Coming home.

Clearly, my early life of leisure prepared me for life in Santa Marinella.



But after four months in this city,



I have to say:



It's time to come home.



I miss Christmas at my parents' house.

I'm ready to catch up with old friends (recognize that person from high school?)



And I'm not too worried about returning. Did you know that the air in Rome is certifiably addictive? A recent study found quantifiable amounts of nicotine, marijuana, and heroin in the air currently muddying the ancient monuments and my American lungs.

Forget about tossing coins in the Trevi Fountain. They’ve found a better way to keep tourists coming back.

It's been four months since I left D.C. A third of a year has never gone by so quickly in my entire life.

Four months ago I knew roughly three Italian phrases well. “I’d like to buy this.” “Excuse me and let me get off the bus. Now.” and “Where’s the bathroom?” Now, if I get a decent amount of sleep, I can blab recognizable sentences. They’re simple, mind you. E difficile per me a cambiare tra l’inglese e l’italiano. Ma quando inizio, dopo un minuto o due, e possible per me parlare in l’italiano. Yes, I make mistakes, like I just did in that sentence. But I understand what’s going on in class. Piu o meno. Che cosa?

There are still quite a lot of things about Rome that baffle me. For instance, why the country that created Western Civilization cannot create water heaters: a) that – prepare yourself – HEAT water or B) have a temperature between hypothermia and a third degree burn is something that I ponder every morning.

But there are many reasons to love this country once you jump out of the shower and stop screaming.

For starters, you don’t make friends in Rome; you are adopted.

There are folks like the 60 year old restaurant owner in Piazza Navona who greets me daily. Pierro made a point of finding out my name. He’s amused by my insane American habit of trying to get to things on time. He does that odd Italian/European practice my American friend has aptly named “making baci”: that weird social practice of grabbing someone’s lower face and making kissy noises on their right cheek, then their left, then their right depending on what nation you’re from. Heaven help you and the recipient if you forget on which side your baci-ing nationality starts. If they're nice they´ll tell you how many kisses to expect.

There are the friends who get you through the day, through the language, through ordering the right glass of wine. Through life.







Then there are those you observe and love.

There are the married couples, ancient and wizened, guiding each other down the aisle at Mass. The man wearing hat and cane, the wife sporting headscarf and swollen ankles, together they hobble and witness to a decades-long love.

There are the cute baristas who put mocha on your cappuccino and ask you why your Italian is so terrible. Suddenly they ask you out and pinch your cheek. Gross. They’re no longer cute. You switch caffes, and discover that the new one has jelly filled cornetti (croissants). Bellisimi.

You develop habits when you live abroad, for better or for worse. You pick up peculiar linguistic terrets, like saying “Si si si” and “no no no” in rapid succession. You start putting your jeans inside of new leather boots and suddenly you're walking out of the house with a belt over your sweater and your collar turned up. It's ok at your school when Christmas carols like Silent Night have a verse in German, a verse in Italian, a verse in Polish, then French, then Spanish - then you all sing in different languages simultaneously to see which nationality can hit the high notes the best.

Practical practices like holding your breath and dashing the split second you see cigarette whipped out become second nature to you.

It must be confessed that letting yourself stay and inhale every once and awhile becomes a guilty pleasure. But then it dawns on you, with a certain amount of fear, that what you just inhaled so happily wasn’t quite a cigarette afterall . . .