My plan, intention, goal is to be in Italy for my 50th birthday with friends. I'm working on the plans right now, and hoping we are getting closer and closer to reality each day.
In line with that intention I am studying Italian every day. I got the 24/7 Italian Tutor App on my iPad and iPhone so I have no excuse to not do at least a lesson a day.
The other thing I've done is put my Italian dictionary from college in my bathroom. It's hilariously old, reminding me that this is, after all, my 50th birthday, so I should stop being shocked by things aging, including my luscious body! LOL!
So, every single time I go to the bathroom (and I drink a lot of water) or take a bath, I get to open my dictionary up to a random word. Whether I want to learn the word or not, I learn it. Usually after learning the word, my eye wanders to words I already know. Actually, I am desperately seeking them. I used to speak the damn language, one would think I would remember SOME of these words! Again, aging, lovely delicious aging.
When I take a bath I get to learn or re-learn a ton of words. Today I got two back to back that I had to write about, two words that I was excited I already knew, but that held little gems for me:
First Page of the Bath:
Word: MOUNTAIN
Translation: MONTAGNA....
And then, the phrase "to make a mountain out of a molehill"
TRANSLATION: fare d'una mosca un elefante
Which translated back to English is "Make an elephant out of a fly."
Is that not the most hilarious phrase? The Italians just do everything better. It's so superior to our phrase.
Very next turn of page: PINK
Translation: ROSA...
And then, the phrase without an English equivalent, just flying out in the middle of the paragraph for no apparent "English reason"...CONDIZIONE PERFETTA!
This you can likely translate yourself: Perfect Condition
I have been so present to the perfection of every little thing these days. Every mishap, every loss, every death (there have been several in my world in the last month), every fuck up on my part or someone else's....it's ALL absolutely, unequivocally perfect.
Even my turning 50, dare I say it, is
CONDIZIONE PERFETTA!
Lazy Condizione Perfetta to All!
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Oh this is lovely, condizione perfetta indeed. Habitato en Italia per un anno e ho dimenticato tutto. Oggi, pero, I remember un po perche hai un grande sogno bellissimo. Mille Grazie, a thousand graces, for reminding me of these simple poetics of language.
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