"Yo?"
"Yo mi llamo."
"Como te llamas?"
"Mi llamo Mary."
"Como?"
"I got to get to bed, Sebastian.  Thanks for helping me."

I was so excited that they were helping each other with Italian.

Then I realized that this was Spanish.  The middle school starts Spanish in grade six.  I've no idea how their brains are processing this.  On Saturday morning there was a WhatsApp thread for SYA Italy faculty: birthday wishes for Santo, the SYA Latin and Greek teacher -- Tanti auguri!  Auguri auguri!  I felt bogus sending wishes in Italian, even lamer sending them in English, so I sent them in Latin.   A brain freeze: happy birthday in Latin?  My self-consciousness with Italian was now affecting my ease with Latin.  This was more than uncomfortable: this was frightening.  I typed in my pathetic slow way: Felix dies natalis, Santo!  I knew it didn't look right, but I just sent it.  Moments later I thought, How embarrassing -- there are much more elegant ways to say Happy Birthday in Latin.

But my language confidence was down, so far down.  While I'm feeling good teaching English (even if the students/parents are concerned that their children are not getting A's in English, and it's junior year....she grades too hard!  We need A's for college applications!  Luckily, the director responds to kids/parents, supports, communicates), last week I was feeling despondent about Italian.  I'm not even close to first grade level yet.  I'm not having full-on conversations yet.  I don't understand when people answer my questions in Italian (though I'm excited that they answer in Italian rather than respond to my Italian question in English).  I was thinking, I may just have to give up on this Italian thing.  If I could get myself to one of Ale's Italian sections each day, that would be super.  But I've got Othello and senior college application essays and vocabulary quizzes and my walks and my kids.  I have many excuses.  And I want to learn, I do...but, my goodness, it takes a lot of energy and vulnerability in putting myself out there when I am going to make so many mistakes.

Thursday afternoon I walked up Via Cavour to our apartment.  A familiar looking man stopped me on the sidewalk.  He gestured, said, "Buongiorno!  Finito oggi?"  (or this is what it sounded like to me)

"No, non ancora," I said. (No, not yet.)

"Ahhh, solamento per pranso," he said.  (Just for lunch.)

"Il tuo italiano sta megliorando," he said.  (Your Italian is getting better.)

"Oh, no no!" I said.  "Ho bisogno imparare molto." ( I need to learn much.)

We talked a little more.  He pointed to the Edicola, the newspaper store across the street from SYA, and told me that he reads to learn.  Terrible at facial recognition, I could almost place him now: he works at the Edicola (sells newspapers, stamps, etc.).  We parted ways, and I smiled the rest of the way home.

What I was needing was not just language acquisition but connection, some indication that I could break this language barrier and connect to people outside home and work (and gelato and cappuccino) here.  He gave me this.

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When I go into my office the next morning, on the second floor of the building, I open wide the shutters and look down at Via Cavour.  I wave to the three men standing across the street each morning.  They wave back and smile.

This morning I realize: those men are standing in the entrance to the Edicola, and there's the man from yesterday afternoon.

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An Italian colleague told me this morning, "Hey, I went into the Edicola this morning, and the owner was saying that he was talking to you and how well you're doing -- how you're smiley a lot."

I confessed to Daniele my hopeless feeling last week, how I was thinking, I'm never gonna get there.  He said, "You've got to stay positive.  You just keep reading and talking and putting yourself out there."
I look at Daniele (he teaches Italian Culture and Global Citizenship), fluent in Italian and English and I think, Spanish, too.  The next language he wants to take up is Arabic.  It takes years to learn a language, he says.  But you just keep working at it, being positive.

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But then, last night, Mary wanted to google the Italian fable she needed to read in Italian for homework.  It was over two long pages, small print, and eight o'clock was looming.

"Would it be cheating to look up the fable and then just answer the questions?" she asked.

I say yes.  Daniel says yes.  We tell her we'd rather she read only half of it and not worry about finishing the whole thing.

 I offered to sit and read with her.  She slouched, angry with us.

Half an hour later, a sister had saved her little brother from Baba Gaga in the woods, then gotten help from an apple tree and a mountain of milk and some other fantastical foods who agreed to hide her and her brother from Baba Gaga if she tried their wares.  We read, laughed, guessed.  We didn't get every word, but we got enough to know what was happening, and we had a great time sitting on my bed reading.

Were we reading at an A level for a sixth grader?  Not even close.

As Mary headed off to bed, I said to her, "Mary, there is no way that we could have done that a month ago."

"I know, right!?"