What were you doing in March of 2003? 7 years ago I was traveling around Italy “da sola” and staying in the guest houses of monasteries and convents. I was in my early twenties, heart broken, and full of self-doubt…and eager to love strangers.

from my journal, March 12, 2003:


(I wrote this entry originally in Italian, but I’ve done my best to translate it here for you because 1). You might not speak Italian and 2). I never wrote very good Italian in the first place and I would offend many true Italian speakers if I transcribed this entry exactly like it was in my journal. I often wrote in my own version of “Itanglish.”)

“La Piccola”

Yesterday evening, at the end of my giro around Verona, I met una piccola, a little girl with a purple hat and a gold tooth. La piccola was playing an accordian in the middle of the grand piazza in front of the ruins of the roman arena. She was playing for money. And she was playing without a smile, but she was good. When I heard the music from far off I imagined it must have been someone ancient playing. The song was so tragic and beautiful I thought only one who has lived a hundred years who could play it like that. I walked closer. Between the legs of grown up people, Italian and tourists, I saw the little one: a musician no more than 7 years old.

I gave la piccola (whose accordian was also called “la piccola”) a euro. She said, “Grazie,” but still did not smile. I took her picture with my point n shoot digital camera and let her see it. She liked this a lot. Her empty face turned full and her mouthed opened in a smile so big I could see that little golden tooth. I had no idea my camera could bring so much joy, but once discovered I wasn’t going to waste it. I asked her in Italian if she wanted to take a picture. Her eyes got big and bright when she understood. I handed her my camera and showed her how it worked. Then we took a picture together and she pushed the button. We laughed with unexpected happiness—friends for one perfect moment, without one difference between us. Then came la polizia. They were still a distance away but they were in la piazza. Before I knew what was happening, La Piccola was scrambling for her things, her accordian and her accordian case dotted with loose change. She said something about having to take off, run home. She disappeared down a tiny, cobblestone side street. In the shadow of the archway of that little street I saw a wrinkled woman dressed like a Rom (gypsy), with eyes focused on La Piccola like she was her mother. The last thing I saw was that woman take La Piccola’s case and, quicker now, they both walked into the deeper darkness of the ally. If I could have gotten her name and address I would have mailed her her picture. But even if our goodbye wasn’t as frantic and rushed as it was, I don’t think La Piccola had an address to give me.

To think, La Piccola is now almost a teenager. The picture above is really her, taken with my little Sony point n shoot. If I return to Verona I will take this picture with me, just for the one in a million chance I might run into her again.

From my journal March 13, 2003:

“Papa Waigo”

This morning, in the breakfast hall of Centro Monesterro Carraro, I met Papa Waigo and now I have a friend from Senegal and he has a friend from Oregon. Waigo is in Italy for futbal. He is on a squad for youths who are truly talented (and seriously committed).  He has dreams of becoming professional and it sounds like he is well on his way, but for Waigo, sport is also work. Every month he send money from his stipend home to his sisters and brothers and mother who are still in Senegal. Waigo tells me he is “il padre della casa” because his father died some years ago.  Waigo is 19 years old and loves “American music”- rap, R and B and Soul. He told me he is learning English from 50 Cent, and Eminem; I told him he better have a bar soup to wash his mouth out after each lesson.

Waigo speaks French as his first language. In school everyone learns French first and then English, but when he was younger Waigo didn’t like the way English felt on his tongue so he didn’t practice. “I didn’t understand then how important it would be to know English, to speak English,” he told me in Italian. “Purtroppo e’ cosi,” I said, “Il mondo sta diventando scritto in Inglese (The world is being written in English).”

Together we speak in Italian and we get along pretty well, both being rather forgiving of the other’s grammar. The rules we break and the rules we make up, bend all over the place and I doubt a teacher of the language could have bared listening to us or even understood our dialog, but for us it was perfect.

For me, looking back on old journals was a great reminder of two things 1). Why I love photography like I do and 2). How much I do love people– I am more courageous to love strangers than I have grown to think.

Spending time with these and other memories this week triggered a thought: What if living life with more romance and adventure means, in part, expanding our circles of love? Love is always an adventure and bravely offering up your heart  to strangers requires courage and a belief in romance on a grand scale. Fragile and idealistic, I could do that in my twenties without thinking.  Now, how to do that again? Hopefully in some of the weeks ahead I’ll rediscover that too.

If you are also a journal keeper, why not live your own personal adventure this week and a peak at your voice from years gone by? Do you recognize it? What parts of that woman would you like to recover?
If you take this challenge, I would love to hear what you discover.

*If only there was Flickr in 2003, thank God there is Flickr now! So many of my old photographs have been the casaulty one kind of hard drive failure or another. From this particular time in Italy all that remains are a few photos I made into greeting cards for local gift shops.  I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t sell them all back then

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