Task: Scrivere a la famiglia

Actually, I guess that should be “Scriva”, making it an imperative command, not an infinitive. “Scrivere” is what I wrote down, though. I am sort of partial to infinitives. It’s always the first thing that you learn.

Anyway, I am telling myself to write to the family, and this has been something I have been meaning to do since my first trip to Italy, in October 2006. Okay, maybe it was the second trip, in May 2008. That’s quite the procrastination streak either way.

The deal is that I really love my mother’s family. They are such good people and so loving. With my father’s family, I don’t think that any of them specifically wish me harm, but there’s not really a lot of warmth among the aunts and uncles, except for Don and he died when I was two.

With Mom’s family though, they loved me right away. It’s like they loved me all along and had just been waiting for the chance to show me. To them I am brilliant and beautiful with a smile like the sun. Ragazza stupenda. I admit it—it gets to me. Sure, the hugs and the kiss-kiss are kind of traditional, but they still mean it.

At the same time, we are losing Mom’s generation. One brother and one sister died since the last time we were there, and they were among the younger and healthier. Of the three left, we have two who are very old, and one who has Alzheimer’s. If we want to keep those connections alive, it has to happen with the younger generation.

Younger may be a misnomer of sorts. Mom is the youngest in her family by a lot, so her oldest nephew is only six years younger than she is. Nonetheless, the majority of them do have email, which I cannot say for my aunts and uncles. Some of them are even on Facebook, though they don’t really use it. And, they don’t need it to keep in touch, because they all call each other and see each other. This is not really practical for us.

I thought sending an email to all of them every month would be a good plan. They know what’s going on with us, they can write back, and it keeps my Italian from getting too rusty. I just did not realize how hard it would be to start.

Switching languages is not necessarily easy. Well, I can always get back to English pretty quickly, but into anything else is harder. Knowing what to say, especially the first time you do it, can be hard. Doing both together kept seeming impossible. But today I was going to do it.

Sometimes when the computer is not feeling right I will get some paper. I started writing some notes in English. It felt stupid. I thought maybe I should read something in Italian first. I did not have time for that. Finally I just went on the computer, wrote a short note in English, and then brought up Babelfish, which is now Bing translator.

Actually, I was initially pretty impressed. I could see some things here and there that weren’t quite right, but it seemed pretty good. That’s when I printed it and took it to Mom. We spent about 45 minutes fixing it.

It’s not even that it provided the wrong words, but there are expressions that do not mean the same thing when you translate them literally, and also things that they just don’t say. That is part of what makes changing your language hard. You aren’t just changing the words, but you are changing the mindset. It is valuable to be able to do it, but I do not have a simple on/off switch.

Nonetheless, we were able to get it fixed, and with still enough time left that I could send the message before it was time to leave for the movie. (My sisters and I went to see Spiderman!)

I am not completely happy with this process, because I like to think I am capable of more, but involving Mom is probably good, and at least I did get something sent off, after meaning to for many years. It is a workable system, even if it is not completely ideal.

What can I say? Tanti saluti e bacci.