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Victories and Defeats
Our little grandbabies are so precious to us, and we celebrate every tiny new victory, every gained bit of knowledge. He is my whole life, and I mourn as each of those things we celebrate in the children are taken from him: how do you play that game? How do you do a puzzle? When do I take those pills?
Little Yellow Bowl My little yellow bowl broke today, its handle finally succumbing to 34 years of regular use and hot dishwashers. It’s not much of a bowl. Plastic, part of a set long gone. And I was surprised at the rush of emotion I felt. You see, my mother-in-law gave me that bowl. She gave me the whole set as part of a large box of utensils and bowls and dishcloths and other kitchen things her son and I would need as we set up our first home together. While many may not see that as such a big deal, it was. I was most decidedly not her choice for her son. And yet, she still did this thoughtful thing. I use that bowl for nearly everything. It has a little spout, making it perfect for pouring pancake batter on a hot griddle or cake mix into cupcake tins. And every time I used it over the years, I thought about her. The rest of the contents of that box are mostly long gone. But the little yellow bowl hung in there, for 34 years. My mother-in-law and I had what can ta...
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But after experiencing it (thankfully, from the passenger seat, or watching as a pedestrian) for a few days, I started to notice something else.
Driving in Italy is not so much insane as it is a form of controlled chaos. It is a dance, where subtle nods and gestures (no, not that kind) and unwritten but clearly understood communication come into play. Roman pedestrians just know what risks are acceptable to take and which ones are not. Drivers seem to careen through the narrow streets always nearly missing certain disaster, but in reality playing out this mutually agreed-upon dance.
They know where to squeeze in, and when to back off. They seem to understand to whom they should defer and when they are the one to whom others will submit. The relaxed nature of the city’s inhabitants contributed to the ebb and flow of the dance. Where Americans might witness road rage over a slight incident, Romans throw up their hands in frustration and then forget about it, choosing to just let it go.
Perhaps it’s a matter of perspective. When you live your life amongst the reminders of thousands of years of history, a 2-second incident in traffic pales.
Unlike the chaotic streets of Tijuana, where in the stretch of two miles we witnessed four fender benders, or downtown Manila, where, when we visited, traffic fatalities were common, in Rome, with millions of people all trying to get somewhere at once, we never saw a single crash...not even a bump. That’s not to say that it doesn’t happen there, of course, just that we never witnessed it in all the miles we traveled throughout the city.
And like a simple waltz or Texas two-step, the dance is easy to learn. Within hours, maybe less, we had learned to discern the difference between a car or scooter rapidly approaching behind us (read that, “jump out of the way!”) and one just nearby but not on our street. We could tell in advance which of the two vehicles vying for space on the main street would emerge victorious, or which vehicles would stop for pedestrians and which would not.
We understood a tiny gap between vehicles that in our country would be considered breathing room between parked cars was an acceptable parking space to an Italian, so don’t block it!
And so it ceased to be crazy, insane, chaotic, and instead took on a choreographed elegance.