Looking ahead...

I've been thinking a lot about the places I still want to go in my life. As I'm thinking about this, and about Italy as usual, I suddenly feel kind of...afraid.

The first time I traveled, after all, was ideal in so many ways because I had no real expectations or reasons to be afraid. I was nervous, sure, but at the same time, the fact that I was doing something totally new and brave gave me confidence. I boarded that first flight to Italy with unusual courage, and now, I wonder if I've lost it.

To be honest, just the thought of going on a family vacation out of the country makes me kind of scared. For whatever reason, where I once saw adventure and the thrill of a challenge, I now see anxiety and fear of disappointment.

But the thought of never traveling again makes me feel claustrophobic, like I'm running out of time. Because really, I do want to go to other places. I want to go to:

*Morocco

*France

*Wales (to trace my ancestors on my dad's side!)

*Israel

*Italy (of course)

*China, a la Paul Theroux in "Riding the Iron Rooster: by Train through China"

Also, I have to say that lately this desire to travel is even more urgent because I haven't been well. And the thought of illness dictating when and where I can go makes me feel claustrophobic all over again. Recently I found out I have a sleep disorder that has become pretty debilitating. I really want things to just go back to the way they were before, when I was in Italy. It's no coincidence that that was also the healthiest I've ever been. No wonder I want to go back.

Have you ever felt like all of a sudden, for whatever reason, the clock is ticking? That it's now or never if you want to change your life?

Sitting here in my house near midnight, it seems impossible that I could ever be in any of those great places I want to see. I can't believe my sleep disorder has affected so many areas of my life. Mostly, I'm afraid that I'M not the person I was before--namely, someone who could pack up and move off in search of adventure at a moment's notice.

I'm sending this out tonight into the blogosphere hoping that we'll all get to where we want to be--me, you, whoever you are--and that when we get there, it'll be even better than we imagined. Safe travels no matter where life takes you,

Caitlin

FAIL

Dear Microsoft,

Approximately seven minutes ago, out of the blue, you shut down my online grade book session and systematically denied all further attempts to restore my work.

You will notice that I have selected the option, "Don't send error report," because I don't want to send an error report, I want you to FIX THE ERROR. True, this is not the first time your substandard programming has vaporized my data, but it is the most inconvenient by far. I was in the process of posting 9 weeks grades, which I have been procrastinating doing for several days because computer spreadsheets are horrible, and all of a sudden, they're gone.

I'm not the kind of person to get all up in arms about a totally manageable problem; no, I refreshed my browser, exited out, and then restarted the computer when all that didn't work. And then I tried five more times, just to be sure. Because I'm thorough.

You are completely responsible for my breakdown in productivity tonight, and for any future penalties I may incur because I got behind.

And you know what else? Next time I am going to send an error report. I'm going to send like 500 of them, as a matter of fact. And they're going to be in IM speak or Wingdings or something totally pointless, if that's possible. And then I'm going to send a chain email to all of my contacts telling THEM to send error reports, and then I'll feel better. Thank you.

things i still like anyway

They say that something's not really irresistible until it's officially against the rules. Maybe that's what happens in my case. Or maybe I'm bent on spiraling into self-destruction via a Top Model/Hostess cake coma? At any rate, at the ripe old age of 25 I realize I have acquired certain habits that are not up for negotiation. I like to think I'm open-minded and up for trying new things, but a girl has to know where to draw the line. So forget Lent and New Year's resolutions. Forget any magazines that contain the words "Health" or "Better" in the titles, except for collage-making purposes. Sorry, Women's Health. Adios, Prevention and Better Homes and Gardens. I'm doing just fine on my own, thanks.

So here goes, in no particular order:

1. I still like Coca Cola. This might actually be my number one. I could drink a Coke every day, and I will sacrifice my waistline and my dental health to keep consuming it. I don't know if the old myth is true about Coke, but I'm glad I wasn't around when the company reportedly included cocaine in the recipe. Not like I need to add fuel to the fire.

2. Watching Disney movies. Does Disney exposure give girls unrealistic expectations about love and values? Probably. Disney taught us that a woman has to be pretty and pliable to achieve true love. Pliable...like a Barbie with bendy arms and legs. Take a Barbie, and then give her a singing voice and a chipper attitude, and voila! The Disney princess. So she doesn't have any career ambitions or practical skills. She doesn't know a thing about current events. She doesn't really even have any brain waves. In the world of Disney, at least, she has an inherent value as a person. Er, princess. Doll...whatever. I don't care; I love the happy stories and sing-a-long tunes and beautiful ballgowns.

3. Junk food. At some point I just accepted that I was doing, and would continue to do, huge amounts of irreparable damage to my arteries, and then I penciled in "Junk food" near the top of my food pyramid and moved on. Even after Stacey's diabetic scare in the Babysitter's Club series as a kid, I knew that I would cut off my left foot before I gave up chocolate chip cookies and fried fish. Which may just happen if I keep it up. Long John Silver's can just owe me a prosthetic leg.

4. America's Next Top Model, Law and Order: SVU, Lifetime Original Movies, Tori and Dean, etc...Some reality shows, some classic dramas, I like to keep an open mind. Watching ANTM, I get the feeling that my life is not nearly as screwed up as I thought, yet I ignore the healthy impulse to change the channel and end up watching hour after hour. Oh no, she did not just imitate my signature pose! OMG did you see how much she ate today? Ignore her, she's a racist/snob/Southerner/third degree burn survivor who's always looking for a fight. It's glorious, even the blood-and-guts, scary, B-list cast scenarios of the Lifetime Original Movie. I can't get enough, and then finally something crosses the arbitrary line, and I change the channel in disgust, only to find myself wondering what happens next...Sure, I could be out rescuing abandoned puppies or writing the great American novel. But this is way more fun.

5. Comfortable, random clothes collected from years of thrift-store shopping. Some were great finds, and most of the rest are plain, broken in, outdated, you name it. So what if I eventually have to break down and buy a brand new shirt at retail price; 90% of the time, my random wardrobe is appropriate. Sure, it comprises many souvenir t-shirts from Laos and Florida bars and other places I've never seen, and several pairs of lounge pants with suspicious holes. There's something nice about slipping into something already broken-in and comfy, while imagining where it came from in the first place. Like Mom always said, just wash before you wear.

...To be continued...

things i will never do...or never do again

I think that once I get started, this list could go on and on...but here are a few things that I will never, ever do, or in some cases, do again.

I will never:

1. eat cannoli. just the thought of it makes me want to throw up--which i did, violently, the last time i ate it.

2. eat maraschino cherries. trust me, once you taste fresh cherries, you'll never go back.

3. tan (in any form--tanning bed, laying out, spray tan, etc). yes, i know i'm pale--very, very pale. i don't care how attractive tans are; i'm more interested in healthy skin.

4. take a gypsy cab the first day in another country. they charge twice as much. they also can't drive. (shudder)

5. watch scary movies alone. final destination? what. was. i. thinking.

6. tease my kid (or any kid) about their weight, looks, or hobbies. people who won't let their kids be who they want to be should not perpetuate the human race, period.

7. deny myself a piece of cake, a nap, or an hour of brainless television.

8. visit any gas station restroom along Arkansas highway 14. trust me, they're very, very bad.

9. double park. i hate when people do this.

10. drink tequila anywhere i could be recognized. along those lines, i will also never again wear anything cherished out to a bar.

11. pretend i like Nicholas Sparks.

12. criticize someone who works hard for a living, no matter their profession.

Nanny Tells All, and other ways to complement your income

There are a lot of stories about nannies—stories written by, about, and for nannies. The Nanny Textbook. And Nanny Makes Three. You’ll Never Nanny in This Town Again. Most of the nanny stories that I’ve heard of are about the family a nanny works for and usually lives with. And most of the parents are busy, rich people who don’t just hire nannies; they hire housekeepers, cooks, drivers, and so on.

Nanny tell-alls get published mainly for one reason: people who read books enjoy stories about the excessively rich and inappropriate just as much as people who read tabloids and watch Access Hollywood do. It’s fascinating to glimpse the world behind the curtain, so to speak: how the rich spend their free time, what their personal habits and hang-ups include. Notably, these stories aren’t primarily literary. They don’t have to be, and not just because their target audience cares more about juicy details than artistry. They don’t have to be literary because the details are so juicy, the lifestyles so bizarre. Adding simile and metaphor on top of that is like too much frosting on a cake—truth really is stranger than fiction.

That’s why, for all its shock value, the nanny tell-all generally falls short. Readers of one nanny story have read them all, for all intents and purposes. Of course the Hollywood actress lies to the cameras about all the time she spends with her kids; of course nannies go underappreciated and unseen. That’s the nature of the job, and there is no foreseeable end in sight, as long as people are willing to work under the current conditions as a nanny, and as long as employers pay no consequences for overworking and undervaluing them.

I guess the same thing probably goes for au pair stories in a way: they’re all basically the same. Let me qualify: they all basically end the same. Unlike a nanny, an au pair principally works in a foreign country for a contracted amount of time. At the end of the contract, an au pair says goodbye to the family she’s grown to love, probably goodbye forever, and goes back to her country. (We’re mostly females.)

The French definition of au pair is “on par” or “equal treatment.” This is mostly true in practice, depending on where you’re from. In my case, I found an au pair job in Italy very quickly because I’m a native English speaker. My Italian host family wanted their children to learn English, and she made my job as comfortable and fair as possible, under the circumstances that come with teaching and caring for three small children. The same probably goes for an au pair in the States, which is rare but not unheard of. A rich family might hire an American girl who is fluent in French or Spanish, so their children can have the distinction of learning a foreign language. The word governess comes to mind. Her job is principally teaching, tutoring, and tending to the children’s immediate needs, not cleaning house or picking up the dry cleaning.

I can’t name an au pair story off the top of my head. I don’t know if a published one exists. But I know one thing: I sure wouldn’t want to read one. Why would I? I lived it.

Writing my own au pair story has made me think critically about people and events that still carry strong emotional ties. Imagine your favorite place in the world, the one place that makes you really, completely happy. Then imagine analyzing and evaluating it on paper. Could you write a pros and cons list of that place, or start to pick apart the pieces of that place like you were writing a book report? Could you face the real facts about that place and the people in it? Au pairing—Italy—was that place for me.

But creative nonfiction as I know it isn’t concerned with poking holes in genuine happiness, and it's not just a tell-all machine. It’s concerned with facing the truth about the holes that already exist in things—in people, in experiences—and figuring out how you feel about them. So in your mind, you go back to that place that makes you the happiest in the whole world. Sometimes those holes lurk on the periphery of the picture, and sometimes they’re right in front of you, so close that at first you couldn’t see them. You probably already noticed something was just not quite right the first moment you went there. So if you’re going to go there, leave a trail of breadcrumbs to get back by. Don’t stay there too long, dwelling on the negatives. Hold on to your first, completely happy moments about that place. Guard them like they were your own children. At the end of the day, all that truth and revelation is nothing if you don’t still have that great, happy part of you.

I think my au pair story sticks pretty close to the norm. Girl goes abroad, girl meets family, girl loves family, girl goes home. Sure, things that put nanny stories on the map also happened to me. The children’s bathroom was bigger than my bedroom; I worked long hours; other parents found out my host family had a babysitter and brought their kids over for me to watch, and they never offered to pay me. Have you ever been screamed at by six small children in a foreign language? It still stings even when you can’t understand what it means.

Have you ever left a place you loved, and thought about that place every day since? Have you ever been more homesick for a place you were only visiting than for your own home? I suspect at one time or another, everyone has. And that is why I think that an au pair story, unlike the currently successful nanny expose, can survive in the genre of nonfiction. Because as lame as it sounds, it’s more than just a juicy story, it’s how those shocking moments affected a real life. That, and a little artistry doesn't hurt, either.

In recognition of aspiring artists who had "normal" childhoods

As a student of creative nonfiction, I've had the opportunity to read dozens of memoirs, personal essays, and works of literary journalism. I've read some exceptional nonfiction during the course of my MFA work, and definitely recommend many of the titles, but that's another list.

For now I want to explore what I consider to be a growing problem for aspiring artists--especially nonfiction writers--wanting to be published by the top magazines and publishing houses. Students of contemporary creative nonfiction are familiar with the trend for in-your-face, gritty memoirs and essays. There's a reason that Augusten Burroughs' Running With Scissors and James Frey's A Million Little Pieces earned contracts with Doubleday and Picador and got noticed by the New York Times; publishers tune in to what readers want. (Fraudulent as it may be, it's no surprise Frey's memoir got noticed by Oprah; drama, like sex, sells.)

Which leaves a surprisingly large demographic of us aspiring nonfiction writers in a dilemma. I'm talking about those of us who had "normal" childhoods, in the most mainstream definition of the word: people who grew up in average middle-class families that worked hard and went to church every Sunday. I'm talking about people who never dealt with gangs, drugs, or negligent parents, to name a few. People, in other words, who read books like A Million Little Pieces and realized they have nothing good to write about.

Sitting through my first Master's writing workshop, this observation materialized into all-out fear for my future. During that week, we read and critiqued essays involving death, sexual abuse, and growing up with alcoholic parents. My own piece, featuring events as a day camp counselor, looked pointless next to the others. It was not the first time my fortunate childhood made me feel self-conscious, but it was the first time I resented having it. Why was my life so boring, my day-to-day experiences so normal? It was only the first of four workshops, and I had already written up my most notable life experiences for this one! What was I going to write about for the rest of them?

Some will say (and have) that people with "normal" childhoods don't become writers; they become CPAs and doctors and assimilate nicely into society. Others say, in the words of one of my favorite quotes, that a writer has all the material he needs by the time he turns eleven, "normal" childhood or not. In my opinion, a good writer has to assimilate into society to a point while still cultivating his or her opinions and ideas. Nonfiction writers especially depend on encounters with other people to contextualize their own personal stories.

So they (we) shouldn't give up hope of one day seeing our work published. More importantly, we who come from "normal" childhoods should not settle for writing grit for the sake of grit. I think that there's a need for (pardon the term) average, everyday stories just like there's a need for the gruesome, horrific, and devastating. Because a good writer recognizes the gruesome, horrific, and devastating in everyday life; those are the stories that will resonate and endure with readers beyond the market trend.

have passport, will travel part 3

Some people travel to Italy for a week or two and go all over the country. They hit Milan, Venice, Florence, Rome, and Tuscany to name a few, armed with phrasebooks and detailed itineraries that highlight the top attractions. (See Italy in a week!)

Meanwhile, I lived in Italy for six months and I never made it outside a 100 mile radius on my own.

I didn't go to Pisa, Umbria, or Pompeii. I didn't make it to Verona for the annual Juliet festival (a must for Shakespeare fans!). And I didn't go to Sicily.

Granted, the au pair schedule allowed exactly one day off per week. You can take a train to Florence and back in one day, other au pairs told me, but you'll barely step foot outside the train station before you have to head back. And the au pair allowance (for me, 100 Euro per week) wouldn't cover train tickets and museum passes anyway. So I had to put Tuscany and Venice on the back burner--I threw my coin in the Trevi fountain and hoped it would deliver: legend has it, when you throw a coin in the Trevi fountain, one day you're sure to return to Rome.

This, emphatically, has nothing to do with that film When In Rome. That is a totally different fountain myth which I have never even heard of. I call shenanigans on that. Plus, the Italians would frown on someone pilfering around in their lovely fountains, for any reason. They take their historical landmarks very seriously, and rightly so. Fountain wading is about as appealing to the Romans as someone tackling the Pope. As they say, Non si fa. It isn't done.

Now, I'm proud to say that I covered a lot of ground in Rome. At night after putting the children to bed, I would spread a map out in my room and trace the routes I went that day, highlighting and circling what I could remember. Eventually I learned street names, bus routes, and shortcuts. I could take the metro to the Coliseum or the Spanish Steps and find my way home on foot. I went walking every chance I got. I would get the children ready for school in the morning and then have all day to go exploring.

I went to the Vatican museums first, on my third day in Italy. (Sundays are free admission! Get there early to get a good spot in line.) I went to mass at St. Peter's. I spent whole afternoons in Villa Borghese, a popular park and museum. I toured the Coliseum. But most days, I walked through my host family's neighborhood, occasionally writing but mostly relaxing in local cafes. I bought apples at the market across the street from the apartment and visited the flea market at least once a week. If I ever felt like I was missing out on being a tourist, I could take the metro to the center of town and see the sights.

Inevitably though, two years later, it's the neighborhoods I miss most. It's the low-key days people-watching in the park or sitting out on the apartment balcony when the weather was nice. That's the pattern most of my days followed. I always felt more comfortable closer to home. I knew that I could always go back to Rome one day as a tourist, but it wouldn't be the same as it was when I wasn't just seeing the city, but living in it.

have passport, will travel part 2

I'm sitting in a basement classroom next to another American, conjugating the past perfect tense of to be in my new Italian workbook. Barbara the Brazilian student, sitting on my other side, has already finished and is writing a shopping list in Italian. I'm stuck on the second person plural; M. from Alabama is looking at the pasta diagram on the wall. She appears to be stuck, too.

For reasons I can't exactly understand, taking Italian lessons twice a week is a condition of my stay in Italy. This is my second visit to the basement classroom on Via Bramante, just off the metro stop Piramide, and I feel M. and I may be kindred spirits. I've already memorized the pasta diagram.

Barbara reminds Ernesto, our tutor, that her time is valuable and she has night classes at physical therapy school, so can we hurry it up please? It's only noon. I think this is the point where I start to hate Barbara. Or at least her mastery of multiple languages.

Ernesto is a graduate student who looks like the actor Jeff Goldblum and gripes about American politics between verb exercises. He has a spectacular ponytail. It's clear from the way he talks with Barbara only, in fluent Italian, that he sees little potential in M. and me. We don't mind much.

M. is an au pair, too. She's caregiver for twin boys the same age as the triplets I take care of. Currently we're prisoners to Barbara and Ernesto's conversation in this weird basement with cinder block walls, dreading being called on.

I missed the first two weeks of class, so I have no concept of conversational Italian. I'm learning to conjugate verbs, but I still can't tell time. I've been relying on the children to teach me my numbers and days of the week at bath time. Teaching me how to translate objects in the bathroom delights them to no end. I came all the way from America, I'm a grown up and everything, and I don't know how to say my own phone number? Wow.

Who knew there were so many kinds of pasta, and they all had a name? Gnocchi, rotelle, farfalle.

I gaze back at my workbook, where I've filled in about five of the ten odd blanks and covered the margins with doodles of curlicues. It's going to take me all day at this rate.

Q: Is there life after Italian coffee?

Today I was at Starbucks with my grandpa getting coffee (a shared hobby, I guess). I ordered a tall cappuccino and the guy asked me if I'd ever had real cappuccino before. I said, yes. He paused, then continued,
"Well, it's a little different from the kind where you push the cup against the machine thing."
"Like...BP coffee?" I asked. What did this guy take me for? A dazed teenager straggling in from the Hollister next door, popping in for a peppermint frappucinno? At which point I felt kind of deflated, after being in coffee withdrawal for quite some time now. I miss everything about drinking coffee in Italy--the smells of brewing espresso, the sound of customers chinking their cups and talking--sigh. Meanwhile the guy was eying me intensely, practically willing me to order something frilly via ESP.
"I think I'll just go with the cappuccino, thanks though."
"Hey, it's whatever you want." Smirk.

So, is this coffee habit really worth all that grief? Is there life after Italian coffee?

A: Yes. No...depends on how far you are willing to go to recreate the fantastic experience of Il cafe Italiana, authentic Italian coffee.

You have options. If you find yourself, as I was when I left au pair world, suddenly without access to espresso and its tasty offshoots, you have options. You can
1. Drag yourself to Starbucks at one of its two equally awkward locations in the Western KY area (a hospital or the mall--would you rather fight through throngs of hospital personnel, or actual dazed teenage girls straggling in from Claire's and Hollister? yikes)for your morning fix
2. Invest in a quality espresso machine and those tiny cups, as well as hard-to-find Lavazzo espresso packets, and learn to make it yourself
3. Learn to drink your regular coffee black, if you haven't already--you get more of a coffee taste and less of a finicky coffee-doctoring habit
4. Like # 2, but cheaper: buy a stove top percolator designed for espresso, and find bags of espresso at drugstores, and learn to make the coffee without burning it
5. Adopt a new habit to get your morning energy fix. Draw your own conclusions
6. Pine and sigh
7. Embrace McCafe (it's hit and miss)

(Note: If and when you find yourself in Rome looking for a cup of coffee, good news: almost any cafe or restaurant you choose will have great coffee. Choose one. Go inside, survey the layout (expect to pay the cashier at one end of the bar, and then receive your order at the other), and order. Espresso is cafe. Cappuccino, if you should crave it, is strictly a morning drink for Italians. Expect to be outed as a tourist if you order it any later. As a rule, the less swamped by tourists, the less expensive and more authentic the place will be. A place that is full of locals is usually synonymous with a great find. Get your coffee, take a whiff of that fresh espresso, and enjoy.)

have passport, will travel part 1

l'au pair americana, the american au pair.

I moved to Rome, Italy in the winter of 2008 as a live-in nanny, or au pair, to an Italian family. Besides please and thank you, I only knew three other words in Italian: Via Anapo 29 (ventinove), the street address of the family I agreed to work for.

I had submitted an application to an au pair agency out of Nova Scotia in October, and then waited anxiously for a reply. I had moved back home with my parents after graduating college five months before, and with little variation to my daily schedule, needed a serious change. To me, staying at home for an indefinite stretch of time was synonymous with stifling the creative spirit and/or dying an old maid in our depressing basement. So I convinced the director of my graduate creative writing program at MSU that I would meet all my semester requirements as I was living and working in Italy. And I tried to downplay the part where the children I would be taking care of were triplets, age six. Never mind that not only could I not speak Italian, I had never really babysat. If I survived, it would make one hell of a story.

So I ordered my schoolbooks, packed two suitcases with everything I thought I'd need for six months abroad, and settled my arrival date with the signora who would be my host mother.

Then I flew to Italy.