June 21, 2011
Today was a difficult day. Actually, I would have handled today just fine without the migraine. I started the day bright and early for my formal Italian class, dashing up the hill to the school with a palida prosciutto e pesto in hand. I really enjoyed my class, and finally learned some usable Italian. Not that Rosetta Stone teaches unusable Italian, it’s just that the language is taught much as a child learns it, which is more comprehensive and learn-able (that's my word and I'm sticking by it!), but a great deal slower. I am still planning on using my Rosetta Stone to supplement my Italian studies.
In my class today, I learned my numbers from 0-100, months, salutations/greetings, alphabet, and dates as well as a myriad of different questions that I would need to know. I have seven pages of vocabulary to memorize by tomorrow. Phew! I had better come back to the states conversational at the least lol.
I had a two-hour break between Italian and my first opera chorus rehearsal, so I went over to the CasaLinghi (caza leengee), which is a little home goods store like Walgreens, minus the food and pharmacy. I bought myself some forks (as I seem to have everything else at my apartment BUT cutlery), a blow drier, some toiletries, and some Tupperware. On my way back to my house to drop off my bags and the extra junk in my purse (there was so much my arm was going numb!), I ran into Emily and Jeffery on their way to lunch.
O yeah…food…that’s important.
Honestly, I had forgotten all about eating and decided to join them for some gnocchi e quatro formagi and ravioli at a local café. Jeffery taught me how to roll my R’s in the time it took for us to get our food, which is amazing, as I have been trying for YEARS. So far, I can only do it if I concentrate really hard on the technique, but perhaps I will be able to translate it to my Italian speech soon.
After lunch, Jeffery walked me home via a gorgeous rout that passed through gardens and down a cobblestone set of stairs (which I tripped down most-ungracefully) and avoided the Italian cars that seem hell-bent to kill me one of these days. Jeffery stopped at the CONACO (the “large” grocery store I spoke of in an earlier blog), and I went home, where I finally succumbed to the heat and put my hair up off my neck.
A sprint and a bottle of water later, I was back at the school for rehearsal.
Jesus have mercy.
I stayed with the group for a good deal of the time, but in opera, you are allowed to sing at full voice in the chorus and I could barely hear my part. Loud singers + little, high acoustic room= deafening sound. I was relieved when it came time for my lesson, where I met with my new voice coach and chose my pieces for the first concert tomorrow night. When that hour was done, I had released something that was draining icky toxins into my neck, which means something worked, but also meant a headache was on its way. The migraine hit right in the middle of my second bout of opera rehearsals, and I didn’t have any medicine on me. Woops! I could barely see the notes let alone attempt to hit any, and decided to leave a few minutes before I had to leave for my coaching session to find some aspirin and food.
I was probably very entertaining to the ladies at the pharmacy down the street, staring, inches away from the different boxes that lined the walls, attempting to understand even the slightest word while periodically letting my head fall into my hands to relieve a small bit of the pain the white lights were causing to pulse through my skull. Finally, I went up to the counter and asked for aspirin in the highly informal, and likely incorrect, version of “to have” I learned this morning. The woman smiled and grabbed me a box which surprisingly said “Aspirina” in big bold letters across the top. How I had missed it, I don’t know…I’ll blame it on my headache.
So eager was I to medicate myself that I tore into the packaging and plopped one oversized pill into my mouth, thinking it was a chewable. Suddenly, my tongue was in biting pain and I began to froth at the mouth—no joke—in the middle of the square.
Promptly, I spat out the pill and glared at the box. “Compresse Effervescenti.” I had been given aspirin in Alka-Seltzer form. Sweet.
Trying not to look at the people in the piazza who I guessed thought I was mad, I opened two more tablets, plopped them into my water, and downed the whole thing. Not surprisingly, my water tasted like, well, shit, and I had to eat my entire slice of pizza to get the flavor out of my pallet.
My coaching session went very well, partly because my head was beginning to clear, and partly because my coach’s attitude held a spitfire resemblance to a dear family friend of mine, recently deceased. The more the woman chided me for mispronunciation or lack of expression, the more I adored her. Again, this could also be due to the slowly ebbing pain in my head.
Eight o Clock, and my day of running around was done. I traveled up to find a grocery store, and instead found the church. Ever since I got here I had wanted to go inside. It is beautiful. Reddish stone outside, with grey sculptures encircling the entrance, white interior with the same red in tile on the floors, simple décor and gorgeous statues and stained glass. I stayed there for a while, sitting in a wooden pew and chatting with the Lord, feeling my migraine melt away to an echo of what it had been. Quiet. It was so quiet.
On my way out, I was surprised to see statures, prayer groups, and other regalia in the name and image of Padre Pio, a stigmatic saint of our times. I won’t take the time to describe him—wikipedia is a wonderful thing—but my family has a Padre Pio relic, and his presence in this place was a heartwarming reminder of home.
Now nearly nine, I need to go find something to fill my belly before a night of studying language and opera. I am beginning to understand that music will become all-consuming over the next five weeks. It has to, otherwise I will fail. But you know what? I’m okay with that. If there is one thing in the world I would not mind being totally consumed by, it is music. Dorky and cliché, I know. But that’s why I’m here, isn’t it?
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