gente, magnifica gente

Ti scrivo a proposito del tuo sentirti italiana…
Questo aspetto di te mi incuriosisce molto, perché noi italiani non sappiamo bene cosa significhi essere italiani…
(…)
Per questo é molto curioso sapere che una ragazza svedese dica di sentirsi italiana. Cosa significa questo per te? Cosa ti piace di noi? Cosa non ti piace?

I have written many times that I am “Italian at heart”. That my true home is Italy. What does it mean to me? If even the Italians themselves aren’t sure what being Italian means, how can a Swedish girl say that she feels Italian? 

I am the first to admit that I probably have a romanticized image of Italy and its people. At the same time I think I am more aware of Italy’s flaws and her inhabitants’ often hard lives than most non-Italians are. I also know that just as the Italian landscape and climate show a great diversity from one region to the next, so are the Ligurians, Tuscans, Romans and Sicilians different. 

It is easy to mention all the obvious things, like the food and the wine, the art and the history, the landscape and the sun. Passionate people who talk just as much with their hands as with their mouth.
It is easy to paint a picture of big happy families sitting around large tables filled with steaming pots and pans, eating and drinking and talking for hours.
It is easy to lose yourself in the thought of festivals, an entire community singing and dancing in the streets, celebrating life long after the sunny day has turned into a warm, dark night.

These are dream images – sometimes true, but more often not. Life in Italy is not an eternal vacation. There’s not only pizza, pasta, sole e amore, there is also corruption, mafia, bureaucracy and plain old boring daily life.

Yet, there is something the Italians seem to have that the average Swede doesn’t: Passion. Spontaneity. A love and lust for life. An ability to make the best of any given situation and enjoy the good moments.

Being in Italy with a child made this very clear. In Sweden children are often seen as a nuisance, they are to be kept silent and invisible at all costs. Parents are constantly nagging on their kids, and forget to tell them that they are loved. In shops and restaurants the children are never addressed, but usually ignored, as though they weren’t there. In Italy, even the busiest waiter took the time to give Alexander some attention – patting his head, pinching his cheek, telling him that he was a very cute and brave boy. The result in him was immediate, he was encouraged to try new Italian words, he was seen and that had a great impact on his self esteem.  

Some consider the Italian generosity with compliments to be sleazy, but I think that even if you automatically discard the compliments, they still affect you on a deeper level. If you hear something often enough, after a while you will start to believe it is true. Furthermore, it becomes self-fulfilling. Thus, if you hear that you are a nuisance, you’ll be one, and if you hear that you’re irresistable then irresistable you will be.

The Italians seem to have the ability to appreciate the good in life – a beautiful day, good food, lively music, attractive people, high quality clothes. They are beautiful people in the most gorgeous of countries, and although Italy is a young nation the people have been there forever.

Italy welcomed me with open arms long before my first visit. In Italy I feel like I fit in. I don’t have to change for Italy, she loves me just as I am. Italian food tastes right to me. Its buildings look right. The music and the language sound right.  

I don’t love Italy for its politicians or its postal system. In fact, I don’t love the nation Italy. I love the landscape, the people, the history, the culture. All those things that were there long before the nation Italy was invented, and which are indeed what makes Italy what it is.

Foreigners who have moved to Italy all seem to answer the same thing upon being asked what has changed about them since they moved to Italy. They say that they are happier, calmer, more patient. They are learning a new way of life, a life with less money and less effectivity but a higher quality, a life where the most important things are allowed to actually be in focus. A life they can truly enjoy.

To me, that’s what it is all about. Enjoying life.