After shaking the jet drunk I woke with a simple list: eat when you are hungry, get a suitcase, get a phone card, learn how to use it. I paced the streets for hours and hours looking through windows waiting for the Go Get It Girl inside to kick me in the pants. I managed to get everything done but I did wait to eat until I was nearly faint. My stomach was pounding with ache from hunger like a mallet of a blacksmith on iron. i had the luggage the phone card and an idea of how they all worked, including changing the combination on the suitcase all done with lots of pointing, smiling, bad butchered Italian, some drawing but the hunger I was needing to be satisfy pronto! Walking by a cafe for about the twelfth time, it felt like hunger gave me a shove through a door way into the little panineria.
I smile shyly to the man, Said "Vorrey un panino." May I have a panino? Well he whipped the entire tray out of the cooler and pointing like Vanna White listed each one with its ingredients, perfect posture looking me right in the eyes the entire time. He even pointed out his favorite. I laughed at myself first for being so silly and again for how stinking sweet this man was. I, of course, went with his favorite. A simple proscutto cotto with provolone, served warm and his favorite juice-:Pera (pear). I nibbled away feeling satisfied. the perfect combination of crunch and soft, creamy and salty,and the intermittent sips of a velvety sweet pear. When I finished he brought me some little pieces of fried dough at the end dusted in confection sugar, bowed when he cleared my plate. Buona Giornata Bella. Grazie.
After the monster of hunger was sated and resting content, I realized that not one single person all day seemed to mind my effort to speak and every single person gave me what I wanted and sometimes even a little more. Now I had to let these small accomplishments add up to bolster me when newness and nervousness renders me stuck, frozen between what I need and having it.
No comments:
Post a Comment