)(( hannah mello ))(

= Alcuni Cose and a Goodbye =

I’ve been running 10,000 itty bitty errands for a month it seems. In 2 days, the “sempre in giro” (always going around) sensation will break. I am hitting the road once again for a 3 week traveling jaunt with an eclectic itinerary and mix of companions along the way. I’m in need of the time and space for sure.

Tonight, though, between packing sessions, I have to pen some tidbits that I have been fighting for the right to enjoy… when you read, you’ll understand… I hope… :)

• Il Ufficio Imposte Codice Fiscale. On a foggy and freezing Friday morning, with a creamy yellow post-it with a scrawled street name and some fuzzy directions from a colleage, I set off on my little white bike in search of a particular ufficio of great personal importance. In order to do any kind of bank transactions, I have to have a certain tax number si chiama “Codice Fiscale” / fiscal code. I was progressively: mis-directed by one woman, pulled to the curb by a very old man who wanted me to visually see where he was directing me, and ended up going in an unnecessary circle when I was on the right road to begin with. Yes, it sounds frustrating frustrating frustrating, but actually—after a 5-time-visitation Italian Questura experience and a handful of other such line-waiting experiences and delays (always with public transportation, for example), I found it to be quite the story. Yes, obsurd, I know. There’s something though to feeling the wind sweeping across your collar and fumbling with asking strangers for directions and happening upon a place… A small joy. For me, a small joy. Yep. I found it in the end. I waited for less than 20 minutes and the whole transaction took less than 5 and I got quite an official looking document with quite an impressive stamp. Good times.
• The Italian Post Office. I have managed to avoid visiting the official Italian post office for over a year. My stand-in grandpa housemate in Naples, Peter, helped me post packages in the past. Over the last 5 months in Modena, I’ve frequented a family owned post place in Modena full of warm, smiley souls. Today, however, yes, today, the inevitable happened. The family owned place was closed. I had a plastic busta (bag) full of post-needing packages. So, I went. Of course, I got the wrong number from the machine (because, you must choose on the machine what type of transaction you want to do, and then you receive a particular letter in front of your particular number and wait for a particular counter—always watching the Kaiser-Permanente-pharmacy-like monitors for your number to pop up). Fortunately, I met the eyes of a kind man with wavy longish hair and a soft face. He walked me over to the correct counter :) and I didn’t have to wait again (which is always quite the theme). The man that helped me was similar in look and manner—commenting on my sketches on the envelopes, etc. Sure, I was a fool again. A straniera (foreigner). But… I loved it. Not being the fool, of course. I loved the experience. The experience of kindness in spite of my ignorance. There is something very very universal about the experience of being a stranger in a strange land. Especially today, I wasn’t alone in that role. All around me in the post office were brave souls with all sorts of skin shades that are away from those they love at a time of year when family and love comes up mentally and physically and emotionally.
• The Weather. Since I arrived in Modena, I have loved the weather here. Every single solitary time I have said that in passing or directly to a person, they have answered with: “Ah—well, you just wait… in a month… / in January… etc.” However, I’m about to have lived here for 5 months, and I have loved every day of it. Fog in the mornings and night that hangs like visable water particles. Humidity that wraps itself around your face when you’re riding your bike. A hot hot hot Indian summer faded into what is now a freezing cold chilling bite. I love it though. It feels like Christmas today. It feels like December. I like it, damn it. :)
• Ray LaMontagne. I know, this album is 2 years old, but but but—it is impacting me beyond beyond beyond. Ray LaMontagne’s “Trouble”. On top of it, one of the songs is titled with my very name. Si chiama “Hannah”. I’m about dying with the instrumentation, the sound of his voice, every lyric… #2, 3, 5, 6, 7… I am melted melted melted melted. I can’t peel myself away from its melodies.
• Allessandro Siani. He’s a Napolitan comedian that I first last Christmas—on Christmas Day actually—from a Napolitan family table, post-our grand pranzo di Natale (Christmas lunch) with roaring laughter erupting with his every costume change, facial expression and hand gesture. He’s a young guy with a typical southern face and way. A few nights ago, I was excited to find him on TV, although he was hosting a very very stupid game show. Today, I saw a very very stupid film that unfortunately reinforced many not so positive Italian-prototypical stereotypes of women, Napolitans, men, marriages and affairs, beauty, etc. BUT but but, I enjoyed enjoyed enjoyed every bit of him. He has a natural way of being that I find hellarious and just all in all fantastic. My housemate has no idea who he is because she’s a Tuscan woman and he’s definitely a southern boy… but nevertheless, he’s one thing I’m taking away from Italia forever.
• Elisa. There seems to be a song for every season, isn’t there? I guess sometimes a song can become “THE” song because of a radio DJ’s choice of putting it on again and again and again (and maybe it’s painfully played-out). Or maybe it’s THE song because its lyric or melody embodies something conscious or subconscious. “Solo con te”, “Ogni Mio Instante” and “Solo 3min”, “Crazy”, and “Love Generation” (as well as a few unknown-named Vasco Rossi songs) are songs of Napoli for sure. Elisa’s “Gli Ostacoli del Cuore” definitely is a song of this particular time. I need to look at the lyrics to know what it’s about... :) but the melody has definitely been a grabbing hand every time it pops on. I downloaded it finally today… However, many a soul would say it’s the played-out song of the moment for sure. For the moment, I beg to differ.
• A Certain Italian Bank. I forget the exact name. I think it was the Banco San Gimigiano (because I go to 3 different banks to do my transactions for my various schools). I walked in on Friday morning, completely disoriented and confused. There was a freaking Gospel choir singing (ok. There were only 4 of them, but it was a freaking choir-of-a-sound to be sure). There were freakin three tables spilling over with panetone (THE Italian Christmas cake, in terms of tradition) and bubbly and ten million old people in their camel-colored and fake-fur-ed jackets walking about. I was so confused. I ended up leaning against the wall and joyfully bopping my head in the very-particular Gospel-soul music way, and sucking in every moment of melody. All the songs were familiar. The language was familiar. The sound was so sharp, so tight—so in the groove…. in the pocket, as musicians like to say. :) The sound guy and the pianist both had soul-patches under their lower lips and were quite the cool jazz cats (for those of you that don’t know, supposedly that’s the name for the guys’ facial hair that’s a strip of hair underneath the lower lip). After their set finished, I snagged some moments of conversation with them. One of the black singers (there were 2 Italians and 2 black women) was from Laguna Beach originally but has been in Italia for ages—having married an Italian and mothered 2 children here which only speak Italian sadly. She laughed saying she wanted to hire me to inspire them to learn English cause they’re not interested in it at all. I eventually ended up in the bank line line line (which was, I found out, right around the corner), once again IN LINE (the story of my Italian experience), and eventually in front of a very very official looking bank man—very much the part. After entering me into the computer and being very professional, he stood up and leaned over the counter and almost-almost-almost cracked a smile, but maintained his official bank face and said (in Italian, of course), “So, when you return to California, you’re going to say that the Modenese are wonderful people, right? The best in the world.” And then the smile broke out. His joking was so unexpected. “Stay and have something to eat!” he continued. I laughed, still surprised, meeting his now-warm eyes, and said goodbye—stopping for a morsel of “Go Tell it on the Mountain” before returning to the freezing cold and my 10,000 errands.

Enough. Va bene. Basta. :)

Ok. … Hmmm...

Goodbye 2006. Thank you for all that you carried with you. All the not-so wonderful moments, the definitely-terrible ones, the exciting/tingly moments, the growth spurts and messy-change bits, the uncertainties and unexpected clarity-s. Thanks most of all for the people for which you allowed intersection, relationship, and time & space. Thank you for being a part of my story. I’m kind of sad to say goodbye. I have appreciated you. And I know that 2007 won’t be like you at all, I’m sure. But but but I’m welcoming it with infinite openness and fear and excitement and angst and delight nonetheless. :)

Cheers to the road ahead.

posted by )(( hannah mello ))( @ 11:39 AM