We’re riding the train from Milano a Firenze. It’s clean, with comfortable grey seats. Little pods of four facing one another, and these cute little tables in between that fold out to full size, or fold in half for more leg room (or belly room for my beautifully pregnant friend). We arrived in Italy yesterday evening. Let me repeat: we are in Italy!

Noelle has been my dear friend since we were five years old. Our friendship has stood the test of time and distance, plus life’s greatest milestones and heartbreaking unfortunate events. During our elementary school to middle school years, we stayed in touch through postcards, handwritten letters, and shared journals, while she was living in New York, and I was still in Carmel Valley. I remember the day we rode our first roller coaster at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk and she lost her glasses. I remember the weekends we would spend every hour in our bathing suits playing down by the river. But more recently in life, I remember when she showed up, in person, when no one else was there, and I needed her more than ever.

A few months ago, she told me about this wedding she booked in Italy that she was filming, and I shared my support and excitement. We’re both Sicilian and since our early twenties have explored our love for travel. We’ve also both navigated through various careers in our lives, trying to find the correct balance of challenge and income that supports our deep need for freedom. Not only freedom to explore the world, other cultures, and honestly, situations that are slightly uncomfortable but also the freedom to prioritize what we feel is most important in life – family and friends.

“Tash, I need you to come with me,” she said after briefly introducing what I thought was a momentous career moment to celebrate. Instead, she was honestly sharing that she wanted me to join her. Join her in Italy. With my best friend. In Tuscany no less! I didn’t believe her. I didn’t believe any of the parts of her announcement that involved me, but I said yes, with zero hesitation, cleared my calendar, and mentally said goodbye to the little savings I had.

15 years ago I studied Italian at the University of California Santa Barbara. At the bottom of my bookshelf, one can still find a multi-colored, hardbound, book with the title, “Parliamo Italiano” plus a smaller, but thicker, hand-held softbound blue and white book, an Italian Dictionary. These two have followed me from Santa Barbara to Mountain View, to the storage at my mom’s apartment in Carmel Valley, to my brother’s house in Salinas, to South Lake, to Kirkwood, and back to South Lake. And now – well, they are still sitting on my shelves at home and I didn’t even glance at them before this trip.

Yet, I do remember that final I took, maybe in the last of my four semesters of Italian classes, where I was drugged up on Vicodin from a sinus surgery. My professor gave me the opportunity to postpone the test. I mean I had the doctor’s note, and I was going to be either in pain, or loopy, or a little bit of both. However, I had already done all the studying and I didn’t want to study again, so I went for it. I sat at the desk, with white paper, multiple pages stapled together, with black ink printed with zero words in English. Question 1 – I read the question, immediately forgot what I read, read the question again, maybe picked up a few words, and after the third time I finally processed what was being asked of me and provided my response. This continued on for hours and hours – well that is what it felt like. A few days later, I saw a big “A” written in red ink at the top of those pages.

As the months and weeks leading up to our departure date shortened, I felt less and less confident that I would carve out any time to brush up on the language that I knew I’d need to know for much of my life. A month in Canada turned into a week with my partner’s family, to a weekend with my brother, to my partner’s brother visiting, then illness, and more illness, and a writing and running workshop that I had required homework for. Then, less than two weeks before the departure date, I got the flu, and it was bad.

So while I physically put all my energy into resting on the couch, mentally I stumbled back down the rabbit hole of my Duolingo App. I even tried to sign up for and download Babel or Rosette Stone, but my flu-foggy brain couldn’t figure it out. However, I could remember my Italian, and thus I spent every waking hour either watching “Friends”, the new season of “And Just Like That” the “Sex and the City” spinoff or listening to the “ding ding” from the app with a little green owl telling me I still got it.

Now that I have properly blabbered on about how I got here, let’s get to the words I already wrote down in my journal on the train – what I really wanted to talk about. Speaking a foreign language in a foreign country – why do we get so uncomfortable? Why is it so scary? Also, how beautiful is it that we can learn another language to properly communicate in another culture? Everything, in another language, is more fun and exciting.

Even one call down to the front desk of your airport hotel is an accomplishment! For real though – I called down simply to ask what time breakfast was available. Naturally, I wanted to ask, “A que hora desayuno?” After typing, “What time is breakfast,” into Google Translate and confirming the way to say it in Italian, I was surprised when I properly pronounced the question through the receiver so much so that I almost didn’t catch her response entirely. Yet, I heard, “sei a dieci.”

After a quick, “Grazie mille,” I hung up the phone and said to Noelle, “Dieci is 10 right?”

Even checking into the hotel was a thrill, which Noelle took over. She has a knack for attempting a question, and then politely asking, “Parle Inglese?” with a smile. Everything is a feat – asking anyone a question, ordering from a menu, or even saying your room number is a moment of uncertainty. Will they think I am a stupid incompetent American? Or can I get this one right?

And the more hours and days we’re embedded, surrounded by signs and the beautifully lyrical notes of a love language, the more naturally phrases formulate on our tongue, or words are automatically understood. However, the best part, to me, is sitting a la tavola nel restaurante and listening to the group of three Italians at the table next to me. Or sitting here on the train with everything from German, English, Italian, and whatever language that Dad is speaking to his child.

On the bus ride to the train station, we sat in the second row, sweating in the heat beaming through the windows, with two old Italian men to our left, in collared white shirts, slacks, and white shoes, both wearing KN 95 masks, while our driver so elegantly and aggressively whizzed through the narrow lanes of cars, pedestrians and other buses, we talked about the things we wished we knew in college – like studying abroad or outdoor clubs. For two people that love traveling so much it does feel like a shame that we didn’t spend 6-12 months of our education here. Instead, I spent four quarters on the beaches of Santa Barbara, only four hours from where I grew up, learning Italian, with only a Croatian boyfriend who might have understood my interest and need, but no one but classmates, while in class, to talk to.

And every time I revisit my Italian studies I am reignited with commitment and desire. I’ll practice Duolingo every day this year. I’ll pay for one of those lifetime subscriptions to Rosette Stone or Babel. I’ll find an Italian speaker in Tahoe to practice with. I’ll listen to podcasts in Italian and follow Italians on Instagram.

Prior to arriving, I spent very little time and effort on planning my time here and had few plans or expectations. Before leaving the States, I felt excited and satisfied with the two nights at a writer’s heaven and two nights in the countryside cooking and listening to Opera. Now that I’m here, and saw mountains and maps, there’s this voice saying – go to the coast, see everything you can. Do this, do that. Yet, all I really want to do is sit at a cafe and hear the language of Italia dance into my eardrums while I sip a cappuccino. Why is that?

Why do I love absorbing a language I love but barely understand? Is there something in my DNA that makes these notes echo in my blood? Did I hear Italian in the womb? I don’t even know. But it feels so right and it feels like family. And that’s something I don’t feel very often.

…

As we’re now three full days into our trip, and at one location for three more days before Noelle heads back to the States and I begin my solo adventures, I accept that knowing and using the language on this trip might not be important. Or even necessary. So what is?

Being present. Being grateful. Being authentic. Being appreciative. Showing Italians the love I have for them and their country. Thanking them for sharing their world with me. Thanking Noelle for inviting me on this unforgettable once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Plus, i vestiti, la pasta, i salami e i formaggi.

At the writing and running workshop I completed earlier this month, the organization encouraged us to think about and share what our intentions were prior to arriving, and to reflect on those while there and after we left. I think my intentions are:

To be in Italy.

To be with Noelle.

To write, think about writing, and observe my day-to-day through the writer’s lens, like I used to while traveling.

To accept discomfort while traveling, and not shy away from it, reminding me what I love, and that it’s all a good story, even when it feels super stressful in the moment.

To seek experience over perfection.