On the fifth floor of the Italian consulate building in Philadelphia, the AC has gone out. Someone has opened a window near the elevators, an odd choice on a hot day as it is a huge window, about waist high all the way to the enormous ceiling high overhead, and there is no screen. The heat and noise from the streets below clamor through the gaping hole, cooling nothing.

And intensifying her worry. It as if the two are rising together, the quickly mounting temps, humid and oppressive, and the intensity of the moment, filled with anxiety that she forgot something. Some critical piece. That she what she did bring won’t suffice. That it’s not the correct form or the correct format or that it’s from the wrong agency or that it’s stamped, stapled, or certified wrong. Or notarized or breathed on wrong. That they will turn her down. No visa for you, Bella. Back to end of line for you. No visa. No admittance. Nice try, but no.

Regrettably, Ellie has worn her “nice clothes” for this all-important appointment, choosing carefully from her definitely not-up-to-par Camp wardrobe what will make her application most appealing. There’s the best seal of approval—the ethos of the person submitting it. Perhaps she remembers shopping for “court clothes” back in the day of going to plead your case. Now she is sweating. She has driven five hours into the heart of the city, three last night and two more this morning, riding the wave of commuters into the narrow congested streets. Philly. Eight o’clock last night she was still loading an industrial dishwasher and putting up the coleslaw for today’s lunch at Camp and now, she’s seated anxiously in the waiting room on the fifth floor of the Public Ledger Building, which houses the Consulate General of Italy, where lives the all-important, near unobtainable student visa, sweating through her nice clothes.

When you have a timed appointment with the Italian consulate, you take the day off. Even from Camp, where the 15-hour days and 90-degree temps (indoors) have sapped her and strapped her from being all-in with today’s activity going on in cabin 4B: “and this is how I obtain a student visa for my two-year master’s in Italy this fall.” Needless to say, they’re not supplying free time or reliable Wi-fi this summer in a remote, hot-as-Hades summer camp where she’s worked for the past eight years. Productive yes, but only if you are talking pancakes and eggs for 130 campers or strange bruises. Not conducive to, shall we say, phone calls during normal business hours. With so many of her contacts in another time zone six hours ahead. They no respond during regular hours, never mind 4 a.m. when Ellie finally gets off work.

Apparently you can’t just hop in your car, drive to DC, fill out a form and get your visa to study abroad. Well, you can if you live in Arlington or Fairfax. All other jurisdictions in Virginia must report to the large stone building on 600 Chestnut Street in Philadelphia. Philadelphia! From here?? May as well be Nova Scotia. Suite 596. Nothing sweet about it. Appointments at this illustrious agency are four months out. You can’t just pluck one off the internet for next week, or a couple weeks from now or even next month. Little like making a dentist appointment these days. Minus the root canal. Or with, considering the dread and anxiety she’s gone through. Next seeing patients in 2000-never.

Because we all know how this works. Or doesn’t. For our girls’ glory tour in France several years ago, I booked an online “appointment” to go up the Eiffel Tower. The three of us, plus one small fortune. Timed tickets: no exchanges, no refunds. The day of our tour, and only that day, there was a strike. Ol’ Gustav’s needle was closed. Fermé. No tours today. Happy timed ticket holders the day before and the day after rode that rickety cage all the way up and back, no issues. But this, our once-in-a-lifetime tour on our once-in-a-lifetime trip was fini. Kaput. We walked around the base looking up and marveling at what might’ve been. Ellie‘s timed appointment is a little like that. It’s a one shot deal. She knows, given the processing time and her work schedule and the scarcity of appointments, not to mention to unavailability of any help in any form, that this is her one and only chance. She is so nervous that she feels sick.

To add to the challenge, the Consulate office takes down its website. Or puts it under construction. Or something. For the last six months. Rendering it useless for any information or guidance. The oh-so-helpful automatic reply that is sent to her pleading emails includes an instructive document that, shocker, is inaccessible. And perhaps because they’re all grumpy over the broken AC, they also refuse to answer their phones. Several frustrating hours are accumulated listening to the cheery automated voice on the other end, and still, nothing.

Five and a half hours to the south, their most valiant and unwavering applicant labors away through the winter and spring, researching, reading, trying to get clear on what she will need to bring to this all-important appointment. She sifts through conflicting information. She visits chat rooms and forums on what all is involved in securing a student visa. I had to stop asking or I thought my head would explode, but at this writing we are up 24 separate required documents. The diploma. The transcripts, a notarized copy of those transcripts. Proof of residence with rent contract and invoice for deposit paid. Proof of financial means, including printouts of each and every bank account from which you will draw income during your stay. That my name is still on her account we opened when she was 10 is apparently now a problem. No joint accounts. But perhaps the color copy of my US passport, a blood sample, and a lock of hair will suffice (JK on those last two, but it sure felt that way when she came home late from camp one night to obtain the first one). Acceptance letter from the college and a pre-enrollment document that was originally sent to the Consulate prior to her appointment registration. Both documents in English and Italian, mind you. For real. I’m in an escape room called “Study Abroad.” No, fix that. Just call it Hell.

So it was just this sort of gridlock that held her all winter and spring and kept her in knots. Did I mention during the spring she was in Oregon, living in a tent and working trails for the Northwest Youth Corps? Ten weeks, out of commish, so to speak. Barely any cell reception and still so many important things to attend to from the middle of nowhere. And one year before that, she was in New York State to plant trees for a few weeks, and before that, she was on a farm in Afton, a commune of sorts, repairing chicken coops and getting ready for spring planting. My Work-Away girl. She’s good at throwing herself into the next thing, wherever and whenever it might be. When did she score the acceptance to Padua, you ask? Just four days before Christmas 2023. And this an achievement in itself, two whole years in the making. This making…it’s not for sissies. Sure, she may be scrubbin’ pots and opening number 10 cans of green beans and putting up trail lunch, but her heart is climbing the tufo cliffs in a remote area of Sorano, Italy to dig for pottery.

Where did the dream come from? Somewhere in the sunwashed hills of Tuscany or the narrow streets of Florence, or the soaring cathedrals or the pulsing Arno River or, more likely the “walking class” that would have captivated this eternal student in the spring of her senior year. Senior year. Is there anything more fleeting? Once the pandemic lifted, time fairly flew, ushering her to graduation and an end. But Ellie signed on for the extension pack. Spring of her senior year she heads for Florence University of the Arts and falls in love. With history. With dirt. With the years and the people—the stories—that lie beneath it. All her childhood passions resurfaced and the Greek books still on her bookshelf fell open like a map, reminding her… pointing her… to the dream– Here…here is where you belong. Isn’t that her, double masked and touring Pompeii on her last days in the country when Covid hit their little travelling group and she almost couldn’t fly home? Yes. The photo I posted just this week is one she managed to selfie herself, quietly social distancing among the ruins, miserable with that dreadful disease but sadder still to be leaving.

How to turn your double major in Criminology and Psychology with a minor in Philosophy into an archeology degree. Step one: do not announce you are changing your major in your seventh semester. Quietly return to your almost-alma mater and scour the course offerings for any requirements you have left (a pile, on account of three full semesters of online learning—thanks, Pandemic) even remotely covering anything in the field of archeology (or even science for that matter) and/or Italian culture and/or art history. This last one is a bust—you know any criminology folks who can carbon date, anyone? When she was in Florence she managed the dovetail nicely–studies in organized crime. But this time around she has her prize clearly in sight: graduate school in Italy. Must. Pivot. Must repackage. myself. So she signs up for anthropology and prehistory (hey, that works) and goes back to score the undergrad. Step three: find a field school that will take you and hope that late nights on duo-lingo and a single semester abroad will be just the credentials and experience they’re looking for.

Now we are on step 652, two years later. This is the step that will consummate all those before it and make it possible to attend the University of Padua, which accepted her last winter. The morning of the appointment, she is in a hotel room in Maryland, two hours away from her destination and her midmorning appointment, and she is managing it in the way of any young adult: ask me and will bite you. Nevertheless, the text updates start once she reaches the Consulate. In this way I get to “go” to the appointment with her.

I’m so nervous. They finally have a checklist here and I’m worried about the stupid main document. It says something about a signature, but I assumed that was going to be theirs so….

The agent kept mumbling “perfetto” as she read my documents. And the documents that were last minute printing were a good idea… She didn’t want my diploma but she did want my transcripts because they indicate that I’ve studied in Italy before…

BUT SHE DIDN’T EVEN ASK ABOUT MY ACCOMMODATIONS!! Because she is Ellie, she has brought every last document her hands have touched in the past year for this appointment. And for the housing requirement, which was VERY important according to the internet and the university, she has brought an invoice and an entire printout of the conversation with the landlord. Both of which were not requested by the polite woman behind the counter. This last development is distressing. 

She gives a few seconds of frenzied thought and then does something very out of character: she goes back.

Okay went back and she took it. She didn’t seem bothered that she hadn’t asked the first time so maybe somehow it wasn’t that big a piece to them? She even took me early. But it’s like checking in for a doctor’s appointment. All you do is hand over your documents and sign something.

No little room or interview questions or anything. Weird.

And just like that, she is done. Application and docs submitted. The female agent with the tight bun, smooth and shiny, has deemed the submission “perfetto.” Perfect. Ellie gathers what remains of the rejected supporting docs, leaks away from the counter, and goes back to sit on the stone bench by the elevators to collect herself.

She seemed pleased. Said I had everything. I didn’t even turn over my credit card info or my camp contract sooo… Obviously those were me overthinking…

(she overthinks even this)

but also smart

I’m glad I’m prepared

And now im done before my appointment even began.

The woman with the bun and bright eyes claps the stack of papers on the counter and clips them, readying for the next applicant. Tells Ellie in heavily accented English that she should hear “something” by the end of July. “Something???” What is this, the Italian word for ‘something’? I think it must be “VISA.”

Certainly feels anticlimactic. Months and months of stress, progress, collecting, researching, and preparation, all concluded with 15 minutes of pushing documents through a slot.

Breathe, my girl. Just breathe… And then, this.

i don’t want to leave the building… i’m so nervous

She is sitting on that bench in the hallway, too afraid to leave. Down one pile of carefully-curated docs that had become like living beings and decidedly confirmation-less. There is no way to know. “Come what may” filters up from the hot, noisy streets below as she slowly realizes the seeping relief, and the cooling sweat on her back. The tension dissipates. Come what may.

How to get through the rest of the summer waiting on the one piece, the one piece that will make the dream a reality. Step one: be Ellie.

I text back. Ellie I am so proud of you. I think you are the bravest person I know.

In summer 2023 she returned to Italy for field school. For many archaeologists, a field school is essential. It’s a dedicated month or so where participants put their hands on history and study in and out of the field. No exams at the end for this one but pages and pages of tight scrawl all make their way home. This is an all important piece. The more the better. She had a trick scoring that as well. But I have seen a lot of acceptance days for this one—moments that make the original college acceptance look like a pale cousin. I have been there when she came screaming from her room waving a laptop at me, or more quietly producing a letter or a cell photo of some official acceptance and welcome. Each of them bearing their “yes.” Yes. Yes, you can come. Yes, you can be here. Yes, you can have this. Your story, like the strata you will soon encounter wielding your own trowel, is filled with layers. And debris. And a dream. And also you—a treasure to be discovered, intact and whole. 

Perfetto.

Photo by Vlada Karpovich on Pexels.com