My Name Is Darlene, Call Me Maria
I was 24 years old I decided I was going to Italy. So what if I didn't speak a word of the language, or know anyone there except my cousin Deb and her family. I saved $2,000, asked for everything I needed for Christmas — luggage, journal, Walkman, money — and left , a week before my 25th birthday. January 1989.
I took the train from Rome to Gaeta alone. I wouldn't let my cousin drive an hour and a half both ways with three kids in tow just to pick me up. Besides, I was determined to do it on my own. Gaeta. If you don't know it, look it up. An amazing coastal town a train ride south of Rome. Roman ruins. Mediterranean vegetation. An 11th century sanctuary on top of Monte Paca. Byzantine influence,
Kings ruled here - Charles the VIII of france conquered it in 1495. Frederich of Naples took it back in a tremendous seige in 1501.
Nobody saw Darlene coming in 1989.
My cousin Debbie lived there with her husband and family. I slept on her sofa for two weeks dying to find my own place. One day she hung up the phone and said:"You are going to love this apartment. It's right in the center of town. "Washing machine. Does it have a washing machine? "She had forgotten to ask. We went anyway. We climbed the stairs of a building that had to be 500 years old — all stone, with a balcony overlooking the hillside and the sea. Clean laundry hung everywhere, billowing in the warm wind. The air smelled of espresso, lavender and the sea. Bright blues and reds popped against the ancient stone walls. It was perfect.. The little. landlady — sweet, probably came up to my neck — looked at me and started speaking rapidly to my cousin Debbie in Italian. "What is she saying?"
Debbie answered her. More Italian. More looking at me. "What is she saying?!" Back and forth. The woman gesturing. Me getting more anxious by the second.
"Debbie. What. Is. She. Saying."
Finally Debbie turned to me.
Debbie: smiling wildly “10 times she asked me , She wants to know your name."
"Darlene." I replied
The landlady stared at me.
Landlady: "Come?" (Say it again )
"Darlene"
She looked completely puzzled. The name meant nothing to her. She couldn't wrap herself around it. She turned back to Debbie speaking rapidly, arms moving. More back and forth. The woman shaking her head — not unkindly,
just genuinely confused by this name she had never heard in her life.
"DARLENE."
Louder. As if that would help.
Then she threw her hands up in the air, arms wide open — something final and absolute.
"What? WHAT did she say?"
Debbie: "She says — if you take the apartment, she'll call you Maria."
I just hugged that little woman.
Sadly, I didn't take the apartment. It didn't have a washing machine.
But from that day on, whenever I ran into her — at the market, at the bank, walking through that part of town — she would light up and call out "Maria!" I'd go over, give her a big hug, try to speak Italian, fail completely. She'd always take my hands in hers and say — "Sei simpatica." You're so lovely.
On the occasions I was with friends when she spotted me, they'd look at me sideways and ask —
"Why is she calling you Maria?"
"Because," I'd say, "that's what she named me."
Italy does that. It claims you. It names you, even before you've earned it.
Thirty-seven years later, it's still calling me back.
And whenever I hear Maria said in a certain way — I think of that little woman. And my heart is full.
— Darlene, Founder · Solo Per Noi
