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Sara Marinelli (00:05):

I am Sara Marinelli, and this is “Letters to Italy.” In this series, I speak with Italian expats in the Bay Area at the time of Coronavirus. How has the pandemic reshaped our lives here and our relationship to Italy? If there has ever been a time to look back on our choices and ask the question “Where is home?" It is now.

This is the last episode of “Letters to Italy,” and I know what the perfect ending to the series would be.
It would be a letter from Italy -- me writing from my first home to my second, and recording all those Italian sounds: the streets that have returned to life, the  greetings with my family and friends I haven’t seen in too long, the pizzerias and the cafes, even the cars and vespas rumbling and honking in Naples, the city filled both with music and noise.  And what more? Church bells, and people chattering, eating ice cream and taralli caldi on the lungomare, on Naples’ boardwalk. That would have been a perfect ending. 

But I am not there yet. Though soon, my homecoming is being planned. 
All these months, I have returned home in my imagination and memory, in this letter writing, in the invitation to my guests to imagine writing their letters to Italy. 
What I gathered in these conversations, despite the diverse personal and professional paths, is a very similar feeling of how this time of forced separation has strengthened our relationship with the country we left.  
All shared a desire to feel closer, to do something for the country, for the people and family there, even from afar.  Each had their way of returning, of making their internal homecoming, of carrying their original home inside, and wanting others to see it, perhaps like never before.

But the real homecoming never matches the imaginary one. 
Even more so now, with a new caution in our social interactions, self-imposed limitations, and fears, despite the great excitement in the air after the long quarantine, this joy and trust into a new phase yet scarred by doubt sneaking in the back of our minds and echoing in the daily news.

You have to prepare yourself for the real homecoming in the year of the pandemic, after over two years of imposed absence. You have to prepare yourself really deep for those dear faces you will see.  And for those you will not.

[SFX: paper, letters]

One of my letters of these past months was a letter to the dead. And it’s not dated November 2nd.  It was a day in early May of 2020, a day full of mournful news, in Italy, and everywhere. 
I wrote down the names of all people I lost in my life: relatives, friends, people dear to me and people who crossed  briefly my path, and who rose up to my faded memory that night and lit it up with an image, a face, a voice, making me feel in the right company.
Since then, I had to add other names on the page, my recent losses of dear ones, people who are part of my usual homecomings, and now no more.

But it’s not with the letter to the dead that I want to end this narrative.  After all, the letters to Italy that my guests imagined writing all spoke of resilience, and courage, and trust that this transitional time will - and must - usher in new beginnings, new possibilities.  We are the ones who made it through, and we will have to hold this experience dear, not to forget it, also for those who are gone. 
The word future shines through in all their letters, so I also want to pick the letter that I wrote to my future self, among many that addressed my memory and my past self. 
It’s called: “Post-quarantine mind. Love letter to my future self.”  It’s dated July 2020, almost a year ago.
Perhaps this could be a good ending. Or a good beginning.

[SFX: paper, letters]

“Post-quarantine mind. Love letter to my future self”

I thought I was set
to write a love letter to my past self
to all that came before,
remind me of the break-throughs 
of all that brought me here, 
from one country to another, 
from the girl I was to the woman I am,
from the margins of my self 
right to its heart. 

I thought I would list the years I’ve been alive, 
group them by three or maybe five,
select and dissect my time
be my own witness, 
respond to the memory call,
trespass,
and declare at the gate of this uncertainty
all that I own and know for sure.

Instead,
I write now a love letter to my future self. 
The one awaiting me. 
The one I must be certain of. 

I write to her
who will have silver woven into the gold of her hair 
and will not hide it
to the woman who will not be afraid of time 
drawing lines on her face
to the woman who will make an amulet of her next scar  
to her who is not here yet
but already exists
to her 
who will emerge.

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“Letters to Italy” is produced, edited, and hosted by me, Sara Marinelli.

This series was made possible thanks to the support of COMITES of San Francisco and the Italian Consulate of San Francisco with funding from the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation. I am grateful for their support. 
Thanks for listening.

© Sara Marinelli