, so I had to come get it.  The fact that they took it off the plane and didn’t let me have it until I was off the plane was their problem.  I told them in no uncertain terms that I WAS going back onto that plane to get my child.  I was surrounded by airline staff, but I stood my ground.  They were either coming with me, or I was going through them.  As I met their gaze with the unwavering nerve of an American, one finally said “come, I will go with you.”  As he headed down the aisle and reached my daughter before I did, he waved to the rest of the crew “yes, there is a child here.”  They then offered their assistance.  At this point, I didn’t want it.

I thought the next obstacle would be customs.  I was simply hoping that I looked pathetic enough with four large bags, two check-on bags, a purse, a child and a stroller that they wouldn’t ask me to open anything.  Pathetic worked and they only looked on with sympathy.

I pushed the baggage cart and Sasha’s stroller through the halls until suddenly entering a large open area.  As people stood behind ropes waving to their loved ones, I looked for the person that would resemble the pictures of my contact, Matteo.  What I saw was this short little Italian man waving timidly to me.  We embraced, he greeted Sasha and said “welcome to Rome.”  We grabbed a taxi and he gave the driver the name of the hotel in the city center where he had booked my room.  I didn’t notice until later that I had looked so pathetic that Roman immigration officials had failed to stamp my passport.  One thing I had waited so many years to collect still eluded me.  Matteo later said that was a good thing as it would allow me to stay in the country for a long time without detection.  I wouldn’t understand the relevance of this remark until years later.

Matteo helped me load all the bags into our room, and after exchanging some currency to Lire and a short rest, he took us out to see some of the sights in Rome.  He asked me where I wanted to go first.  I said “you know.”

“Of course,” he replied.  “To the Fountain.”

*********

Pictures of the Trevi Fountain deceive the eye.  You would think it is this huge monument with a plaza in front of it, or at least a large park.  This is simply not true.  Matteo led the way through small narrow streets, turned a corner and suddenly there it was.  It felt surreal that I could be walking along a nondescript cobblestone path, and hundreds of years old monument appear out of nowhere!

The Fountain took my breath away.  I walked toward the base, a zombie.  Mesmorized by the sight my heart had longed to see, feel and touch for so much of my life, I felt nothing.  It wasn’t real to me yet. I had to really stretch to touch the waters, as the wall between the public and the water is wide.  Spray from the Fountain is everywhere, however, and many of the benches in front of Neptune and his horses are constantly wet.  No one seems to mind.

I stood for a long time, taking in the sight.  I sat.  I stood.  I didn’t want to leave.  Matteo finally asked, “are you going to throw your coin?”

“I don’t think one will be enough.  I need three.”

He looked at me quizzically, but held out his hand with an array of Italian coins.  I took two of his and one American quarter.  I turned my back and threw the quarter and thanked the fountain for calling me “home”.  I threw the first Italian coin to wish that I would become the woman, the writer, that I had always known I could be; and with the last Italian coin, I wished for my return to Rome.

Having accomplished what I set out to complete first, we walked to the Roman Forum.  When I saw the beauty of the columns, the covered archaeological explorations, the stone that was more than a thousand years old, I cried.  It’s a wonder I have the pictures that I do from this day.  I cried silently, my body trembled.  I had more of a reaction to it than Fontana di Trevi (but I believe I had been numb).  I was finally realizing that I was there…. in Rome… in Italy and that this would be my home now.

We spent the next two days seeing the sights in Rome.  Matteo was an incredible tour guide.  He said his favorite city in all of the world is Rome and that he loved showing new people around.  I loved the small hotel where we stayed.  A tiny little fountain of its own anchored the courtyard.  My daughter loved watching the coi with their brightly colored scales swimming around in the clear reflective water.

I struggled a bit to feel comfortable that I had arrived in Rome.  I didn’t expect to wake up in the country where I had longed to be living for more than 28 years.  I realized that I had wanted to live in Italy longer than I had wanted to live in the USA.  I felt guilty.  I had been schooled all my life to think that the United States was the greatest country in the world.  Brainwashed into thinking that everyone longed for the opportunity to come to the land of the free.  So, why did I rebel and want to leave?  Perhaps it was the knowledge that other countries place a greater value on family and less value on stuff.  In other countries it is more difficult to keep up with the Joneses as other countries do not have the abundance of credit available to the masses and the U.S. does.  (Keep in mind as I’m writing about the year 2000, not present day).

At the end of the third day in Rome, it was time to head north to Bologna, where my daughter and I would live for the next three years.

(Next installment:  the fateful meeting of the man who would reawaken my heart to the possibility of love – Franco)

I had to figure out a way to eventually tell my parents that I was moving to Italy.  So I called my cousin first and told him what was going on.  He’d always been supportive and understanding.  He was also well-traveled and cultured so I knew I had a kindred spirit on the other end of the phone.  He advised me basically what I knew to be true all along — that I had to follow my heart.  I was worried about the impact on my young daughter, but he assured me that she would grow more than I could imagine through the experience of living in a different country.

I obtained a letter of offer of employment from my Bologna contact for a teaching position.  I first showed it to my mother.  I had her break the news to my father.  I won’t go into all the details of how they took it, or their reactions, because it’s in the past and it’s personal.  Needless to say, it was a bit rough for a while and then it smoothed out.

In the coming days, and really, there were mere DAYS until the departure date, I held a garage sale and sold the majority of the little things.  Then it was time to quit my job.  I also had to do with with very little notice as I was working for a friend who wanted to keep me right where I was…. working for her, for an inconsistent level of pay and inconsistent paydays.  Yeah, no thanks.  I quit that job on the spot and felt no regrets.  She owed me thousands.

The third week of September 2000 came almost too soon.  I felt as though as I leaving so much undone!  My house auction was set to go forth two days after my arrival in Rome.  I knew if I got to Rome and things weren’t as I had hoped that I had time to stop the sale.  My daughter was excited, and I knew that although she was too young to really understand the impact of what we were doing, that she and I would be okay together.  As my father put the bags in the car and we drove to the airport, I really didn’t have any fear.  We were taking a late flight out of Cleveland to Detroit and then from Detroit, we would fly to Rome.  At the airport, my daughter and my father sat at the window and looked out at the plane we would soon board.  My mother made small talk with me while we waited for the flight to be called.  I remember thinking only that I hoped I would be okay knowing I was flying over water for a long period of time.  I hated flying over Lake Erie for thirty seconds when I’d come into CLE; I couldn’t imagine the terror of knowing I’d be over the Atlantic for seven hours!  It still makes my stomach lurch!

When the flight was called I hugged my mother.  Again, I won’t mention my father’s reaction.  I knew it would either work itself out, or it wouldn’t.  All I knew was that I had to live my life my way, right or wrong.

We arrived in Detroit, got to our next gate and then boarded the plane to Rome.  I’d never been on a 747 before and WOW I can still remember how big it was!  I had also never been on an international flight and this one was FILLED with homebound Italians.  I got my first taste of hearing Italian constantly and seeing the animated gestures with which they talked.  As my daughter and I settled in, she eventually fell asleep.  Much to MY dismay, the airline chose to put a graphic on the screen of the plane’s exact position, including the part where we would be flying over water!  As I watched the plane arc up and over Nova Scotia, I sort of hoped that another land mass would suddenly appear and we could simply puddle jump from one country to the next.

Yeah, it didn’t work out that way.  My daughter fell asleep and I white-knuckled it all the way to Rome.

I have a method of reaching big goals. I start out by not telling anyone else what I’m doing until the plans are firmly under way. I knew I would eventually have to tell my employer and my parents. My parents found out AFTER I had scheduled the auction of my house. My employer found out 10 days before I was leaving. People often turn into naysayers when you undertake something big. No one really asks you if you would like some advice; they just give it.

So I decided to keep a few people in the dark. I had enough to keep me busy anyway. Passports, downsizing of my household, a garage sale to arrange and friends to see before I left for good.

I decided to move to Italy with the mindset of never coming back. It would be easier to stay committed to the goal if I thought I had no choice but to make it work.

“Matteo” and I quickly hit it off.  In no time, we were discussing books, our lives, our travels and most importantly, my desire to live in Italy.  We talked by phone constantly.  Yes, he was married; I was in no mood to meet someone.  We simply discovered another person who loved books, esoteric thought and possibilities.  And then, he challenged me.  He threw down the gauntlet and dared me to pick it up.  “You can live there and dream of moving here, or you can move here.”  Well that just pissed me off.  For years, it was easy to say how much I wanted to live there.  Easier to live in the possibilities and dreams rather than make them realities.  For crying out loud, I was a single, widowed mom…. what business did I have in running away to a foreign country, two-year-old in tow?!  How irresponsible would that make me?

I decided to find out.    “Matteo” and I began talking in June.  By early-July, I knew I was going to move there.  He pushed me every step of the way to set concrete goals.  Without that, I don’t think I would have had the courage to do it and live the dream as though I was determined to make it a reality.  I had lost something with the death of my husband…. my courage… my feeling of safety and security in the world.  His death had shaken me to my core and made me a scared single mother not certain if I could raise my daughter properly.

So many times I vacillated in my belief in myself.  I could be certain I was strong enough to move in the morning and by the afternoon, be afraid to book the plane tickets.  But Matteo promised he would help me once I arrived in Rome.  He promised.  Now I had met people online in the past and for the most part, had had really good experiences.  He made everything sound so reasonable.  He said “what’s the worst that can happen?…. you show up in an international city where people speak English and Italian, you find out I’m not who I say I am, and you spend a weekend in Rome and go home?  You’ll have your plane ticket, with its return.  You’ll have your traveler’s checks.  And you’ll have your hotel.  You arrive and decide you don’t want to stay and turn around anyway, so why not just get on the plane?”  “At least you’ll finally see your precious Fountain!”

What the hell, I figured.  I can always jump in a cab at the airport and say “Rome.”  It wouldn’t matter if the taxi driver didn’t speak English.  I’d been to New York.

So I set the date for arrival in Rome on September 22, 2000.

Those images of the Fountain haunted me as I grew up.  Everytime  I went through a rough patch, I’d remember the rushing waters, the sounds of the crowd in that movie.  The Trevi Fountain became my escape.  Rome, my imagined real home.  There was nothing I wanted more in the world than to go home.

I grew up, moved into young adulthood and subsequently moved to several different cities around the U.S.  I married and divorced my first husband and met my second.  He, the father of my daughter, told me that I needed to settle down and have a child and my head and heart would finally find the rest it had so long been seeking.  He told me to forget about Rome and all its hedonistic trappings.  I met his design for my life with the eye of someone who had grown up with a dream killer.  I had had a 25-year affair with the Fountain; he was just some guy.  He had no idea what Trevi and I had been through in all our years together.  But I knew he had a purpose in my life.

I felt in love with him because I was supposed to (some things really are written on the stars).  I married him because I knew he was the man that would bring my second most important desire to reality — my daughter.  He passed away while I was pregnant and although at the time my dream of standing in front of Fontana di Trevi was forgotten, I should have known that the Fountain would not forget me.

The next two years were spent being as best a mom as I could, but something was missing.  Yes, I was grieving, but all the emptiness in my heart was not caused by a man that I had been married to for less than a year.  I was sitting in my kitchen trolling Amazon.com one afternoon and read a review by an Italian man.  His rich prose lit a spark in my brain.  As I read review after review that he had written, I decided to pay him a compliment and thank him for such enjoyable reading.  To my surprise, he wrote back.

The Fountain had begun calling me home.

Louis Jourdan was the most suave and debonair man I’d ever seen in all of my 10 years.  His portrayal of the wealthy playboy prince wooing the American girl, set against the backdrop of the Trevi Fountain in Rome, tore my tender young heart open.  I wanted that life.  I wanted to be swept off my feet by a prince just as all those Disney stories promised.  I wanted to feel the excitement, heartache and glamour that a love borne from that Fountain and Rome would bring to me.  Rome held the key.   I just had to get there.  And so, on that very day at the age of 10, I vowed to visit the Fountain.  No, not just visit, but to live there in Italy.

I pointed to the television and proclaimed to my mother who had her head buried in her knitting that I would one day go “to live there.”

“Uh huh,” she said, seemingly nonplussed and smoothing her pattern.

I stared for a moment at her and wrinkled my brow.  How could she not believe me? I looked back to the TV.  Yep, that’s where I was headed, and I didn’t care how long it took me to get there.  I was going to see it.  I was going to toss my coins in,  and I was going to find love in Italy.

I just knew it.

I blame Louis Jourdan.  He was young, handsome and made the romance of Italy come alive.  I don’t think I’d ever heard a smoother talker than he.  For those of you who do not know who Louis Jourdan was… he was a very handsome actor, suave and debonair actor.  His role in Three Coins in the Fountain made me, at 10, swoon with desire to live the glamorous and romantic life in Italy.   Fontana di Trevi, or the Trevi Fountain was the first thing I thought of, everytime I my heart longed for Rome.  He and that beautiful fountain that made everyone around it fall in love, is the reason that I, at ten years of age, pointed to the screen and proclaimed to my mother that I would one day live in Italy.  She scoffed, of course, at the bold declarations of a wide-eyed young girl who knew nothing of how difficult life could be; who knew nothing of where her life would take her.  Certainly, there was no way that a young country girl living on Homeworth Road in Alliance, Ohio was ever going to get herself out of the county, let alone, live in another country.  Get on a plane and leave her family?  Certainly not!

But what if that young girl learned to use everything that anyone ever said to her to discourage her, gathered up all that negative energy and burned it as fuel and that fuel propelled her forth?  I’ll bet she’d not only live in Italy, but would one day write about her journey toward that dream.

Welcome to the blog that’s going to take you right along with me!  You’ll walk the streets that I walked, see, feel and hear the sounds as you “listen” to the click of my heels through the porticoes in the silent noon streets of Bologna.  I hope the scent of roasting chestnuts stings your nostrils as it did mine through the Falls and Winters.  I want you to feel the sun beating down on your shoulders as you walk in vain hoping to find one bus that would stop during a strike.

Come along and live a little vicariously if you’ve never been to Rome, Florence, Bologna… or run around a castle, ducking your head because your American frame is just a little too tall for those medieval archways.

This is the journey I took…. and the romance I had with the land, its people, the wine and one very special man.

Let me know how you’re enjoying it!

a presto,

Gloria