One year ago today, I arrived in Italy with my mom and Prose in tow to begin . . . something. I really didn’t know if it would be a new life, a great adventure, or a total fiasco. In many ways, I still don’t.
Symbolically, we left Arkansas on September 19, my grandmother’s birthday. On the surface, my grandmother was a homebody whose greatest pleasure was going for walks in her beloved Ozarks, strolling around her yard and garden, or reading any book within reach. But she also loved to travel, and I am so happy that I was able to take her all over New England, a little of Canada, and even New York City. And it was there that she made a statement that defines my desire to live in Italy.
As we were driving in NYC, the apartments looked pretty old and there was laundry hanging outside the windows (so Italian). Suddenly my grandmother said, “I’d like to move here and live like these people.”
The first flight. My mom lifts her champagne to our new adventure.
Prose worries about her oxygen mask.
My ever-so-literal mother was also in the car, and she said, “Surely not. Why on earth would you say that? Look how dirty it is and crowded and unsafe.”
Now we all knew that my grandmother wouldn’t leave her beloved home in the mountains and her daughters who lived nearby. But she said, “Because I’d like to live a totally different life just to see what it’s like. To figure out how to get by in a whole other world.”
I have thought of that so much because that is exactly what brought me—and keeps me—in Italy. The moments when I feel the cultural difference most acutely (such as when my Italian friends take the 700-year-old skeleton of their holy woman out of the church and parade her through the street) is when I am most enchanted. I’ve always loved jigsaw puzzles, and now I am the odd piece, constantly trying to figure out how to fit myself into the bigger picture of my Tuscan village.
My grandma on one of a lifetime of great hikes in our Ozarks.
People who make a big move are running away or seeking something or probably both. I left the U.S. months after my father’s supposed suicide and my husband’s revelation, after thirty-three years together, that he wanted a divorce. Not to mention the death of my very good dog Traveler.
Certainly my feelings have evolved in the last year. When we came, I brought four suitcases in total for myself, my mom, and Prose (who is a very material girl). One of those suitcases was full of research for the novel I’m writing and hard copies of Sarah Ban Breathnach’s books, including Moving On. Besides clothes and other usual paraphernalia, I brought a huge beloved back pillow, in case I got sick and had to write in bed. I brought some kitchen stuff that I couldn’t bear to leave, favorite knives and a few gadgets. But it was all practical. I brought nothing sentimental except Traveler’s ashes. I wanted no reminders of the past, no loose ends of pain. I wanted a clean page for my new chapter, my new life, the new me.
When I returned to Arkansas six months later for a whirlwind ten days of appointments and tasks, I had a half year under my belt of learning new ways to do things, of figuring out challenges, of thinking about more than how the men I loved betrayed me. Now, coming back to Arkansas was almost like lifting up the bandage very carefully to see how the healing was progressing.
I discovered that I was ready to begin to join the fragmented pieces of myself back together. This time, when I boxed up my complete historical research library to bring to Italy, I allowed myself one box, maximum 70 pounds, for anything I wanted. I put in all Traveler’s little sweaters, hoping Prose could wear them. I put in some mementos of good moments with old friends. I put in pictures of my grandparents and dad. I tore all the written pages out of a lifetime of unfinished journals and brought the pages. I bought a second carry-on and allowed myself that many breakable items. A sculpture from Eureka Springs, more momentos, framed pictures. I unstretched a Jody Stephenson painting and rolled it up in a tube to carry it onto the plane.
I felt as if I were gluing myself back together, forging the new me and the old me into one stronger person.
The second trip. Boxes of books and some memories this time.
Sometimes, I am filled with wonder. Who is this woman who can find her way around foreign cities with no help, who can usually make herself understood in pidgin Italian, who has lost 30 pounds? I don’t know her. Other times, I find I’m still the same insecure, easily embarrassed nerd I always was. The truth is, of course, I am all those things. It just depends on which side of myself I want to turn toward the light.
For years, I abdicated as much responsibility as I could because it was easier. It was easier to let my husband manage the finances or figure out the TV remote. When we traveled, it was easier to let him drive the rental car, read the walking map, convert kilometers to miles. I chose helplessness because it was so easy.
Now, I choose strength. I choose to turn that side of myself to the light. I can convert gallons to liters, euros to dollars, miles to kilometers and know how much it costs to drive a hundred miles. And then, I can drive it. I choose to be the person who can do the thing—whatever it might be—that needs to be done.
What is true for me is, of course, true for us all. If I know anything, I know that I am not special. “You’re so brave,” people say. “You’re so strong.” That is simply not true. I just try not to talk myself out of things because I know that any situation can be faced with this simple procedure: Show up. Take the next step. Solve today’s problem.
Last week. Just another day in the life.
You really don’t have to have it all figured out ahead of time. You can’t anyway. I had no idea how I would feel living in Italy. Maybe I would hate it. How could I know? But I did know this: nothing has to be permanent.
So, here I am, a year in. Who knows where we’ll be in another year. Maybe right here. Maybe not. I’m figuring it out as I go. Aren’t we all? But one thing I know. We all have a strong side. And that should be the one that we turn toward the light.
Finding our stories . . . and ourselves.
Alison