Settling in

The progression of comfort is a strange creature. Coming to Italy, I knew the stages of development and adjustment I would encounter, but the slow and steady assimilation never ceases to surprise.

It's been just over a month since I arrived in Milan from Seattle. Reflecting on my experience over the past few weeks is odd since I am completely and utterly in tune with my current reality. If there is one thing that linguistic isolation brings, it's clarity. It seems as if nothing much has changed since I've been here. At first glance, my experience in Parma has been static. I feel as if I've been able to loosely communicate in Italian my entire time here. I feel as if I've been in Parma for 4 months, not 4 weeks. But when I select memories from those uncertain weeks I realize the immense proportion of progress I've made since I was here.

When I first arrived, I was completely lost. Although I had the capacity to introduce myself in Italian based upon the memorization of some key phrases on the 10 hour plane ride, I could only bumble in English when meeting new people. I was easily flustered and very reserved.

Midway through, language classes were always a roller coaster. Some days I felt strongly that I was learning Italian and some days I felt like I understood nothing. More often than not, I would change my mind about my level multiple times in 3 hours.

Often times in the past few weeks, when approched by Italians and addressed, I've internalized enough to communicate my lack of language skills and basically why I'm in Parma.

In retrospect it's a blur. It's trite, but it simply doesn't feel like just 4 weeks. My progression hasn't been immense, but it's been enough. Enough to change my status from complete isolation and timidity, to comfort in a not-so-long-ago foreign city. Of course, I'm a long way off from complete certainty and knowlege. A lifetime is not enough to understand this country, but I'm working with the time I've been handed.