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Life in Italy has kicked into high gear in the past few weeks. Recent lectures have covered nutrition and the epidemic of diet-related diseases, the Italian response to American consumer culture post-World War 2, food preservation technologies, terroir, and food-centered ethnography. I’m swamped in readings (Roland Barthes, I knew that we would meet again, you saucy devil, you) and my mind is buzzing as I try to sort through them, pulling out the threads of what is really speaking to me and how my thinking is shifting. It’s challenging, but it feels good. Like stretching muscles that you haven’t used in a while, which haven’t completely atrophied.
Other things are shifting as well. Last week I successfully had three interactions in my sloppy Italian wherein I managed to understand and be understood. I may not be able to conjugate any tense but the present (which isn’t a bad way to live, if you think about it), but I managed well enough to get Wander-bike’s pedal fixed and my brakes adjusted at the bike shop. I also bought stamps and mailed letters at the post office and I got a public library card. The latter was by far my biggest accomplishment and the one of which I’m the most proud. My friend Helen- a retired lawyer from DC and a classmate of mine at UniSG- says that you don’t really live somewhere until you have a library card.
Parma is slowly starting to feel less foreign and I’m starting to feel less like a foreigner living here.
I wish I could stay and tell you more, but an article about the McDonaldsization of Beijing is calling me. I hope that wherever you are you’re also reading things that challenge and inspire you, hopefully from your public library.
