She's Just Leaving

Now that the last day is almost over, it still doesn't feel like the end. Stefano and Bicio have said goodbye and left, Simo's been waylaid by the boss, and Michi is on the phone with his wife. He's already said goodbye.

But it's not really goodbye, because Angelo told us all today that I have a guaranteed job here next summer. It's all'anno prossimo and see you next summer, which is much less final and therefore less painful.

I will be back here.

Still it's strange to think that for the next nine months I won't hear Michi's computer telling him "H'arrivato un email!" I won't work scheduled forty-hour weeks. No one will be teaching me phrases like in culo di ballena (which I am not translating for you guys). Simo and I won't be joking about Mamma Pasqui (then dodging the retaliation). No monthly measuring day courtesy of Stefano. No coffee conversations with Sara, the Other Girl in Hardware, who I didn't realize had a French(?) accent until this week. No VHDL lessons with Giorgio, who just said goodbye. By the time I come back, someone will have painted over the GIULIA TI AMO graffiti on the beach wall. Elena will almost certainly have a new boyfriend. Simone will have probably lost a lot of the conversational English fluency he's picked up from working with me for two months solid. Maybe Peppe will have become famous and left the company to go on tour with his band.

It's Friday. My cheeks are raw from all the European double-cheek-kissing I've been doing today.

All right. I guess it's time for a new adventure.

I started trying to pack tonight, so my life is spread out around me in this room. The VHDL books I need to remember to give back to Giorgio tomorrow, the pants my father bought me in Paris, a stack of books my Neil Gaiman and David Sedaris, the silly Sandra Boynton book my mother sent me for my birthday. My US passport, a mini English-Italian dictionary, two AAs and a spare 9-volt for my multimeter, which I need to remember to bring home from work tomorrow. The framed photo the boys gave me.

I doubt I'll show enough emotion at work tomorrow--to make things even more difficult, the boys have challenged me to speak only Italian on my last day. I know the fact that it's over won't really sink in until sometime this weekend, or maybe in trasit to Vienna and Budapest for the holidays. Simo asked me today what I was going to say tomorrow, and I told him I didn't know, that I was terrible at goobyes, and I'd probably just say "ciao" and walk out, trying very hard not to look back. Because there are so many things I want to say, but I can never find the words.

At coffee this morning I danced in the pouring rain, while Simone and Simone and Mauro watched and laughed from under the overhang. The nice guy whose name I don't know but who also likes rain joined me after he finished his cigarette, and together we stood and stared off at the hills as the rain beat down around us.

And Starring . . .

My life feels more like a teen comedy than it ever has before. And the only teenagers I know here I never see.

But I got home at two o'clock Sunday morning after a night spent taking silly photos and drinking Cokes in a public park on the edge of Ancona, before which we'd been at a pizza place teaching each other how to swear in multiple languages and telling the sort of stories that are funnier when everyone checks their dignity and maturity at the door.

The language we speak has been renamed Anconinglese, for its mix of Anconetano (Ancona slang Italian) and English.

On Sunday, we spent the day in the ocean, making and breaking alliances in a constant dunking war. Laura and I teamed up to dunk Lorenzo, Lorenzo and Laura dunked me, and all four of us finally succeeded in dunking Mauro (He has a significant height, weight, and strength advantage over all of us. As well as being trained in martial arts.)

Laura, Lucia's very skinny twelve-year-old sister, kept trying to dunk Mauro. Which was ridiculously amusing and not very succesful, as he would just pick her up and throw her in the water.

Add a soundtrack ranging from Metallica to Peter Gabriel to Mauro's endless (very amusing) renditions of the Italian pop song "Lascia che io sia," and I think we have a summer hit.