The program included a Mass celebrated by the Bishop, the arrival of the Magi, a walk to the festival hall, a raffle, a fishing booth, gifts from Befana, dinner for everyone, and prizes for the best nativity scene. Our group showed up eager and numerous, armed with photos documenting the nativity scene we'd set up in our workshop. Everything went as planned—but this time we were playing away from home. Far from our familiar space, in a place we didn't know, among kind people for whom we were strangers.
Maybe for that reason alone, it seemed to me that the others were watching—or rather, scrutinizing—our young people in a way we'd grown unused to. Roberto, Michela, Giovanni, Giulia, and the rest weren't our longtime friends with their particular gifts, abilities, and personalities. To these strangers, they were simply "different"—different from the other young people, sons and daughters, friends and classmates gathered to celebrate.
Was it just my imagination? Perhaps. But certain glances, certain silences, the way people spoke to us—it made me uncomfortable. After a while, though, I felt something else, and it lifted my spirits entirely. I became certain that all of us—friends and young people alike—were actually caught up in the same judgment, because we weren't easily distinguishable from one another.
The truth is, we chaperones didn't look our best. We were worn out from the trip from Rome and the walk, dressed poorly for a festive evening, frazzled by fatigue and the karaoke noise. Our quirks and impatience showed. We bickered about where to sit, made awkward jokes, fumbled through the evening. Yes, we really were "different" from the rest of the crowd. And so our whole group came across as "different" in the same way—indistinguishable from each other.
Only later, after the laborious dinner, when the DJ really let the music loose and our tireless young people took turns at the microphone dancing in groups—only then did we chaperones truly reveal who we were: "different." Thoroughly different. Slumped in our chairs, yearning for nothing but silence and soft beds to collapse into.
Pennablù, 2011