digital postcards from italy

It’s enough

It’s enough to stand in the bedroom that used to be mine
And iron clothes
The breeze and the fan and the hum of the highway
Are enough

Even at 28 years old
Even if I thought I’d be somewhere else
It’s enough to stand here
Ironing
The fan and the air and the hum and my iron and me.

i’m leaving milan for new york tomorrow. and i may be moving further, after that. but for now i’m sitting here in my cold almost former bedroom with two-and-a-half overstuffed suitcases and the smell of cleaner for company.

i got used to things here so quickly. i heard trains rushing by in the night, same as i did growing up, which helped me sleep. (my theory’s that if you can sleep well in a certain place, you’re halfway to forgetting you ever lived anywhere else.) but once in awhile i walk into the lobby and forget that i live here and i smell the place for the first time. sometimes when i take the tiny two-person elevator i run haphazardly into the memory of how i stuffed my luggage into it the day i arrived, of how disoriented i was when i first stepped off the plane. xanax and a layover in brussels didn’t help. sometimes i wonder what i would forget if i had never left new york. i had been there well past the point of forgetting to remember the first times. 

somehow, the kitchen where my roommates first reigned, all swinging stovetop espresso and fast-flying italian, became my domain in part, too. i’ll miss the balcony. but the people, most of all.

today was a feast day for sant ambrogio, patron of lombardia, the region of which milan is capital. the streets were empty and i took my bike out, rattling down the cobblestones through air that just this morning turned frigid. i rode down to parco sempione, where i used to drink big, cold bottles of prosecco and eat cheese, crackers and fruit for brunch with friends in the springtime. we’d first throw down a sheet then throw down ourselves, emerging hours later buzzed and sunburnt and completely in awe of our good fortune in waking up here in italy and finding what would turn out to be a friend rubbing his eyes next to us, discovering the same. but today the sky was gray, portentous, and a confounding christmas market snaked around the entrance. most of those friends have left, or are about to leave, milan.

later in the day, it snowed. for all the first times i remember (in milan: the first aperitivo, the first day at work, the first road trip; but then, also, every beautiful heartbreaking earthquaking first in life), i can’t remember the first time i saw it snow. i guess i’ll count it as today. 

i’m moving soon, and i don’t know when i’ll next be back in italy. an honest list of the things (not people; that’s separate) i’ll miss:

• sleep interrupted by church bells
• the pugliese panificio on the corner and their salted ciabatta
• the long walk from the street through the gates to my apartment that makes me feel like i’m really going somewhere
• not understanding the majority of what strangers talk about on public transportation
• booking a flight out of the country the day before departure
• the two-year-olds i teach who use gesticulate like mini italian adults
• no ambulance wails at night
• smoking on the balcony
• buildings that aren’t taller than five stories
• getting lost
• planning errands around stores’ closing for daily siesta
• my building’s marble floors, the super who scrubs them every morning, and the smell of bleach
• not knowing where every bus goes
• hidden gardens, ornate gates and brass intercoms
• bike sharing
• the quiet
• feeling new
• geographical solitude