The First Constitution

It's strange that my brain is still on a school year calendar, even though I've been in Italy, and working, since 2006. Now that we're on the border between spring and summer, I feel like all the hard work should be winding down, and it's time for vacation. Is it ever possible to stop thinking like a student?

Bologna is already hot and humid. Now that it's warm after the sun goes down, at nighttime the streets are flooded with students. In the area of the university, people even sit down along the sidewalks (and sometimes in the street) to drink and talk. It's really nice, unless you need to get around them, and then it becomes an obstacle course.

Something happened at choir practice a couple weeks ago, one of those events that makes me think, "this could only happen in Italy". I also have the "this could only happen in the US" reaction, like when I see the selection of salad dressing in the supermarket, but I think you'll get the idea when I describe this anecdote.

Next weekend my choir will perform in Florence, at the Palazzo Vecchio, in the most important room (the Salone dei Cinquecento). Because the event commemorates the creation of the Italian republic, the concert will be accompanied by a reading of the Italian Constitution. My conductor described to us his efforts to pair certain songs with particular passages: for example, after the passage about womens' rights, we'll sing a lamentation (really a lullaby) of the pain of being a woman without choices.

After providing us with a few examples, my conductor admitted, "It's really difficult, because most songs are about love, and there's not much about love in the Constitution."

In the silence that followed, one of the tenors responded, "But love is the first constitution."

We applauded, my conductor bowed. The next day I bumped into Elio, the tenor, on the street. He didn't even remember what he'd said.