Helpless, Helpless, Helpless!

I learned a little more about myself Saturday evening as I trudged up the hill from the "dead" car in the middle of the road; I much prefer my personality in happier times! Also, I would rather write when I'm lighthearted than when I'm sad . . . so, it pains me to write today. I wanted to tell you what happened to us last night though, so I must write! With this in mind, I will try to eek out some words and divulge how the other night, I came to be slowly making my way up the very steep Roman road that winds its way to our recently acquired Italian home, rather than enjoying the lovely evening planned with colleagues and friends at the idyllic Italian restaurant we were headed to. As I was laboring up the very steep hill in my nice clothes, and Papa in his, I could just make out the faint echo of an old Neil Young song from my teenage days in my mind, and felt 'Helpless, Helpless, Helpless' with each agonizing step! It was all I could do not to be extremely upset at my husband as he zoomed on in despair ahead of me, since he was the one who'd backed into the wall and rendered our very recently purchased car - "dead in the water!" (not a good testimonial as to my attitude, but there it is nonetheless) It's difficult to even describe how narrow the road is, and the car we have is just a little too wide. We should actually have something a little smaller, and having to back up was not good . . . it's actually never good! Everything seemed to converge at once that evening; the rain, the darkness, cars coming in both directions, no where to pass, etc. It was the "perfect storm." An accident waiting to happen, I suppose. To top it off, we were on our way to a "Hail and Farewell" and WE were being hailed!! There was no way for us to get to the dinner and say good-bye to the outgoing XO after "the rendering of the [car] death." We don't have a second car and we needed to be at the scene of the accident to make sure a tow truck came to move our car out of the road as quickly as possible.  We were "all dressed up with nowhere to go" - literally!

Obviously, we had to do something, but WHAT? We tried to find numbers from our orientation class notes and call the base emergency 911 number so that an interpreter could help us get someone to come out on a weekend, at night, to tow the car. We finally got that worked out. And it's a good thing we had enough Euro, otherwise . . . there's no teller nearby, our neighbor was out of town, we aren't within walking distance of the train or bus! It was looking grim! The towing company only takes cash! 50 Euro to tow the car 1km!! Yikes! But, fortunately we had the cash; why, because we were supposed to PAY for our [sniff] nice dinner earlier that evening!
I was rapidly sinking into that sadness hole I was talking about earlier! But stop and think, I said to myself, all in all, this situation is more of a hassle than anything else. . . it could've been so much worse!. At least no one else was involved and we weren't hurt, apart from our muscles being a bit sore from the sudden stop. As I sat on my couch later on, clicking away on the keyboard with my mom in the states on msn instant messenger, for the first time since moving here to Naples I felt small and far away! I guess it all just hit me. So, after I "hung up" from chatting with my mom, I sat on the sofa for the longest time just feeling a bit sorry for myself! I "typed" to mom that I needed to be by myself for a little while and pray and think things through. You just do what you have to, even when you don’t feel strong enough or brave enough or even well enough.


I went to bed a lot earlier than usual Saturday night, which for me is kind of a big deal (those who know me well can attest to this), wishing we could live the day over somehow. But, alas, we couldn't and it's a new day. We're doing our best to plod through the steps of getting the car fixed and getting another car, or a rental car, etc. Papa has to get to work, we need to live and drive around. We are stuck here at the moment!
The tow truck was just here (silly me didn't take a picture of it) and hauled our car off for an estimate! Again, the fellow driving was desperately hoping we at least spoke a little Italian (poco), but his countenance fell as we told him we spoke no Italian. He spoke no English either. So, there we were again with our trusty cell phone posing as the in-between translator while our Italian friend explained what the tow-truck driver wanted to say to us and what we needed to say back to him. Ker-aa-zee Baby!


The Hebrew phrase "Jehovah 'Ezer" is translated as the "LORD [my] Help" or the "LORD [our] Help."  Am I - as Neil Young says, "Helpless, Helpless, Helpless?  Of course not! Still, is it okay to feel that way sometimes? You bet'cha! Just so long as I don't wallow in it.

Ciao, Bella!  Mimi