Four white lines, two goalcages, hundreds of whistles...Feels like home

Word of the Post: Parlo italiano un po. (I speak only a little Italian)

The white lines. The goalcages. The whistles. The feel of sweat dripping down my face. The shadows formed by the lights cast over the field. It felt like home to me.

When I stop onto a field hockey field, I am immediately content with every single part of my life. When the lights are on for night practice or night matches, I begin to bubble. When the pitch is soft and quick, a smile remains on my face. And when the lines are perfect, I get even a little bit more tingly inside.

The last time I walked onto a hockey field to play was in August at Drexel. The last time I walked onto a hockey field at all was to coach my high school team three days before I left for Rome. It was a long enough period of time away from the good ole pitch to miss it.

Last night, I was home again. Nerves flowed through me, and my heart was literally racing. As I hopped on the metro for my first practice, I began to think to myself, "What if these girls don't like me?" "What if they kick my butt?" "What if I can't understand them?" "What if I am not in good enough shape?" "What if I am not welcome?" As all these questions entered my mind, I began to think about heading back to my apartment. It had been such an easy twenty minute metro ride there, and it could be just as easy of a twenty minute metro ride home. But instead, I stayed and waited for my ride to the field to pick me up. I had waited for this day every since I received an email telling me there would be a team for me to play on, back in July.

When the two girls who were picking me up arrived, the one immediately began talking to me in Italian. Very quickly, I said, "No lo so, Io parlo italiano un po. Parlo Inglese." And then the girl giggled as we got in the car. She said to me, "Io parlo Inglese un po." We attempted to have a conversation on the way to the field, but it didn't work so well. It was still fun to try. We arrived at the field and the team had to first watch a short presentation. It reminded me of the presentations that we had back in high school on our senior nights. They had a slide show and several people make speeches.

We then headed outside.

When I stepped onto the field, I flashed back to all the times I have stepped onto a field hockey field. The feeling that cast upon me, was similar to the one that a child would feel after seeing his or her parents for the first time in months. I took in all my surroundings. This field felt like a masterpiece in comparison to the URI field hockey field.

The lights were bright, the pitch was smooth, and the lines were perfect. I was home.

I snapped out of my astonishment and began to put on my shinnies and turfs. No one really talked to me or took notice that I was there at first, but right before the warm up run, I introduced myself to everyone. I said, "Ciao, mi chiamo Libby, sono American." Then everyone gave me their name, but I can at this point only rememeber two! I feel bad but I was so overwhelemed that I couldn't think straight.

I learned that our coach is from Argentina, most of the girls are Italian, one is from Holland, and another is from Spain. Some were 25 and some were younger than me. It was a very mixed team.

Some of the girls knew a little English, many did not, so that was difficult.

We took our warm-up run, stretched, and we did agilities. When we finished that and were standing around one of the girls came up to me. In Italian she asked me how many years have you been playing hockey for? I told her 7-8 years. Her next question was "Are you good?"

I laughed. I didn't know what to say, because I didn't know how I would compare to them. I didn't know if they were all really good or not. I went with the safe answer and said "cosi cosi" which in English means "so-so". They laughed and said okay.

We then immediately went into a drill. The coach explained the drill, but it was all in Italian so I did not understand a word. I just tried to follow what the players were doing.

After twenty minutes of splitting into two groups for drills, we were put into two teams for a 6 v 6 scrimmage. This was my chance to really go hard and see how I compared.

We began to play and it felt great until I realized that the words "back, flat, through, go, right, left, and center," don't work in Italian. I kept having to say "come si dice back" "come si dice right" "come si dice left?" But still, I played well and I had so much fun--now I am just really sore.

It was also fun to watch some of the other girls play. Some of them are very very fast, and some of them hit very very hard. It was a great first experience with an Italian field hockey team.

Most of all it just felt amazing to be back on that field.