Buona sera!

A couple of weeks ago I started a beginner's Italian class, through the local adult education program. I had hoped to make it to Italy this past spring -- it didn't happen -- but I am determined to make it happen next spring. And I believe in being able to speak the language of anyplace I visit, at least at a very basic level ("Please," "Thank you," "How much?" "Where's the bathroom?")

The teacher, who is Italian, and speaks English with a pronounced accent, is very exuberant, and keeps encouraging up to wave our hands around, say "Mama mia!" whenever it seems appropriate, and in general be as Italian as we can be when we speak the language. With this basically shy, reserved person you may sure that's not going to happen -- I would feel like a fool exclaiming "Mama mia!" -- but I will say that speaking the language, even to the small extent that we've done it so far, tends to make you feel lighthearted and even, yes, exuberant. This is not a lugubrious language. It's fun to speak.

I do love learning a new language. It's learning a new skill, a useful skill. One that goes a long way toward winning hearts and minds, as we Americans are trying to do, generally unsuccessfully, in various hostile parts of the world. And it inevitably impresses people, when you can break into a foreign tongue when needed.

I'm always interested in who the other people are, whenever I take a class like this. In this case we're all women. Two, who are from Maine, grew up speaking French (not uncommon among older generations from the north of the state, where many folk are of French-Canadian descent), and just decided they wanted to learn Italian. One of these women is a recently-retired nurse, and also an artist, which I thought was an interesting combination.

Another woman is a recently-retired French teacher, who also thought she'd try Italian. One woman -- the only one of us who is young -- has been traveling to Italy with her sister every year for the past five years (to the unqualified envy of all the rest of us) and says while she can generally understand pretty well, she wants to improve her speaking skills, and her self-confidence. Another woman also traveled to Italy with her sister, and the sister so fell in love with the place that she bought a house there -- shades of Under the Tuscan Sun -- which they are fixing up to rent out ("Where do we sign up?" I asked.) The final woman I know nothing about -- because I had to make a trip to the restroom right before it was her turn to introduce herself -- except that she looks like the stereotypical aging hippy, complete with baggy, shapeless dresses, Granny glasses, birkenstocks with socks, and the long silver/grey hair pulled back in a thick pony-tail.

And I, of course, am a professional librarian who would love to be able to retire, but can't afford to do so, who misses all the traveling she did when she was younger, and is determined to at least get herself to Italy, before she's too stiff and ache-y to move.  A bunch of late-middle-aged ladies (except for Kim), who decided they'd rather try to learn a new language than sit and watch the usual two hours of T.V. on Tuesday night.