How It Began And How It's Going to End

We started with a simple hello and ended with a soggy goodbye

Photo credit: Ioana Cristiana

As a rule, I prefer talking about ideas, current events, and observations on life. What I don’t like is talking about myself. Trust me, I’m not that interesting.

Then a friend of mine pointed out that talking about my experiences and state of mind at this particular moment is, perhaps, the greatest gift I could give you. Life is mercurial. You never know when you might be moving abroad or moving home. Something you read here could possibly give you the courage to do that. Maybe it will inspire you to share your wisdom with somebody else who is considering a radical transition.

But as sad as I am to leave Italy, as full of dread to return to the land of my birth with its guns, zealotry, and run-amok capitalism, I am perfectly aware of my privilege. I am not crossing the Sonoran Desert on foot. I am not being forced to navigate the Migrant Trail, a 7-day, 75-mile journey from Sásabe, Mexico, to Tucson, Arizona, with my eyes peeled for coyotes, “coyotes,” and the border patrol.

And yet, I do have some inkling of how refugees must feel as they come crunching across the desert, which is desperate, alone, and haunted. Memories fill their hearts with painful yearning. They already miss the ones they left behind. And they know what harrowing obstacles they face.

Humans always guard their borders with a badger-like ferocity. Sometimes, they even take your children away.

So, my departure will hurt, but it won’t likely be that dire. Still, it’s my experience, which is the only frame of reference I have. As you might expect, I’ve been thinking a lot about the past, how it felt when I first came to Italy, and how I feel now that I’m leaving.

The fairytale of Amelia, Italy, a borgo that’s 700-years older than Rome. Photo credit: Stacey Eskelin

An entire lifetime’s worth of experiences has been lived within those nine years. I was a different person then than I am now. For one, I’m older. I have a middle-aged woman’s self-acceptance that is both hard-won and well-deserved. But I’ve changed in other ways, too, and much of that has to do with John, and the rest has to do with restoring the balance between time and money.

“Italy lets you be a f**k-up,” John is fond of saying. What he means by that is Italian landlords, taken on the aggregate, aren’t going to file eviction orders on you if you’re a week late on your rent. That’s not true in the U.S. I know people who were a day late and came home to find a pink slip on their door. Italy is Land of the Grace Period, which is one of the reasons the vibe here is so laidback, at least in the smaller villages. It’s the equivalent of taking off your too-tight shoes after tramping around in the heat all day.

Not the States. You pay your rent on one of the first three days of the month, or it’s going on your Permanent Record, a secretive and opaque rating system known as your credit report, a thing you live or die by, even though the rules governing it are unknown to you. Fear of it gets your ass off the couch, that’s for sure. America needs you to work so you can keep the wheels of capitalism going.

Before coming to Italy, I worked seven days a week. For years, I did this. Up at five, asleep by midnight. So do a lot of people. If there’s one thing Americans understand, it’s work.

Italians work hard, too, but often without the sword of capitalist Damocles hanging over their heads. Wages are nothing if not pitiful here. If you’re a little short at the end of the month, however, Mamma, Papà, or Nonna will slip you the rest. Knowing you’ve got backup makes life a lot less stressful.

Photo credit: Ben Wicks

But make no mistake. In the U.S., you can have time or you can have money, but you can’t have both. Not until you’re retired or you’ve inherited pots and pots of it. Time and/or money is a binary you can’t seem to escape, which is why Americans are perpetually on the hustle and grind.

And that’s what I’m going back to.

You can understand my dread.

No longer will my time be my own. I’ll have to sell it to the highest bidder, especially in a brothel town like New York City. After nine years of having the luxury of time (albeit with time’s terrible voucher, which is poverty), that’s going to be a hard thing to sacrifice. I’m not whining. It’s merely a statement of fact. But I do look forward to receiving lots more grist for the Cappuccino mill. There will be plenty of that, I’m sure, and with any luck, it won’t all be crazies defecating in boxes in subways.

I came to Italy wanting to have my own soul restored to me, and that’s exactly what I got. Now I have to hand it back in, like a beloved library card, because the branch is closing.

I’ve had to take a closer look at what I’m bringing home with me, too. I find myself wondering how much of my observable calm (friends note this about me, in addition to the genuine pleasure I take in listening to people talk about themselves) is actual Zen-like acceptance of life as it presents itself or deep-seated nihilism about an American society that no longer has a place for me.

Italy is a gerontocracy, a council of elders. America is 100% youth culture. As someone who is neither young nor old, I have never really found a comfortable place to sit.

And this new generation is different. I was raised in front of a television. They were raised in front of an iPhone, a television that talks back. I was raised to watch. They were raised to perform, and they do, for everyone. Every post is subject to public scrutiny and public comment, and since these Generation Zers aren’t yet battle-hardened enough to deflect the slings and arrows of criticism, they absorb them. They also absorb information, which they do at an alarming speed, entire bytes of data sinking into their respective craniums until the whole thing short circuits and they sometimes melt down.

They’re not ambitious in the same way my generation was ambitious. All we wanted was a car, a degree, a job, and our own apartment. Gen Z eschews all that. Perhaps they’re right to. But they’re not growing up very fast. Growing up tends to happen, rudely and all at once, when the first bill comes. You’re nineteen, holding a bill you have no money to pay, and you realize that the much-vaunted “freedom” you were raised to hold sacred is actually the freedom to pay bills. It becomes a treadmill you never get off again, not as long as you live.

As bright and perhaps somewhat amoral children, they tend to look out for themselves. We taught them that, their Gen Xer parents, after witnessing the shabby treatment our Boomer generation parents received for years of corporate loyalty.

Photo credit: Tim Mossholder

In some cases, social skills are a problem. This is a generation that’s been raised by a screen that, unlike my screen, doesn’t automatically turn to “snow” at a certain hour. When I left the house, I couldn’t drag the television with me. At some point, I had to turn it off and go interact with the world.

But these are the people who are running the show now. I will likely have to answer to one. I happen to like and admire this new generation, but I doubt they will like and admire me.

If my generation was the last one to enjoy an analog youth and a digital adulthood, this is the first generation that is purely digital. So far, it’s given us Greta Thunberg, but it’s also given us Sam Bankman-Fried, Elizabeth Holmes, Andrew Tate, a generation of “influencers,” Kylie Jenner, and cancel culture.

“Don’t build an obstacle that isn’t there yet,” a dear friend tells me. I’m trying. But the stark reality is there, right there, staring me in the face. Italy has been a sorely needed hibernation for me, a restorative. Now, I must reap what I’ve sown and go see if it has any relevance in the marketplace.

I suspect that I will go from being an American in Italy to being a stranger in a strange land.

But I will report back to you.

Sometimes it takes an outsider’s insider perspective to see what’s really going on.

Copyright © 2023 Stacey Eskelin

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