Chi sono? Who am I?

I had an interesting conversation today with my friend Laura, who is also my Italian teacher... We talked about identity, and the adjustment to life in a different culture. I'd admitted to her that it's been a bit of a challenge to find my identity again here, in a different country, and asked her if she felt the same way (she was an exchange student in the UK and also in the USA last year). She said that yes, she feels that way now, even in her home country, and said that if/when I go back to the USA, I'd understand how she feels now.

On the way home from her apartment, I got to thinking about that, and why it is so hard to keep your identity across borders... Then I recalled my experiences when I moved to the Czech Republic with Libor. I'd decided to take up a knitting project and wanted to try a technique that some American knitters had been doing, requiring a specific kind of yarn that is usually more expensive than acrylic yarn. Through Libor's translation, his mother told me of a knitting shop in town and offered to take me. The knitting shop was small, but the yarn selection was quite large. However, all of the yarn was acrylic. I was hard pressed to find any pure wool yarn, which was what I needed for my project. At this point, my translated requests to his mom through Libor were being taken with confusion - why would I want something different than what is there? Around Thanksgiving time, I decided to try making pumpkin pie. One of the ingredients I needed was vanilla extract, an ingredient I completely took for granted in the USA because I simply could not find it in the stores. When I tried explaining the ingredient to Libor to translate for his mother, I encountered more stares.

After some thought, I realized that I was being a "princess" wanting something that I couldn't have, things I took for granted in the USA but is not part of the culture here. I dropped the knitting project and picked up something else. But with everything I tried to do, I met obstacles. I realized it was because Czech culture supported different hobbies and interests than the ones I had. I needed to adapt to fit in Czech culture and to save my sanity from being frustrated all the time.

When I moved to Italy, I learned my lesson not to ask for too much. Moving to a small town, I didn't have much choice for many things, and soon took up an interest in traveling to as many places as possible on the weekends to see different places and do different things. I did this because I was fortunate enough to have am allowance for the traveling. Now that I am not quite as endowed, I'm looking for new things to occupy my time. I used to rock climb (A LOT) in Santa Fe before circumstances led me away from it. I miss climbing, but circumstances have not supported me to go climbing again. Not only do none of the women I've met here have experience climbing, the culture here is not really receptive of the "outdoor" experience like the cultures of Santa Fe and the Czech Republic.

I miss the artistic side of my life, the hands-on creation of doing things, but the nature of my nomadic lifestyle do not allow me to be able to stock up on art supplies for said artistic activities, neither do I have my camera and film (still waiting for the last of my things to arrive from the Czech Republic).

It's interesting though, after tonight's conversation, I am curious to find out exactly what is accepted as hobbies in Italian culture? I know Italians are avid travelers when they can! (I have some friends who go on international trips to exotic locales such as India, Tunisia and Egypt, every chance they get!) This is something to aspire for but that I don't have the means for at this time. Going to the mountains and to the ocean are other pastimes of Italians. Again, out of my means. Cooking - that's something I can do, and take advantage of as much as I can. Shopping is another pastime - and a dangerous one at that - but what I do sometimes instead is window shop which is safer until the moment I decide to step into the store. Mayhem. So these days I go window shopping even less!

I think it will take a long time before I really fall into a routine of things I can do in my free time. For now I pass my time reading books as well as the internet. I have yet to finish the book I've started (and not much progress has been made on it in the past few weeks). I keep thinking - when I have a permanent place, I'll set up a small studio, I'll take some classes, etc etc. But how realistic and "kind" are those promises to myself? What about the present time?

Sorry that after all this lull in posting on my blog that this is what I post... I know it's hard for many of you to imagine these frustrations of mine, but I guess I want you to get an idea of how hard it is to be "in between" cultures. Despite the richness of our experiences, there are few of us to support each other and understand each other, that many of us are often left without a way of expressing our new viewpoints and understanding ourselves better.

I think that's part of why I am afraid of living in the USA again - so very few Americans actually go abroad, let alone LIVE abroad. I can't imagine folding up this experience of a lifetime and storing it in a cedar-lined drawer to be revisited every time I felt like a trip down memory lane. I can't even imagine going back to my old life before coming to live in Europe.

Sometimes I wonder how my father adjusted to his life back in the USA after spending 6 months in Germany. I should ask him one of these days!