My daughter has a learning disability. She has Auditory Processing Disorder which causes her to hear and pronounce some words differently than the rest of us. When she was first acquiring language, the whole family thought her little verbal mishaps were cute. She had a special language. We encouraged her special words by adopting them as our own. Some examples of her lingua speciale – once she declared that “it certainly was froggy outside” (she meant foggy). She frequently asked for strawbellies and bluebellies instead of strawberries and blueberries. Our favorite phrase, however, was Purple John cheese which we all knew meant Parmesan cheese. We still call it Purple John on meatless Monday pasta night.
At the same time that my daughter began speaking in her own language, I was feeling like a fish out of water in my suburban town. I longed to live in a city again. To have access to art, museums and great restaurants.
You know the old adage . . . be careful what you wish for. My husband was offered a job – a really great job with a step up in responsibility and a global platform. The thing was, the job was in Modena Italy. We mulled it over, we analyzed the numbers, we discussed housing options and ultimately decided to go for it and move the family half way around the world.
As fate would have it, there is only one school in the entire region that offers some instruction in English. The town where the school is located was therefore our only option to live.
So, now we find ourselves doing exactly what I dreamed of and we are leaving the comfort of our Northern California suburb to embark on a family adventure to Parma, Italy – home of Purple John cheese.
Apparently the universe has a sense of humor.
