Editor’s Note: Writers Block is an occasional series featuring personal essays, reflections, and creative nonfiction from Richmond-area writers. In Seeing Richmond Through Their Eyes, Gabriella Ryan shares how a month spent showing her Italian cousins around Richmond changed the way she sees the city she calls home.
The world looks different now. The eyes of my Italian cousins have opened mine. They have been here for over a month, and I’ve shown them Richmond. Now I see the wonder in which we live.
Elisabetta is in her fifties, and Sofia is seventeen. They have never flown on an airplane or been very far away from Montagnana, a medieval, castle-walled Italian city of 9,000. We picked them up from Dulles Airport, kissing and hugging for as long as we could reasonably do so.
On the two-hour ride home to Richmond, our cousins were shocked at the size of the cars and the streets. The highways were intersecting, and some were rising into the air. It was a ride of oohs and ahhs about all the cement.
Later, in contrast, trees lined both sides of the highway. They were very impressed by the number, beauty, and size of our trees!
When we arrived at our home in Bon Air, they raved about the size of our house and their bedrooms. They said everything is bigger in America, and even the space around them seemed spacious.
The next day, we went for a car ride tour of Richmond. We took them to see the Capitol, the statue of Thomas Jefferson at the historic Jefferson Hotel, the Fan District with its row houses, and the Cary Street boutique shopping area, where they bought some artsy American things. They were so impressed by everything, including our downtown Richmond “skyscrapers!”
The rest of the month was a whirlwind of activities. We visited Short Pump Town Center. We ate at Mexican, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, and American restaurants that amazed them. We went to the Japanese steakhouse where the chefs toss knives in the air, catch eggs in their hats, and set onion volcanoes on fire. We saw a Minions movie at a theater with plush seats and a swivel table for dinner. We went to an IMAX theater where geese flew in the dome above our heads. We visited the art museum and toured Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden. We treated them to a Flying Squirrels baseball game, along with Fourth of July fireworks. These events were a source of wonder for my cousins, who had never experienced anything like them.
Elisabetta took off her shoes in the James River at Pony Pasture’s rock-filled, cold waters. She ordered a hamburger at Five Guys with all the toppings available! Now Elisabetta makes hamburgers topped with everything for her family in Montagnana! We took them to Coco and Hazel’s ice cream shop, which tops its tall shakes with a huge piece of cake. They once again said that everything was big in America.
Once, we ordered pizza at home, and she perked up. She had seen that food could be delivered to the door in America on TV, but was excited to experience it. She got her phone and told us she wanted to videotape the event so she could send it to Italy. As the door opened, she appeared with phone in hand, to the delivery guy’s confusion.
What surprised Elisabetta is that Richmond is full of wild creatures, like crows and hawks. Our state bird, the red cardinal, looks like a natural wonder to her. She’d see deer every morning since she woke with the sun. Her most often videoed wild animals were the squirrels. There are none in Italy. She could often be seen amongst the trees in my backyard, phone in hand, trying to get the best angled shots of the squirrels.
Elisabetta and Sofia really liked the murals in Richmond. They wondered if the people in the houses or stores minded the paintings on the outside of their walls. We explained that there were processes for getting them done that the city had to approve, which was another discovery for them.
Elisabetta remarked several times that I kept a full grocery store in my pantry. Shelves weren’t stocked like that in Italy. The only thing that was a problem for me was that she rearranged my pantry shelves by height. She said that she didn’t know what most of the items were, so the height category seemed to work. Except I couldn’t find anything once she left. I’m still working on putting the things I use most in the front.
In the end, I asked them what impressed them the most about America. Their answer was shocking to me. They said that it was the friendliness of the people. On their morning walks in our neighborhood, people they didn’t even know greeted them with a friendly hello and smile. Elisabetta had imagined from TV shows she had seen that there would be many gangsters with guns, or at least mean people who could hurt you. But everyone, from the airport personnel to the people who waved from their cars in the neighborhood, were happy and kind. It was an eye opener to me, since I have always taken the kindness of people for granted. I don’t anymore.
I’ll miss my two Italian cousins, for sure. And they’ll miss us. But it’s always nice to be back home, in the same routine we once were. Boring is sometimes a good thing.
However, I do find myself wondering, as I travel about town, how Elisabetta and Sofia would think of this or that which I’m currently experiencing. I’m no longer taking for granted the beauty of Richmond and Virginia, its trees, crepe myrtles now in full bloom, its variety of restaurants and shopping, the large streets, the artistic murals, and the history of what Richmond once was compared to what it is now.
My mind has expanded through the expansion of my Italian cousins’ minds. They leave their own legacy within me. I see through their eyes now.
Story by Gabriella Ryan, NCTM a nationally certified music teacher, pianist and organist at Southminster Presbyterian Church, a past president of the Richmond Music Teachers Association and Virginia Music Teachers Association, and the author of The Magic Blueberry Bush.
Main photo by Salome Guruli
Photos by Gabriella Zorzi Ryan
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