Oggi, ho gratitudine per la lingua italiana. Translation: Today, I am grateful for the Italian language.
When I first when to college in 1978, I thought I was going to be an Opera singer. I lived, ate, and breathed music. However, I quickly found out that while I love music, I cannot stand music theory. In order to major in vocal music, I was required to take a basic classes in Italian, German and French. I dropped most of my music classes, but stayed in my Italian class.
From the very first day of class, I fell in love with Italian. It sounded so beautiful and just felt ‘right’ to me. I think, deep down in my heart, I am a closet Italian. I lived in the Italian House at BYU, was in the Italian Club, minored in Italian. After graduating, I went back to Chicago and worked from 1982-1985 for the Chicago Branch of Banca Commerciale Italiana and would sometimes have to call Italy and also spoke Italian with my boss, Enzo D’Agostino.
For years, the Italian then went into hiding. When I found out that my daughter and future son-in-law were going to be stationed in Italy for 3 years, I started studying Italian again.
This September, I spent 2 1/2 weeks in Italy with my daughter and son-in-law. From the moment I got off the airplane I was surrounded by Italian and loved it. It was fun to hear, to read everywhere and even more fun to be able to communicate to the Italians.
Mi piace di parlare Italiano! (I love speaking Italian!) I bought several of my favorite books in Italian while I was on vacation there and am enjoying rereading them in Italian. Plus – it cracks me up when people see Twilight on my coffee table and pick it up to look at it and do a double take when they see it is not written in English.
Adventures in Running with Maurine 