Acceptance

Acceptance

The human body is amazing in its ability to rid itself of invasive organisms and slalom through the ignorance of its bearer. The drastic processes by which the body accomplishes these things are not usually pleasant. So it was that I spent the last 3 days in bed, as close to the bathroom as possible, while my body slapped me around for being so stupid – never drink spring water flowing from a rusty pipe in the mountains even if they tell you it's pure – mostly because it's flowing from an abandoned church named Ave Maria after the virgin. The water was blessed alright... no pizza in Napoli, no summiting Vesuvius... all my body would let me do was sleep in the sun on the veranda.

Luisa's philosophy about eating when sick is emphatically different than mine, “It's only prosciutto and cheese, have some pasta with only oil on it! Vegetables! It's only vegetables!” When I agree to just rice, she heaps a full pot of it on my plate, “Eat it all. Your body needs fuel.” I can barely look at or think about food without losing it before I even get to it. She makes me stay yet another day because I'm too dizzy (no blonde jokes here...) to navigate the trains to Roma and tells me to stop drinking so much water because it will bloat my stomach. Rehydration is not part of her therapy, only food and little vials of clear liquid that will supposedly put back the needed bacteria in my body. The bacteria is already flourishing but I drink it anyway hoping for a botanical miracle.

I rarely get sick but Luisa tells me that as we get older, our bodies will get sick more frequently. She tells me that I have not accepted this fact but she accepts this along with her age, grey hair, wrinkles and the inability to do things. There is an Italian saying which concerns aging – “every year is a misfortune” – because we get older, but I think getting older beats the alternative. Most of the population smokes and there doesn't seem to be the realization of the connection between smoking, health and all the cancer. Most of the people I've met have no exercise program or activity other than walking to the store to get more cigarettes and food. Resigned to their fates, I haven't heard anyone talk about changing life patterns.

Locked into archaic and unhealthy fates and customs, tradition and history is wonderful but only if it enhances life. I realize the chasm of cultural differences between this country and the lives the Italian Americans made for themselves. I want to live where I can ski, hike, bike, travel, dance, get costumed up and play with no age boundaries. I no longer desire to become like Italian women... but I WILL take the shoes. Tomorrow, come the Feast of the Dead, I leave for Roma alive to spend my last 4 days free to visit museums, shops and plan a future without boundaries. I bid my ancestors arrivederci.