A mile in more comfortable moccasins, but moccasins nonetheless.

Her name was Ivete.

It is her voice that I hear in my head when I speak Italian badly, which is frequent. Because she spoke English badly, at times verging on incomprehensible for all but the most dedicated listener.

She was a woman who cleaned my house, many years ago. She was a part-time nanny/housecleaner for my neighbor, so it was logical to turn to her, when I needed an extra hand, when my travel schedule became so overwhelming that even basic household chores were too much in my spare moments at home.

She cleaned brilliantly. She had only a handful years on me. She dressed oddly and suited for labor, with no regard to color or fabric combinations; a woman clearly accustomed to hard work. Out of workboots and flannel, she might have been a somewhat comely girl.

She was eager and industrious. And friendly. On more than one occasion, she invited me to her shared apartment - which was in a comparably not-so-safe section of town - for a party. When I was unable to come, she brought pictures of the festivities to share with me.

I am ashamed to admit this: between her overzealousness to befriend me and the fact that I found her so challenging to speak with, I preferred to have her come when I was not home. (Well, okay, that and I hate the sound of vaccum cleaners. And I don't like people invading my personal space. And that nagging feeling that I should have been doing something to help her. In fact, I have always preferred that my cleaning ladies - even the unintrusive, perfectly-spoken ones, come when I am not home -- and yes, I realize prescisely how obscenely privileged and offensive that sounds, but it's honest. Maybe it's easier on both of us: I don't like the man that signs my paychecks standing around in my office while I work, either.)

She followed me in my move from the suburbs to downtown, though the drive from her house was a commute I myself wasn't willing to make. Perhaps it was because I was kind and paid her well, and also was quick to offer her appliances, furniture, clothes that I no longer needed in a much-smaller place. Perhaps it was because she needed the work. Perhaps it was because she liked me, and felt a sense of loyalty.

But talking to her made me so uncomfortable, because she was so hard to understand, and I felt that my lack of comprehension was embarrassing to her. She was struggling to learn English. Perhaps she also had a minor speech impediment, either congenital or simply that of a foreign tongue pretzeling itself to mimic and create unfamilar sounds. And then again, perhaps I had a hearing impediment, or a patience impediment. Or, E), all of the above. And she was so very eager to speak to me, to make me her friend.

In an elaborate ritual 'dance' dictated in part by schedules, we eventually communicated only in cryptic notes -- mine in SIMPLE EXPLANATORY English:

PLEASE CLEAN THE REFRIGERATOR TODAY, Thank You! ☺).

Her responses, labored over I'm sure, penned in broken verb-challenged English in the flowery script of one schooled in another country.

6 months after my move to the city one of those notes told me that she had to leave the country, as I recall, because of an urgent family situation of some sort. I never saw her again, though the next week I left her an appreciative farewell bonus and a small gift and card wishing her well. She left me my keys and a friend's name in case I needed someone else to clean for me, and her new address, encouraging me to visit her if I was ever in Brazil.

She was Italian. She gave me my first lesson in irregular verb conjugation -- pulire (to clean), pulisco - "I clean". She spoke fluent Italian (in dialect of some sort, I now realize) and Spanish and Portugese, and perhaps a bit of Romanian, I think. She probably had an advanced degree of some sort from one of those countries. I do not know whether or not she was in the US legally, nor any more of her story because, while I was kind, I was also distant. I never took the time to get to know her. Because it was hard. It wasn't prejudice, it was simply impatience coupled with discomfort. Because My Life was too Full of Very Important Things.

And now ... now that I am the outsider -- the "one of these things is not like the others," she who dresses oddly, the fish out of water, the American Girl with the past that noone knows and would be comically unimportant here anyhow, the one who speaks oftentimes incomprehensibly, the one who the locals avoid talking too much to because it makes them uncomfortable when they cannot understand me, I think of her. Of Ivete, and how incredibly brave she was - though I paid her bravery no attention at the time. To be an immigrant, to try to fit in, to make friends, to be working two jobs and barely earning a meager living in the hardest possible way, staying in a group apartment in a part of town that I would lock my doors when I drove through.

And she was always, always cheerful. And exceptionally, heartbreakingly brave.

Some of you used that word to describe my move here. But it isn't. By comparison, not even remotely close.

I do not know if she is still there, but today, I sent Ivete a postcard in Brazil inviting her to come visit if she ever makes it back to Italy; an invitation very long overdue. And I really hope she will. Perhaps she will be as challenged by my Italian as I was by her English. And even if she speaks English in exactly the same way, I suspect I will be a better listener this time.