On Life, Language, and Small Successes

Or, surviving an endless summer

Teatro Immediato’s first offerings, coming up in November.

Cari amici,

It’s been a busy month for me with Italicus on hiatus, and I believe several of my brain cells have been restored. In fact, there’s proof: I’ve been nose-to-the-keyboard on a new novel and am halfway through a draft, thanks to the momentum provided by time to focus—not to mention enforced imprisonment due to an infernal (literally) summer.

Yes, it’s true—I have become, to my horror, that boring person who talks incessantly about the weather. We’ve been cooking day and night here in Italy, with 80 to 100 percent humidity in the mornings, which is the only time when temps are low enough to walk my dog (still far from cool), and temps that are oppressive well into the night. The milk for my morning coffee refuses to foam (I’m sure there’s a physics-related reason for that), I can feel the heat radiating from my neighbor’s 12-foot garden wall from four feet away, and my stone floors are warm instead of cool-to-frigid. To make things even more fun, I’ve been waging war on woodworms (tarli) and continuing my bureaucratic battles.

So that’s the “life” portion of this letter. On to the language.

The art of translation

A few months ago, I was complaining to my good friend Richard, a playwright, that I missed the camaraderie of my theater and ballet communities, which were, in one form or another, integral parts of my life for four decades, until I left the U.S. in 2018. In response, Richard (damn him!) said, why don’t you start a theater group there? After a day of trying to convince myself it would never work (when I knew all along I was going to do it), I set to work developing Teatro Immediato, a community theater group that will present short, new works in a minimalistic way.

Since some of the plays I’ve chosen to present are written in English, they need to be translated into Italian. Well!  Let me tell you that translating creative works is possibly one of the hardest, most exhausting, and rewarding mental tasks I’ve ever done. Trying to find the exact words to convey the author’s meaning, searching for the right degree of colloquialism and formal language, working with ideas instead of individual words (at which, trust me, AI sucks)—in other words, striving for meaning and imagery and rhythm and all the things that make creative writing, well, creative—it’s a trip. And an invaluable learning tool.

I know, I know, you’re probably not going to race off and start translating plays. But hey, maybe you’re tempted now.

Religion, profanity, and bedwarmers, oh my!

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m in an Italian/English exchange group, and lately we’ve been having a blast. As we’ve gotten to know one another better, our conversations have become livelier and more diverse, ranging from such topics as music events and museums to Alzheimer’s and the challenges, for the immigrants among us, of maintaining communication and relationships with loved ones in our home countries. Our most recent gathering included a large dose of Japanese history courtesy of a Japanese member of the group, sparked by a discussion of the new Shogun series which, unlike the one from 1980 starring Richard Chamberlain, has a primarily Japanese cast and mostly Japanese dialogue. (Highly recommended, btw, despite an abundance of gory violence, mostly in the form of beheadings.)

The Portuguese and Spanish Jesuit priests who went to Japan to convert its people to Catholicism (cattolicesimo) had ulterior motives: to lay the groundwork for their respective countries to conquer Japan and remove its rulers from power. From that topic we segued into a discussion about the rather widespread lack of respect given to priests and the Church in medieval/Renaissance Italy. Maybe you’ve heard of a twisted sort of pasta called strozzaprete (priest choker) or strangolaprete (priest strangler)? Well, whoever named it probably had their reasons, including, perhaps, something not remotely related to politics and colonialism. You know those old-fashioned bedwarmers, metal pans on sticks that you’d sweep between your bedsheets on frigid nights? In Italian, a bedwarmer is a prete—a priest. Ouch!

From there, somehow, we ended up talking about swear words and profanity. I learned that one of my favorite words, mannaggia, which I’ve mostly seen translated as “damn it,” is actually more like “darn it,” or as an Italian madrelingua in the group said, “it’s a pity.” Which means I can use it freely now, without worrying about offending someone, though I’m disappointed to discover its tepidity. Also according to that same madrelingua, two expressions I thought were milder than mannaggia are actually worse: porca miseria and porca vacca. I’m not in the habit of using either, so it’s good to know I haven’t been wandering around offending people right and left.

Anyway, one word whose vulgarity is indisputable is vaffanculo (look it up), which inspired another Italian madrelingua to tell a story about the time his son, who lives in the U.S., brought his American girlfriend home to Italy for a visit. His father greeted her with piacere or benvenuta or whatever, and she (confident of her good manners, having been instructed by her boyfriend) replied happily, “Vaffanculo!”  Everyone laughed when the prank was revealed, except possibly the girlfriend, who was apparently less than entertained and later dumped the guy.

Olympics lingo

While watching local coverage of the Olympics, I picked up a new expression. One of the Artistic Gymnastics commentators was former Italian champ Igor Cassina, who won the gold medal in the men’s horizontal bar in the 2004 Games. At one point, as a gymnast stepped up to perform, Igor said something along the lines of, “Allora, vedremo di che pasta è fatto” (meaning, we’ll see what he’s made of). I’d never heard that expression, but I’ve since discovered it’s a popular internet personality quiz. (Don’t ask what kind of pasta I am because I never do internet quizzes. But if personal preferences are involved, which I doubt, then I’m made of pici and bucatini.)

The Olympics also taught me the meaning of a French word, one that has become synonymous with expensive stationary bikes and trendy cycling classes: peloton, which means platoon, and, in this context, the main pack of riders in a race. You’re welcome.

On to the success stories, because yes, some days you do win a little

As you know if you read this post, I’ve been on a lengthy, frustrating road to getting a long-term permesso (permit to stay) while I’m in the eternal limbo that my Italian citizenship process has become. One of the documents (needed in some cases, requested often) for the permesso is a Certificato di Agibilità stating that your home is legally habitable. After searching and searching through the documents pertaining to my house without success, I began jumping through the necessary hoops (inspections and documents and, of course, money) to get one.

That’s when I decided to search one more time.

Previously, I’d only looked for the document itself. This time I reread every word of my (very long) Atto di Acquisto to see if one was mentioned, and there in Article 5 were the magic words: a certificate of habitability, number 123, had been issued by the comune on March 31, 2014. Hooray! But how to get a copy?

After (much) more searching I found what seemed to be the proper request form, which would (of course) need to be accompanied by a €16 marca da bollo (revenue stamp) and 52 centesimi in cash (lol). But info on exactly how one files this request was nonexistent. The comune office is open to the public on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, so I printed out the form and trotted off to ask what the heck I needed to do.

“No,” said the woman at the desk when asked if I had the proper form, and I steeled myself for another hurdle (or twelve). Then she added, “Sit down, make yourself comfortable. I will give it to you,” and I nearly fell into the chair in shock. Five minutes later, she gave me the document—no form to fill out, no marca da bollo, no 52 centesimi. I said she was a saint, to which she replied, with a little shrug, that she likes to get things done quickly. Oh, me too, kind lady, me too!

My other feel-good moment came when Eastern Iowa Review accepted a prose poem of mine for publication online (and possible inclusion in a print anthology later—fingers crossed!). As you probably know, writers of all stripes who seek publishers for their work hear no a whole lot more often than yes, so this made my month. If you’d like to read it, it’s the Poem of the Week, below.

Tante belle cose. Alla prossima—

Cheryl

Poem of the week:

• “Infinite Blues” by Cheryl A. Ossola (issue theme: Heaven/Sky)

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P.S. My book! Which you can buy here or on the usual sites, or, better yet, order it from your local bookstore. Another fab option is to ask your library to stock it. If you read it and like it, please tell your friends and/or leave a few lines of praise on any bookish site. You’d be surprised how much a rating or review helps authors. Baci!