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Although let me not be too hard on myself, I came to Italy with zero knowledge of the subject other than what I had learnt off of restaurant menus. So, in terms of progress, to a large extent I am able to follow a conversation – assuming it’s slow and I have the context. However, when I try speaking, I can tell by the expressions with which I am met, that there’s a chance I am just making Italian-sounding noises, and possibly responding to questions which were never asked. Luckily my resilience to 'looking silly' is developing slightly faster than my ability to speak. 

With this in mind, I was recently on a beachside break and enjoying the Mediterranean along with the Italian holidaymakers and some of my Italian friends. The sea was just magical, it felt so unthreatening, warm, and salty. All that I was left to do was float along and enjoy it. During this bliss session, a child of about twelve drifted toward me on an inflatable craft designed to look like a giant slice of pizza and in the warm Italian way, he started to chat with me. He registered my accent as foreign: American, British…? “Sono Sudafricana,” I confirmed as I placed my hands on the plastic pizza crust to have a break from paddling.

This was a level of conversation I could go along with for now. He continued to ask me questions, undeterred by my limited vocabulary, or for that matter, my age, gender, and nationality. He also shared with me how difficult he was finding learning English which he was doing at his school twice a week with a teacher who he was undecided about. The young Roman alternated between Italian and English, and I attempted the same.

Suddenly we were more alike than different. Both commiserating about this part of our lives where we were struggling and also trying to explain why we remained hopeful, why this mattered, and the benefits we were sure we would reap if we kept up a consistent effort. I have no doubt that we probably missed each other on some of the words, but we both ‘got it’, our separate experience of the same thing. We agreed that we must just keep going. “Piano piano…” young Daniele offered as encouragement for us both.

As he was uttering these words, we both became aware that the pizza-slice which was carrying us was moments away from colliding with a young couple who were in a passionate embrace. We gasped, laughed, and paddled furiously to get some distance back between ourselves and the love-birds. I don’t know why exactly but this moment was so funny, and we continued to laugh. And then with the wisdom of a sage Daniele smiled and said, “English or Italian it really doesn’t matter, laughter is the universal language”.

In this moment I was reminded that small talk can become big - it is when we allow ourselves to be in the drift of life that the most impactful things can happen.