Emerging From Hibernation

The world has gone and changed in the nine years I've been away.

For nine years, I’ve been living inside an Italian fairytale.

At first blush, it’s a misleading term, “fairytale,” one that implies an idyll of sorts. In some ways, it was. But as John used to say, “Italy is a good place for f**k-ups.” Before anyone takes umbrage, let me explain.

Despite the existence of Milan and Rome, Italy is about twelve clicks removed from American-style hustle and grind. If you’re late on your rent in Italy, it’s not going on your credit report. A good three weeks can go by before you start having to field calls from your landlady. “Tomorrow” (as in I’ll be there tomorrow, have it ready for you tomorrow, expect the package by tomorrow) is a relative construct. If you have a pressing need to go out for aperitivo instead, no one’s going to hold it against you.

As hard working as they are, Italians understand that it’s life and family first, and work is way down the list where, frankly, it belongs. I’m encouraged to see young Americans at least attempting to address work/life balance, but when you’re ground down by high rents and a cost of living that spirals ever-upwards, work/life balance starts sounding theoretical. Here, there is nowhere to lay down the heavy load. Untrammeled capitalism perches gargoyle-like on your shoulder and shouts at you to go faster, faster, faster. Fear, as it turns out, is a powerful incentive. I should know.

Fear is what kept me spitting out resumes all day, despite being sick. Very sick. I’d actually have to feel better just to die. Is it Covid? Who knows. The test said no, but it’s hard to believe that when your lungs are crackling like Christmas paper. After the quarantine of being in a small Italian village, it would appear that my immune system has a lot of catching up to do. So here I am in bed, coughing and hacking (very sexy, by the way) surrounded by a blizzard of Kleenex.

Welcome home, Stacey.

Photo of the author.

It’s just as well that I’m laid up since it removes all temptation to go out and explore.

Already, it feels as though I’ve learned things about American culture, not all of them positive. If there is one overarching theme to what I’ve gathered, it’s that the Internet has ruined everything. First-rate musicians no longer record music because what’s the point? Nobody buys albums or CDs anymore. Why should they when we’ve got Spotify?

Novels? Forget it. Long form is over. It’s all quips, tweets, blurbs, and maybe a short article. These were things I knew before I got here, of course, but they’ve been confirmed a thousandfold by creatives who are just as resigned to the grim reality as I am.

Oddly, it’s not enough to keep me from continuing to work on my Shelley novel. I don’t write for foolish vainglory, but because I need to create things with words. It’s the compulsion that keeps me going, despite my very real fear of homelessness and starvation. I’m whistling in the dark, perhaps.

But what truly surprises me about the baleful effect of the Internet is the way it’s impacted dating. I shudder at the thought of ever being single again. Dating these days? A sad revolving door. There’s no incentive to make a commitment or to stay and work things out. No one has time for sex anymore, even if they weren’t beguiled by the Internet’s other primrose path, which is porn. How are we not talking about this?

And it’s actually worse for the Zoomers (the demographic succeeding Millennials and preceding Generation Alpha, so roughly those born in the mid-to-late 1990s to early 2010s, otherwise known as my kids.) They’re our first digital natives. Everything they think, see, experience, and know they learned from a screen. This has led, I believe, to a certain amount of conformity and polarization. Will they outgrow it? Maybe. I was raised by a screen of a different sort—a television screen—but the difference was, you couldn’t take the television with you when you went outside to play. These poor souls are on the electronic leash every moment of their lives.

As a consequence, I hate television so much, I haven’t owned one in over twenty-five years. It’s possible that something similar might happen to Gen Z and Gen Alpha. After all, humans are predictably unpredictable. If nothing else, nine years away have taught me the value of reserving judgment. The American conveniences I used to despise (central heating, microwaves, Grub Hub, superstores) seem like pretty good ideas after living in Italy. It’s wonderful being able to pad around the apartment in bare feet. Back in Amelia, my daily accoutrement involved two pairs of pants, two pairs of socks, unicorn slippers, a T-shirt, a sweater, another sweater, a shawl, a wool hat, and my parka. And I was still freezing.

One thing that hasn’t changed in America is the level of self-involvement. Every conversation I eavesdrop on starts with “I,” has about fifty “I’s” in the middle, and ends … well, actually, it never ends. I actually laughed out loud the other day when I passed by a bar window and saw this guy going to town on his “personal narrative,” while a supremely bored-looking woman stared vacant-eyed into the middle distance. A short walk down Court Street in Brooklyn, say, and you will see a dozen white women clutching a latte in one hand, a cellphone in the other, and a dog leash wrapped around their wrists. It’s all upspeak and the word “like” half a dozen times until you want to gouge your ears out.

Never before have we been so connected and disconnected. No wonder everyone—and I mean everyone—is high.

In New York, the smell of weed is ubiquitous. John saw a guy blow smoke in a cop’s face a few weeks ago, and there wasn’t anything the cop could do about it. It’s at the airport, in stairwells, on the subway, even in restaurants, although it’s not supposed to be. People jaywalk like crazy, queue up twice around the store at Trader Joe’s, take their dogs to ridiculously expensive doggie daycare centers, and talk incessantly on their phones. If any of those insurrectionist hillbillies actually succeed at dynamiting New York’s communication grid, it’s a fatal blow they will have struck.

Can you fight a civil war using a dead cellphone? I’m asking for a friend.

Gone are the days when ambling down Via Repubblica in Amelia meant saying hello to at least a dozen people. No one knows you here, and I’m actually okay with that. I relish the feeling of anonymity after the pressure cooker of living in a small Italian village. That might change, but I doubt it. I’ve always been more of an observer than a participant. You learn so much more that way.

But there’s one thing even an Eeyore like me can’t deny, and that’s the feeling of … if not hope, then at least possibility. Things are possible here in a way that they are likely not possible anywhere else. Sick, grouchy, stuck in bed, I can still feel it pulling at me.

You never know what’s around the corner. It could be the chance of a lifetime.

Or it could be a guy with a knife.

Copyright © 2023 Stacey Eskelin

What are your thoughts about the way American culture has changed in this past decade? I’m still trying to suss it out. So if you have things to say, say them, by gum! I’m all ears.