Mobilità studentesca internazionale

17 in America

“This could be heaven or this could be hell” sang The Eagles in their famous lyric Hotel California (1976). It means we have the power to write our own story, in other words we can turn our perceived hell into our marvellous heaven. Almost one year ago, on 26th August I wrote on a page of my travel journal: “While I was falling down, I realized that everything was the way I was shaping it”.

I was living in a tiny prefabricated  house in the suburbs of Franklin, Tennessee, where there were hundreds of other identical  houses. Houses built out of plywood, trasmitting insecurity rather than a sense of solidity, what I really needed  in my uncertain present. I immediately felt that the American concept of community life and space was completely different from to the one I was used to. In that new society everything had to be planned in advance. I could not be indipendent without a car and a driving licence: twenty minutes’ walk were not enough to get out of my neighborhood.

Everything was too far from everything else, confined in its place, boxed. There was no flexibility, no inspiration, everything meant to be functional, productive, scheduled. Their apparent freedom was in reality the constraint of standard formats of limited options (written by someone else) meant to create wealth and make the great machine of “The United States of America” (their only real God)  keep working amazingly. My first disappointed impression was that of a crowd of individuals with no solid identity more inclined to a material world rahter than interested in a true quest for life and meaning.

I was missing my life in Italy, the freedom of personal mobility, the pleasure of last minute planning in order to meet friends and organize activities. I felt I was living on another planet, I started looking at the world through a lense. The lense of my pain and my loneliness. Yet I wanted to endure and I said to myself: “All the pain we experience is going to build up who we are”.  I was aware I had abaondoned  my comfort zone in order to grow, to develop as a young woman.

I clearly remember the adrenalin when I promised to myself: “Yes, I can do it. I can overcome this difficult moment.”  I remember the sense of inner power, the feeling that I was myself, that I was stepping forward, my great adventure had just begun. I saw the opportunity to become a stronger and more confident woman able to shape my destiny: life was in my hands.  A feeling of excitement took hold of me: I was alone but I believed I could fly high over  troubles, tears and  be successful. After a shocking beginning, I established a reassuring, pretty boring routine but my mind was always at work to find new meanings for this tough and yet educational experience, all alone in a foreign land away from the love of parents and friends.

I could easily handle the contents of the American school, even though the structure was more rigid and tiring. I was happy about the new subjects I chose (economics and psychology) which were absent from my Italian school syllabus. I appreciated and I was appreciated by my American teachers, who welcomed my interested approach and my intellectual curiosity. I was happy about them being so caring and passionate.

The school enviroment was truly uncomfortable though, I suffered because of that more than I would have thought: low ceilings, lack of natural light, cold air conditioning in every season, longer school days and a frenetic rhythm of the daily schedule (which was also every day the same). I prepared for tests like the ACT, the SAT and the IELTS English language test (all very useful for my future application to international universities).

I applied and was selected as volunteer at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts in Nashville, a great multicultural artistic place where I established excellent relationships and could give vent to my creativity. I worked every Saturday afternoon in their ArtQuest, a zone dedicated to the creation of different kind of pieces of art. It offered a wide range of techniques (from watercolors to the press printing) for a wide target of people.

I met amazing people in Tenneessee. First of all my teachers, whose classes I fully enjoyed. I felt free to express my ideas without the fear of being judged by them or by my classmates ( like sometimes happens in my Italian school). My American teachers were a reference point. They were curious about my culture, they always asked me if I was happy and if I needed help. To my great surprise, at the end of the year my psychology teacher wrote me a card to say she enjoyed having me in her class. I felt so grateful!

Another significant person I met was Don, my host mother’s stepfather. A giant of two meters,  eightynine years old, WW2 proud veteran, that during his life saw the entire world. I perfectly remember the first time I met him. He came with his wife from North Carolina (where they lived – 11 hours away) because Amy (my host mother) was very sick. When he saw me,  he beckoned me to come closer, I reluctantly followed his instruction. The picture he showed me was of the 40s, the big ship in the port of Venice was the one he was working on board when he was part of the Navy. He gave me the picture. A part of his past. He didn’t even know me. His hug was the first real human contact I had since I left home. Obviously from that day we got closer and closer, he considered me as part of his family and I will always consider him as my grandfather.

I was trying my best to avoid to stay alone, because those were the hardest moments, so during the week I kept myself busy going to the pool and to the gym doing kick-boxing. All this emphasis on  sport (that naturally doesn’t exactly belong to me) to compensate for my fear of seeing my body change and gain weight.  The obsession with food was another relevant page of my experience. I think I was projecting all the tension coming from my displacement  on the physical side. I was like somatizing my anxieties. I was constantly counting the calories of the food I ate, and in certain moments that was the only thing I could think about. Fortunately I still had that common sense keeping me on a reasonable balance. Also I was lucky because my host mother took me to the supermarket every week, leaving me free to choose my food, and to cook every night for both of us.

 The family life in my host house was a bit complicated as well. I was hosted by Amy, a single woman with no children, but a big dog and two cats. The animals made me immediately feel uncomfortable. When I first arrived we were living in a very small and dirty house next to my school. She had moved there one year before from North Carolina because of her work and this was just a temporary accommodation. After a couple of months she decided to buy another house, and at the end of October we fortunately moved to a bigger and nicer place. At that point Jason, his new boyfriend, moved in as well (with his dog). He was affected by a big handicap: he was born without legs and an arm. He had prothesis that allowed him to walk and lead an almost normal life. He was a very nice person, I felt very sorry when in spring they broke up and he moved out. Anyway I kept holding the relationship created both with him and Amy.

Feeling limited in that little lonely life, I really needed to develop a certain awareness of the world surrounding me. I felt like a little grain inside a giant, spectacularly working universe. From this position I felt the necessity to understand the amazing system, to see the things from a wider perspective, to treasure, an open mind. I was a proud citizen of the world living between two continents, but also a small entity among overwhelming events and global changes. I read the international news every day, and it seemed absurd to me that in Europe people were dying because of terrorist attacks and the migrants were risking their lives to cross the Mediterranean Sea. Besides,  Obama’s America  was still fighting discrimination and Donald Trump was becoming outrageously popular  due to his violent and racist ideas. I wanted to volunteer for the primary democratic campaign of Hillary Clinton but I suprisingly discovered that neither in Franklin nor in Nashville there was an office directly promoting Hillary’s campaign, so I had to give up.

I realized that we take so much for granted in our lives.  During this adventure in America I thought so much about all the details of my life in Italy and I was so grateful that I had the opportunity to see it from the outside, to understand  my priviledged position in the universe  and  my gratitude for my parents  who invested their energy and love and finanical resources to make me live extraordinary expoeriences such as one year in the USA.

We, living beings, get used to everything; through our experience we acquire a new vision of the world and of our mission in life.  If we open our minds a bit more we can understand who we are, where we come from, what makes our life worth living.  I feel a new woman now, a more determined  and stronger woman.

by Matilde Quarin