I work hard at Italian, but I keep hoping it will one day just be revealed to me, whole, perfect. One day I will open my mouth and be magically fluent. Then I will be a real Italian girl, instead of a total American who still can't hear someone call across the street to his friend Marco without wanting instinctively to yell back "Polo!" I wish that Italian would simply take up residence within me, but there are so many glitches in this language. Like, why are the Italian words for "tree" and "hotel" ( albero vs. albergo) so very similar? This causes me to keep accidentally telling people that I grew up on "a Christmas hotel farm" instead of the more accurate and slightly less surreal description: "Christmas tree farm." And then there are words with double or even triple meanings. For instance: tasso. Which can mean either interest rate, badger, or yew tree. Depending on the context, I suppose. Most upsetting to me is when I stumble on Italian words that are actually--I hate to say it--ugly. I take this as almost a personal affront. I'm sorry, but I didn't come all the way to Italy to learn how to say a word like schermo (screen).

Still, overall it's so worthwhile. It's mostly a pure pleasure. Giovanni and I have such a good time teaching each other idioms in English and Italian. We were talking the other evening about the phrases one uses when trying to comfort someone who is in distress. I told him that in English we sometimes say, "I've been there." This was unclear to him at first--I've been where? But I explained that deep grief sometimes is almost like a specific loc............