Time and the forces to be

I am having a true, culturally-based "time-orientation moment".
I just need to rant and whine.
"Why can't they...."

I need dates, now, and I can't have them. They haven't been decided. There are too many last minute outside forces that haven't settled and until then, dates can't be set. Unfortunately intercontinental flights and such don't have the same flexibility.

So I get nervous. The Italians around me (one husband and two kids) don't understand why. They live with uncertainty and ambiguity just fine, it is "just the way things are", for them, not for me.

My oldest just finished his first day of the written portion of his maturità exam. Tomorrow is the second day and Monday the third and last. Then there is the oral exam, but he could not know the date that this will take place until today when the class order was chosen out of a hat (first will come section C, then section B) and a letter of the alphabet (S). So, now he knows that he will be the second student of his graduating class of four sections to be grilled to a crispy crust, on the first day of the oral exams, Thursday the 28th. Then he will be free, but we couldn't know that earlier and he could have possibly finished as late as July 15 had the letter "T" been extracted and the section "B", so he (and we) couldn't make plans any earlier than that date. Would that make you crazy?

My second son is off for a 10 day collegiale or athletic retreat tomorrow with the junior national volleyball team that will finish with a four day tournament with teams from Brazil, Russia, Holland and Italy -- pretty neat for an 18 year old. On July 1 he will finish this segment, and then there will be more -- but when? A month ago, we timidly asked the forces to be, when the nazionale would finish up this summer and were, oh so kindly, told that it would be "i primi di agosto" (whatever that means), so we have intercontinental tickets for August 3. Now, yesterday, we found out that they will finish the 23rd, so we could have anticipated our trip a few days. Would that make you crazy?

In the meantime, the two brothers would like to get together and even take a trip as they haven't seen each other since Christmas, but we still don't know son2's schedule, so son1, can't make his plans with friends fit around a trip with his brother. Would that make you crazy?

Why doesn't all this make them crazy, only me?

I know why. I have lived here way too long not to know. Because, in the end, it will all work out, somehow, someway, without stressing and ranting "why can't they just set dates." It's a flexible time thing and an intimate acknowlegment that fate will rule as it will over the best made plans of man.

Another Italian mystery.

a domani,
E