A Wednesday Morning


My alarm clock wakes me up at 6:30 every morning with a cascade of notes that makes me think of a forest in the rain, but in neon colours. It's a great way to start the day. I climb out of my bed, which creaks and pops like a machine gun, but I don't notice anymore. I grab my housecoat and towel and take the three steps I need to bring me to my bathroom. I blink against the harsh fluorescent lights that snap on without pity for my unused eyes. I take my European shower, which, though I can now do it with some proficiency, will never be natural to me. If it is a good day, meaning I am fully awake before the hot water activates my nervous system, the shower takes five minutes, if not, then ten minutes.

Today is a good day and, having gotten into the shower at 6:40, at 6:45 I am drying myself with my green towel, warmed by a radiator in the bathroom. Three minutes later, I am reaching out into the darkness as if blind to make sure I do not damage myself on the changing bureau for my sixth month old brother Matteo, and also trying not to make too much noise; however, my parents and Matteo have always managed to sleep through my morning routine and today is no exception. 
I eat my daily yogurt, chosen by whatever flavour I see first; today is coconut, my favourite. Heading back to the bathroom, I brush my teeth, wash my face, and around 7:00 I retrace the three steps to my room, all the while trying to keep silent. Sound travels fast in a small two-bedroom apartment, where the kitchen can accommodate one person only. I make my bed; an anomaly started here, partly because it is expected of me, and partly because my bed doubles as a couch by four cleverly placed cushions. I slap on some clothes, not really looking at what I am wearing, mess with my hair for a grand total of two minutes, grab my jean messenger bag, and walk out the door and down the three flights of stairs to emerge into the middle of Via Rossi Danielli.

It is around 7:15, due to the amount of daydreaming that took place between eating breakfast and walking out the door. I take a left to the end of my via, then a sharp right up Via Palazzini, and begin my morning walk and philosophy session in my mind. Talking and daydreaming to myself has never been a new thing for me: Annie the Leader, Annie the Star, Annie the Heroine; but Italy has changed me from dreaming up movie scenes of my life to thinking about and scrutinizing my actions and reasons and those of others. The first topic today, in this day-long thought process, which twists and turns faster then the wind changes in Viterbo, is what I am going to do in my future, which looks to be a choice between two things which are both very dear to me. A heavy subject for 7:20 in the morning, but I have always been a morning person. This particular issue has arisen above all other questions floating around in my mind because today is Mercoledì, Wednesday, and that means Acting Class; acting after a whole day of being surrounded by classics and archaeology.

As I head inside Porta Fiorentina and make another right, I decide that my future is too pisante for now, and, turning my direction inward to see what other questions my subconcious has in store for me today, I am hit with dozens of memories of this year when I have been wrong in class, or have not known an answer, or have been beaten academically by another, not in grades, but in class discussions. In my old school, an independent small private school in Clarksville, Tennessee, that would never have happened. That is the one real shock that I have had over this year, the one real hurdle I have had to overcome: School. Not grade-wise, but in everything else, such as not always being the smartest one in class, not knowing the teachers more so then others (which I could do at Clarksville Academy, as my mother teaches there) , not having my best friend there next to me to talk to through the day. Things that were, for me, immense roadblocks for me to pass through, but, I think as I cut diagonally across Sacrario after coming down Via Cairoli, for everything that I do not have, I have found something else to replace it.

In exchange for the smartest, I have become the weirdest, the one with the most-out-there ideas that seem to come from beyond Pluto ( e.g taking a roman sarcophogus and turning it into an ancient drama story). I have become much more imaginatively involved with my learning. So someone knows more facts about the life of Augustus then I; dollars to doughnuts I can imagine what it was like to be Augustus better then they can. Though some might see this as an unfair trade, I find it perfectly agreeable. So I don't have that inside knowledge to the personal world of my teachers, which provided me with a bit of extra help; here I know the teachers and they know me because I have taken the time to talk to them myself, and not allow myself to rely on the presence of my mother. For the ever-willing listener, teacher, and companion that my soul mate Tema provided, the only replacement that I have found has been inside myself. Of all the exchanges that I have made, this is the only one that I see as a loss, rather then a substitute.

By this time, I have walked through Piazza Della Commune and am walking up Via Cavour. I can see a small cluster of students, outside the large double green doors of the school. Looks like someone forgot to open up to us poor students shivering in the cold, but fortunately a benevolent teacher comes a few minutes after I arrive and lets us in. After a quick depressing email check, in which I receive no e-mails, I slough off my jacket and grab my Virgil stuff. Walking into the AP Latin room, I sit in my usual spot, and submit to the imaginings of fantastic scenes that will never happen, while the room fills with my peers. At 8:00 the bell rings, and the real day has begun.