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A three-minute escape to Italy.
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Letter to my Ex

Visiting my prior life in California is a lot like seeing an old lover.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

Actually, it’s complicated.

There is so much that is deeply familiar about you, and sucks me right back in time. Memories of you come from unexpected places, particularly when the senses are involved. The smell of jasmine with a hint of eucalyptus and damp earth. The soundscape: distant train whistles blasting through the steady hum of traffic, with the occasional siren. In downtown San Francisco, the hum of the cables that power the cable cars moving under the street. The feel of the air, warm sunshine with a cool breeze, and a hint of fog.

When I come back to you, I am cleaved in two. My current and my younger self walk side by side, a feeling that is not entirely comfortable. I wish I could be the person who takes things more simply and is eager to have a beer with you and relax. But, I am not her. When my shadow self walks alongside I am constantly interrogating—Who was I when I was with you? Who am I now? Have I made enough of the intervening time? Have I lost anything I regret about who I was?

We were together for a long time. I met you a couple of times when I was tiny, and we got involved when I was in my twenties. I spent a lot of my life in your embrace.

Now, I notice the differences—you have a slower gait, a few more wrinkles—you haven’t been keeping yourself up. I remember how much we were to each other. You were the place I met my husband, brought my babies home, watched my family grow and expand, and my parents die. A place where friendships that nurture my soul were discovered and grown.

And I also remember that you were always on your phone during meals, and often burped at the table.

 

With my latest love I’ve grown accustomed to more mystery and challenge. Sometimes it bothers me that I can’t understand everything, but back with you I do. Total clarity can lead me to distance in another way—on a dark day, to a place of disdain.

At a restaurant, I’m seated near a long table where a celebration of life is happening to honor, let’s call him Mort, who died six months ago. There are about thirty people from a fancy part of San Francisco, who have come off the hill for the lunch.

The first man to speak shares a favorite toast of Mort.

To us.

And People Like Us.

Of which there are damn few.

Everyone laughs in fond memory of Mort, and the many times he gave this toast. And I realize that you just burped again.

But then I come back to the things that I miss: my family and friends, the Pacific Ocean, hummingbirds, abundant cilantro, acidic soil that grows everything, the farmers’ market. And that cool/warm breeze on my skin. I also realize that, as in every love affair, after one falls for someone new, the old lover is never as attractive as they once were.

I’ve moved a lot in my life, and each place holds a discrete part of me in a glass vial, frozen in time. Back and forth—Michigan, Florida, California, Michigan, Florida, California, Florida—all before third grade. A nested doll of little Nancys. Following Florida adolescent Nancy were Stanford Nancy, French Nancy, London Nancy, San Francisco Nancy, and Berkeley Nancy—the latter for twenty years. Now, Italian Nancy. (Do I need to mention yet again that in Italy I’m told my name is exotic and I am tall?) I am fond of all these Nancys in vials, but am not her anymore. And I wonder what Nancy is next.

And to my ex, thank you for the memories. And for making me who I am.

 

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Buying a Car in Italy

When we first arrived in Italy, one of the things I dreaded was buying a car. It’s so awful in the United States, with all the posturing, “deals”, and bluffing, and we couldn’t imagine doing this in a foreign language and culture. I’d seen the movies, and I imagined that many of the guys who wore bad suits, shiny shoes, and fedoras moonlighted as car salesmen when they weren’t doing other dastardly deeds. On the plus side, we were intrigued to buy something we couldn’t get in the US—like a Citroen, Peugeot, or Renault—which all seemed truly exotic, despite the fact that to the locals these brands are about as exciting as paint.

Our first purchase was a used Citroen Picasso, which earned a nickname, “The Tractor”. This nickname derived from the car’s silent, purring, powerful, tiny diesel engine, its lush interior of plastic and velour, and its snappy handling and luxury ride, tuned to feel every pothole. Despite all of this, it was fierce and took us on many an adventure. (I had AI generate the image of a Citroen Picasso above, which is fairly representative of the kinds of things we put “The Tractor” through.)

When we decided to buy a Picasso there was one being sold by its owner, about two hours away, for a good price. There was a local dealer who had a similar car, but for slightly more. That car sat in front of his shop, and we thought we could use the more distant car as leverage to do the deal locally.

We walked in to the local car dealer with a touch of a saunter, secure in the card we were holding. “We like the car in front, but we are also looking at this one in Livorno at a lower price.” The dealer looked carefully at our printout with the specs, and looked up with a sweet smile and said “This is a really good price. You should go to Livorno and get it!” Not what we were expecting.

When Donella was riding horses she was friends with a girl at the barn whose dad is a car dealer. So naturally, we went to him when we decided we needed to buy a second car, this time a new Renault. We learned a lot from this experience—like that the prices listed are pretty much what they are willing to accept. There’s a little wiggle room, but surprisingly less than what we were used to in the States. Any kind of walking away or delaying tactics simply didn’t work. (I had a brief flirtation with a Mini and went to the dealer three times, doing a test drive twice. They had all my contact info, which I was reluctant to give, as I was sure that I was going to be hounded. Quite the contrary—they never followed up, despite my obvious interest.)

We were gently schooled in the level of quasi-transparency and respect when buying a new car. This Renault remains a delight, as does our ongoing relationship with this dealer, who always shows me videos of his daughter riding.

He recently bought a restaurant as a side gig, and one day he came up to me while I was waiting to pay for a servicing at the dealership. He pulled out his phone, and I was expecting to see horses, but instead there was a close up of a bald man in a tuxedo with a disco-ball inspired bow tie, holding a truffle. “I’ve invited ‘The Lord of the Truffle’ to the restaurant to do an all-truffle dinner, and you must come!” How could I say no to our friend, and the promise of meeting The Lord of the Truffle? I agreed, against every instinct I have, except for curiosity and politeness. But that dinner deserves its own story, which will come.

The time has rolled around for us to be in the market for a car and we were pretty wide open about what were interested in. We were slightly loyal to the French brands, but our dealer friend only had Renaults, and there wasn’t one in their current range that we liked. Much to our surprise, he told us to hop into one of the cars from the dealership and he’d show us some other options from competing brands. If I’ve ever been driven around by a dealer before it was always in one of their shiny, top-of-the-line cars. The ones who they wanted you to fall in love with.

He backed out an older Renault Kangoo for us to hop into. For those unfamiliar with the Kangoo, it’s every bit as sleek and sophisticated as its name. Its daddy was a U-Haul wardrobe moving box, and mommy was a skateboard.

We got in and drove thirty minutes to some other dealerships, getting the latest in local gossip. To catch you up, the new factory with enormous vents, no signage, and bars over the windows is, as I’d guessed, a gold factory. We learned about that there are different truffles in different seasons—the summer ones you want to ignore. The shocking news was that someone stole a €400 bottle of wine from his restaurant.

We saw a Peugeot that was interesting, and before we knew what was happening we found ourselves in a glass booth with not one, but two, car dealers. John and I looked at each other in despair. The Peugeot dealer was an older man who had taken off his jacket in a protracted manner, slowly and carefully hanging it, before sitting down at his desk, straightening everything on top before we could begin. Our friend was fielding non stop calls from other clients, and every time he took a call our conversation would stop. Mr. Peugeot sighed about the frantic nature of modern life and how everyone expects an instant response. Finally, there was a moment of silence between calls, and the two men started discussing how much of a discount they could come up with between them. They printed out the offer, and we exchanged contact information so that I could return to test drive an electric model in the next couple of days. The events below took us in a different direction, and I never received a follow up call from Signore Peugeot.

Then, I got a text from our friend that Nissan was having a special with €12,000 off their electric cars, but only for the next few days. We’d been slightly interested in seeing a Nissan, but it was located pretty far away. We were once again back on the road with our friend, this time to go to a Nissan dealer over an hour away. We test drove one, really liked it, and decided to take advantage of this rebate. The problem was that we had to take one of the cars in stock and we didn’t like any that this dealer had. I drove the hour back while our friend started calling dealers all over Italy to find what we wanted.

Now I am sure that he gets a cut, but we were so surprised at this guy’s willingness to physically go the extra mile to make sure that we got the right car for us, even though it was outside his dealership. We have yet to receive this car…so stay tuned. But the big lesson is, once again, we never know what to expect and have to learn to trust.


A couple of practical notes on purchasing a car, for anyone who may need to know. Oddly enough, foreigners are allowed to buy property, but you can’t buy a car unless you are a legal resident (you don’t have to be a citizen). A common way around this is to ask a friend who is a resident to buy a car for you, and hold title. I’ve discovered, after hearing the experiences of a few people, that this can backfire on the resident friend if anything seriously goes wrong, like a bad accident, while the foreign driver is behind the wheel. Because this arrangement is in a very grey area legally, the insurance company may not pay damages and can even go after the resident friend. There may be other legal repercussions.

There’s a couple ways around this. There are some agencies that will buy the car on your behalf and “rent” it back to you. Because they are businesses, and the car is insured through them, the liability is covered. There are also short-term leasing deals available in France from two weeks to six months, available to people from outside the EU. We did this our first six months and it worked like a dream—brand new car, comprehensive insurance, and unlimited mileage. Easy to hand back in at the end.

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In an Italian Hospital

(Don’t worry, everything is fine. Explanation of the photo above is for those intrepid readers who make it to the end.)

Like so many aspects of our life in Italy, the medical system has been full of surprises.

The first few times I went to the local hospitals I was pretty stunned. Many of the facilities were built in the 1960s, with that certain ambiance that only hulking cement structures with interiors that have that special-shade-of-green walls, plastic chairs, and fluorescent lights can deliver. I’ve sometimes spent half of an hour finding where I am supposed to go in these large labyrinths. If you are admitted for a stay, the food is notoriously terrible, so family members often bring in home-cooked dishes.

A few years ago, one of my doctors determined that I needed to have a procedure, which required a trip to the hospital. On the day of surgery, we wandered around until we found the correct waiting room, which was next door to the well-marked morgue.

Soon, I was lying on the gurney, waiting for surgery. No one asked for my name, date of birth, or to confirm the procedure I was about to have. Instead, my doctor/surgeon greeted me by name and was telling me stories about his teenage son who wanted to become a videogame developer and asked if I have any leads in California. The nurses were touching me, a lot. They patted my head and used my body as a desk, resting their clipboards on my stomach to take notes. As they were petting me I was told that all would be fine.

I was wheeled into the operating room and moved onto the table. I said hello to the crew, but I didn’t meet an anesthesiologist. I joked that I was a little concerned by this, and they told me that she was finishing her coffee and would arrive shortly.

A man came in wheeling an instrument they needed, replacing one that wasn’t working. My doctor/surgeon said to the technician that he’d never used this piece of equipment before, and was told that they all worked pretty much the same. Before I had time to worry, I was out. Guess my anesthesiologist had finished her coffee.

Next think I knew, I was in post-op, struggling to regain consciousness while petting my dog, Lola. In the hospital bed. Cuddled next to me. In the recovery room. John said that he went outside to give Lola some water, as she was in the shade under a porch on a really hot day. The nurse said to bring her in—Lola would be cooler and it would do me good to recover with her next to me. And it did.

And I never saw a bill.

Italian healthcare is often ranked #2 in the world, after France, with Italians having one of the longest lifespans in the world (all delivered at one of the lowest cost per patient globally). The quality of care varies from region to region, and we are lucky to be in Tuscany, which is one of the best.

I got a call at night from a friend whose husband had become oddly lethargic and unresponsive to conversation. She needed help getting him to the hospital as they live up a rough dirt road, and the ambulance (which is free, BTW) couldn’t get to their house. We called on a friend with a four-wheel drive to get him down the driveway to our car, and we drove him to the emergency room.

The doctor was puzzled by what was going on. Our friend was very fatigued and running a slight fever. The doctor wanted to be cautious, so she kept him overnight for observation. And she kept him for two weeks while she figured out what was wrong. Turns out he had sepsis resulting from a previous infection that hadn’t fully resolved. A more pressured hospital environment, motivated to get people out quickly, might have missed this condition as it took a persistent and curious doctor, observation time, and many tests to diagnose. And sepsis is a very serious, sometimes fatal condition, especially in older adults.

And they will never see a bill.

Sebastian was about twelve when we went to his new pediatrician for a check-up. Mid-exam the doctor said that she wanted to introduce Sebastian to her daughter, who was about his age. She got out her phone and called her daughter to have her meet Sebastian. (We happened to catch the moment above.) She followed up with us after the visit, and arranged to take them both on a “date” for the afternoon to a local pool. After that, his doctor and her family invited him on vacation to Calabria, which he declined. Almost a decade later, Sebastian remembers this with great amusement and affection, and reminded me of it for this article.

All check-ups are free.

The photo at the top was taken by John years ago when Donella was in a horse show. Things unfolded in a split second, and what he assumed he was getting—Donella and her mount sailing over a jump—turned out to be an unexpected parting of ways between human and horse. She landed on her arm, hard, and was in a lot of pain afterwards. We went to the emergency room to make sure there wasn’t a fracture.

We were sent to orthopedics, and her exam and X-rays took longer than they should have because all the doctors were laughing so hard at the photo. They would ask her a question, start to diagnose, and then see someone walking by the door and have to call them in to see the photo. I think she made the day of dozens of doctors and nurses that day, and it turned out to be a bad sprain, but fortunately not a break.

And we never saw a bill.

I haven’t yet figured out when payment is required. For blood tests and scans that are follow-ups to regular doctor visits there is a co-pay, on a sliding income scale. It is usually less than €50. But emergencies and more serious treatments seems to be completely covered. I see certain doctors privately for exams, but if there are any treatments needed it gets put through the public system.

It’s not always warm and fuzzy. I get my mammograms by being sent a letter telling me to show up to a mobile mammogram truck at a certain time. I arrive and knock on the door of the RV. A male technician opens it, gestures towards the machine, tells me to take off my shirt and proceeds to prod and squish. All in plain view of the unlocked door. This is not the experience I was used to in California with background sounds of whale calls, soft lights, and cotton gowns.

But, I never see a bill.

What I love about these experiences is that the personal and the professional co-mingle. I am sure that this is partially because of a different litigation climate, but I think there is more to it. As we found in schools, there seem to be fewer people hiding behind their professional masks, bolstering an aura of authority. Most people here are completely normal in their professional roles—more like what you’d expect if you had a coffee with them—while delivering excellent results. There’s something so self-accepting and confident, so relaxed and competent about many of my interactions with Italians that I love to see this attitude extend into the high-stakes world of medicine.

 

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The Moment I Knew I Had to Leave the US

(I often get asked “So, how did you decide to move to Italy?” This is an excerpt of something I’ve been working on that begins the answer to that question with a bit of backstory. If I lived in the States now, my answer might be different—this is a snapshot from twelve years ago. This piece is a bit longer than usual, and is only the beginning of a larger story. I hope you like it, please let me know!)

I would have imagined an Epiphany would be loud. A moment accompanied by a flash of bright light that might leave a permanent mark on an object close by. Something between Harry Potter’s lightning bolt scar, a slice of toast with the image of Christ on it, and the sword in the rock at Rocamadour. The type of word that should always capitalized. All this was if I’d ever considered having an Epiphany at all, which I’d never given much thought to, before it happened.

I was Epiphanied when I was in our kitchen in California on a totally ordinary night while making a simple salad, not even bothering to add a shallot and mustard to the olive oil and vinegar. I sometimes wonder what others are doing the exact moment when they realize that their life, from top to bottom, has to change because they are stuck, and not living the lives they really want to be living. It struck me, with force and complete clarity, between whisking the dressing and pouring it on, and I agreed it was right.

Something had to change. And nothing after was like it was before. And all roads finally led to Italy—but not Rome.

We moved a lot when I was a kid, Michigan to Florida to California, and back, seven different places by the time I was in fourth grade, but nowhere felt like it supported who I was at the core. My parents had me when they were older—Mom was 44, Dad 46—and they went from having a comfortable lifestyle in Lansing, Michigan, with my father owning a general contracting firm and running big interstate freeway projects, to declaring bankruptcy the year I was born.

We continued in our perilous financial state for most of my youth and moved a lot as they tried to rebuild, ultimately ending up in Clearwater, Florida, a place I never bonded with. I blamed this worry about money and our transience for the feeling that I was somehow missing out on the sense of belonging and home that everyone else seemed to have, not to mention some semblance of inner peace. A deep craving for safety is still something I feel almost daily, which mystifies me when I see the turn that my life has taken.

I was surprised that even after I started adulting, married my husband, John, had two kids, and bought and restored a house built in 1918 in a suburban, tree-filled neighborhood in Berkeley, California, surrounded by family and friends, that this yearning didn’t cease. John had moved a lot as a kid as well, and had the same scars that came from those constant new beginnings, and we swore that putting down these roots meant that our kids would grow up with a sense of stability, safety, and place.

Planning a trip to Italy, way back when, on our front steps in California.

California was almost right for me, and I almost felt like the person I knew I was, but something was still missing that I couldn’t define. And while having the suburban life I thought I should have I became a living stereotype—hands clenched on the steering wheel, sitting in traffic on the freeway trying to get to meetings on time and then back from meetings on time to pick up kids, while squeezing in figuring out what the hell I was going to cook for dinner. All the while worrying about how I was going to become spiritually fulfilled, unflappably calm, and fit.

I believed it was just the way life was and expecting more was ridiculous, not to mention unattainable and greedy. I was leading a wonderful and privileged life, by any standard. But parts of who I had become turned out to be someone I wouldn’t have wanted to have lunch with, let alone share a body with.

What was missing? I knew it had something to do with adventure, connection, challenges, and fun—and specifically with Europe and its different way of life, which had always been my siren call.

Years before, when I was in college, I went for a quarter abroad in Tours, France, and it took me apart and rebuilt me, atom by atom. When I first left home in Florida for university in California I was abnormally attached to my parents, and in the beginning found the distance to be almost more than I could take. I was the one crying in my room for the first few weeks while it seemed that everyone else was out having fun.

This extreme homesickness returned when I went to France for a term during my second year. But after a couple of weeks, I took a deep breath and looked up. And I liked what I saw. I wasn’t expecting that living far from my parents, surrounded by a language I barely spoke, food that was unfamiliar, architecture that I had no history with, and a culture that was totally foreign I would feel deeply at home for the first time. And beyond at home, fully alive. I couldn’t believe that the world could look, sound, or taste like this. The more I explored, the more I felt like I was coming into who Nancy really was. I was deeply challenged, and delighted, by everyday life in a way that felt like oxygen for my soul.

One day, between classes in Tours, I was in the beautiful town center and looking around a small bookstore when I saw a table of pop-up books for kids. I bought a little children’s book in French as a promise to my future self that I would remember and honor this period of my life, and if I was lucky enough to ever have kids, that I would make sure they had the gift of a second language and a chance to experience other cultures.

In a successful attempt to delay the start of the real world after college, I got into a work-study program at an auction house in London, and the European hook sunk even deeper. At the end of the year-long program I had no reason to stay in London, legally or practically, and my family was waiting for my return, so I went to California and started my life as an adult, with a little missing part of what I really wanted stuffed deep inside.

And then I started to have The Dream. After I’d moved back, every month or so, I’d have this dream that I was at an airport about to board a plane to head back to the U.S.—ending some European adventure—which doesn’t sound too awful when I write it but nearly always had me waking shaking and near tears. As the dream kept recurring over the years I spent loads of time analyzing it, drawing on my years of being in therapy, trying to get to the bottom of what it actually symbolized, which clearly couldn’t be what it was on the surface. But it kept happening. Until we moved to Italy. I haven’t had it once since. Turned out my heart was a communicating with my head quite clearly—“move your butt to Europe”.

John and I had discussed possibly moving to Europe, at some point, but it was always an undefined goal pushed off to the hazy future. We had a business, a house, kids in school, family, great friends and neighbors, and not a solitary reason to take off into the European yonder, except that we liked it. Not strong enough. John and I kept telling ourselves that someday, perhaps, a project would come along that would justify a move. But it hadn’t yet and was unlikely to do so.

So, back to that salad-making night. I was standing there, thinking about life, eyeing the tuition bills for the next year of school, which as much as we all loved the place would guarantee another year of the status quo, and another year of the kids’ childhood ticking by. And the moment hit me, hard.

Everything was fine but not at all as I’d hoped. And that wasn’t the way I wanted to live anymore. I’d been waiting for change to happen to us. And under that were deeper, scary questions that I hadn’t really wanted to look at. Can life be different? Is it too late for a change? Am I stuck? Is this life really the one I want for my kids?

In that moment I knew that we weren’t stuck at all. That the inertia that I was feeling wasn’t inevitable and that I could keep that long-ago promise embodied in a children’s pop-up book.

Maybe in trying so hard to create the perfect life for my family we’d missed living a better life. Maybe by doing things the way they should be done I’d missed the whole point. I needed to make my lifelong dream of living in Europe happen, no delays, no excuses.

I had an idea. And an unsuspecting family waiting at the dinner table.

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living nativity

Witches and Wise Men

Just when I think I can’t take it anymore, there’s one more Italian holiday.

When American friends complain about the intensity of the holidays, I scoff. The Italian season continues in full swing until January 6th.

The merry-go-round of festivities starts on December 8th, The Feast of the Immaculate Conception, a national holiday, and the unofficial marker of when it’s OK to put up Christmas lights. Those of you with a good sense of the human gestation period might have figured out that this feast is not to mark the conception of Jesus, but rather Mary. Church fathers, in the 8th century, decided that her purity couldn’t be contaminated by having been conceived in lust, hence they created this holiday. For those not church-bound, the highlight of this day is a huge family lunch.

We roll directly into December 10th, when the village celebrates our ancient wooden carving of Our Lady of Loreto—the Virgin again—and hosts a procession carrying the statue past a series of nativity scenes starring locals. Street lights are extinguished and the village streets are lit solely by candles.

Then the main events hit—Christmas and New Year’s Eve and Day. Marked by huge family lunches. Think the holidays are over? Nope. The march continues to January 6th, the Epiphany, another national holiday.

One of my favorite things about living here occurs on several nights between Christmas Day and Epiphany—the living nativity, or presepe vivente—in a nearby hamlet. I have been twelve times and the magic hasn’t faded. A cluster of nondescript, fairly modern houses, and the adjacent garden plots and fields, transform into ancient Jerusalem. It’s epic—200 volunteers, 50 scenes of ancient life lit by 1500 candles, spread over a route more than a kilometer long, with music from Ben Hur blasting over speakers.

It has it all—nasty Romans running a slave market, donkeys turning an oil press, women washing clothes in a stream—all culminating in a manger with Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus, along with a donkey and a cow. There’s even a field of lepers, of course.

We did a video one year answering some pressing questions—is it bad to be cast as a leper? Does the woman washing clothes have cold hands? What happens to the baby Jesus when he gets older?

The selection of the sacred family is managed carefully by the organizers to not hurt any feelings. Local couples who have recently given birth take turns, with girl newborns being as likely as boys. There have even been twins starring as the baby Jesus. Also, parents are parents—you don’t need to be married to be Mary and Joseph. This year, Jesus was a bit fussy near the end of his shift so he got a bottle, while a concerned and watchful cow looked on.

The sheer pageant of it sweeps me along—Italians have a special gift for spectacle—it is not a surprise that opera was created here. This year around 10,000 people will come. It’s all volunteer and raises money for charity. The event happens for five nights between December 26th and January 6th—it can’t start earlier because there wouldn’t be a baby Jesus. The three wise men don’t show up until the Epiphany on January 6th. They enter with great fanfare and head to the manger.

Epiphany Eve, on January 5th, is a big deal for children. A witch called La Befana flies on her broom to leave candy and toys for the good kids, and coal for the bad ones.

And, yes, Epiphany is celebrated by a having big lunch.

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What a Decade in Italy Does to You

A few reasons why we are still here after twelve years.

Community is inescapable, in a way that is different from what I experienced in America. In a small example, when I go to a cafe to write, which is pretty often, I am the only person there who is alone. Literally. And I’m definitely the only ambiance-ruining sucker working on a computer. I have never seen a “to go” paper cup, except during Covid when the cafes were closed and everyone gathered outside to drink their espressos from tiny plastic cups, clustered with friends, chatting in the freezing cold. On my last trip to California, I was surprised by the change at Peet’s Coffee due to mobile to-go ordering. The long line of customers waiting for coffee and socializing was gone and I was the only customer physically in the store. The barista was swamped with orders coming in on his computer screen, and he never looked up, or made eye contact with me.

Here in Italy, trips to the cafe provide the cadence and spice for the day. People gather once or twice a day at the stand up bar, throw back very good shots of coffee, and laugh and joke with friends. They see the same group several times a day, yet there is always seems to be a sense of delight in getting together.

Self-acceptance and calm. We had a friend visit who runs a successful and demanding business, and is an author, and she was captivated by the co-owner of a local pizza place in the village square. This restaurant sells customized squares of pizza—one large sheet pan may contain a dozen different squares. The husband cooks and the wife takes orders, dispenses drinks, serves food, and works the register, all with unflappable calm. Even with twenty people jostling at the counter, all vying for her attention, she moves at the same pace, doesn’t seem frazzled or tense, and greets everyone with warmth and a look in the eye. She gets an enormous amount done, but without stress. My friend went back a second time to watch her in action.

My friend who works for a large, worldwide consulting firm in Milan has not found that this calm and self-acceptance scales to her workplace. She sees more of the dark side of Italy as there are so few good job opportunities that people who work at a company like hers will do anything to stay there, fueling long hours and a stifled culture. She feels like this hinders creativity and innovation.

After my mother died, several years ago, I shared the news with friends in the village and, without fail, got the same response. E’ la vita. “It’s life.” The first couple of times it happened, the response felt a little cold. But I’ve realized that it is part of this larger worldview of acceptance—certain things can be changed, but much cannot and it is better to embrace and accept.

Europe is small. I love to have adventures and the scale of this continent cries out for exploration. Within a two hour flight the options seem impossible to exhaust. Over the last decade we’ve traveled to Lebanon, Turkey, Sweden, Croatia, Corsica, Austria, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Germany, and frequently get to the UK and France. All are inexpensive to reach—we’ve used a mix of trains (including a few memorable night trains), ferries, planes, and automobiles. I love that I can get to another world—architecture, language, food, attitudes—in less time than it would have taken me to drive from Northern to Southern California.

This sense of belonging to Europe has been profound for the kids. They have an expansiveness to their thinking and a range of future options that span countries and cultures. This excites and challenges them.

The historical scale feels as small as the geographical one. Millennia are crossed within in a few footsteps. It’s not infrequent that we are in places where Bronze Age discoveries merge into Etruscan, Roman, Visigoth, and Byzantine ones, and the march of time continues through medieval, the reconstruction after the bombings of WWII, and new construction. I am constantly brought face to face with my existence being a tiny blip in time, and I like that. Even now, as I type, I look over to the painting on the wall, and the terracotta on the floor, all of which date to the last time this house was remodeled— In 1777.

Raising kids has been easier. I discovered that our kids were a lot less fragile than I thought when we lived in Berkeley. They were twelve and eight when we left and I’d fallen into the trap of micromanaging—tried to influence which teachers they got, oversaw homework, searched for the “right” extracurricular activities, and encouraged certain friends over others. Turns out they needed none of that.

Here in Italy, they chose to go to the local village schools, not speaking any Italian at the start. They had enormous help from two lovely friends of ours during the first year, who supported them with language and homework, and then they picked up the reins themselves. My not meddling encouraged their growth as independent and self-managed learners (and people), which was already who they were at their core.

It’s a lot safer here than it was in our old neighborhood in California so they had more physical freedom from the start. When Sebastian was eight, I’d often have no idea where he was. But the village is small, the center car-free, and there was almost nothing that could go wrong. He reveled in this freedom—though he did discover that his every move was being watched by a network of grandmothers—an example of which I will share soon.

Donella got her scooter license, and a Vespa, when she was 14. It’s the way it is done here—give kids a chance to learn on scooters before they get their license to drive a car at 18. I was terrified every time she left the driveway, but a sense of autonomy and freedom at that age seemed like too important a thing to say no to.

Stunning beauty is almost everywhere I look. It fills my very being.

I live slightly out of focus. I’ve always had bad vision and yearned for things around me to be crystal clear. This myopia has spread to most elements of my life in Italy. Due to language, culture, social networks, and village history I often don’t know exactly what is going on. This can be frustrating, like when I’m at a doctor or the vet. I get about three or four lines down from the big “E” on the eye chart of understanding, but nowhere near the fine print at the bottom. To offset this is the delight of the “Flaneur Effect”. One of the definitions of flaneur is “the connoisseur of the street.” Sometimes a bit of blur can make other things pop more clearly. That has been one of my great discoveries of this adventure, that my type A self doesn’t have to know everything in an attempt to control it all. And that there is great pleasure, and a different kind of understanding, in stepping back and attempting to observe new things through the fog.

Thanks to everyone reading and sharing, and especially to my paid subscribers on Substack, who are putting fuel in my writing tank.

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How to Move to Italy

I would have imagined an Epiphany would be loud. A moment accompanied by a flash of bright light that might leave a permanent mark on an object close by. Something between Harry Potter’s lightning bolt scar, a slice of toast with the image of Christ on it, and the sword in the rock at Rocamadour. The type of word that should always capitalized. All this was if I’d ever considered having an Epiphany at all, which I’d never given much thought to, before it happened.

I was Epiphanied when I was in the kitchen on a totally ordinary night while making a simple salad, not even bothering to add a shallot and mustard to the olive oil and vinegar. Many years after it happened to me, I wonder what others are doing the exact moment when it hits, the moment when it’s clear that their life, from top to bottom, has to change because they are stuck, and not living the lives they really want to be living. It struck me, with force and complete clarity, between whisking the dressing and pouring it on and I agreed it was right.

Something had to change. And nothing after was like it was before. And all roads finally led to Italy—but not Rome.

The passage above is from a book I am writing about our 12 years of living here. I often share on Itch the things that capture my attention about living in Italy, but nothing about how we actually did this move, and why. The book (fingers crossed) goes into detail, but here are a few headlines about how we approached making this change, which have become clearer to me over time.

Change. As a family, we’d always loved to travel—Europe in particular. John and Donella were as avid to have adventures as I was. Sebastian was eight and up for whatever his older sister thought was a good idea. The routine of our California life, no matter how wonderful discrete elements were, started to feel a bit stifling and we were restless. As a friend recently told me, you gave yourselves a great gift—the permission to change.

One year only. The framing of the move was as a family year abroad—a kind of sabbatical from our “real” lives. We said we’d keep going with this idea until someone said “no”—and no one did. The kids’ school said it would a worthwhile thing to do and that they’d catch up easily; the real estate agent told us we could easily rent our house furnished; and our clients didn’t care where our base of operations was. This idea, before I had a fancy term for it of prototyping a life change, was the most critical thing we did. We could have stepped back into our old life in an instant, so we didn’t have anything to look back on and mourn. It allowed us to live in the moment and move forward without regrets.

The Golden Ticket. After George W was re-elected we decided to pursue dual citizenship. John’s grandparents came from a small town in Calabria and we painstakingly pieced together the voluminous paper trail needed to prove citizenship by blood in Italy. We were successful, and John and the kids held Italian passports. I was a citizen-in-waiting due to my marriage to an Italian. (Little did I know I was marrying an Italian when we said our vows.)

We listened to our hearts. Our Italian passports opened up the EU to us, including the UK at the time, and initially we weren’t even considering Italy. The criteria at the beginning were that our adventure needed to occur somewhere hip and happening, and close to an international airport. We ended up in a place that didn’t even remotely fulfill either requirement. We investigated Amsterdam, Berlin, and London, among other places, but nothing was really getting our hearts pounding. One night, we had dinner in a chaotic, exuberant, family-run Italian restaurant and the idea of moving to Italy hit us. All of us suddenly sat up straighter and started talking at once. We knew we were now on the right path. Plus, it would give us a chance to figure out what being Italian actually meant.

Research. After deciding on Italy, we talked to about a dozen families who’d done similar sabbaticals and learned a great deal. The family who’d had the most profound and interesting experience had lived in a tiny village where they bonded deeply with the locals—a different experience from friends who’d ended up in Florence or Rome with a complete infrastructure for expats—and hyper-local felt like the more interesting path.

Bravery. We investigated international schools and discovered that kids who attended often didn’t learn the language or culture of the country that they were in, beyond the basics. Students were from all over the world, often at the school for just a year or so before they moved on, and although the experience was certainly international, it wasn’t necessarily Italian. Donella (and by extension her little brother) decided that they wanted to go to local schools to become fluent. They started Italian schools not speaking a word of Italian. Now they speak like natives and have often delighted in having not entirely appropriate conversation with friends, in partial dialect, right in front of us and we can’t keep up. It’s handy to have a secret language your parents don’t know.

Off Roading. We were comfortable going “off road” because it was initially only for a year. We chose our village sight unseen, driven by finding an apartment or house where we wanted to live. After looking at about a thousand short-term vacation rentals online we found an apartment that was beautiful, mysterious, and as different from our California home as possible—four restored nuns’ cells in a convent from the 1600s. The owner was willing to rent it out for the year, with everything from sheets to spoons. We weren’t worried about the kids’ education as it didn’t need to track to any American standards. If we went back, they would get back on the path and in the meantime they’d learn far more interesting things than rote curriculum. Our work with clients continued and often involved international travel, so we had the freedom to be based anywhere.

Trusting the universe, and ourselves. I’ve always been a worrier and a planner, but for this move it was all up to chance—the village, the apartment, the school, living in Italy—no way to control anything. We just had to go with it, and I’ve become comfortable in this mode. The universe sent us two perfect mentors for the kids, which was the biggest gift possible. For the first year they’d pick them up from school, have them over for lunch, and help with homework and Italian. We couldn’t have been successful in making the move work for everyone without them.

The Conversation. In retrospect, one thing that amazes me is that at the end of the year we never had The Family Conversation, complete with columns of pros and cons, about whether to go back to California. None of us even thought of discussing a return to our old lives. We were having too much fun, had too much yet to figure out, and we wanted to see where the adventure led next.

Regrets? Almost none, except missing some family moments. People we love come to visit, and for more intense, intimate times than what we often had together back in our frenzied California lives. What we lost in frequency we’ve gained in depth. We’ve all changed in ways that we like. The kids have thanked us multiple times, saying that this was the best thing we could have done for them—and they wonder about who they would have become had they stayed in California, in what they view as the more narrow American path. But, I do miss readily available fresh cilantro and Indian food.

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The Truth of Olives

Pliny the Elder had olive trees in this valley. Our trees’ long-ago ancestors were tended, harvested, and their oil savored on this land. So, we do the same while we are the custodians. Our brief tenure in this place is literally in our faces when we pick and look up at a village that has been here for 1,000 years.

Olive picking is all-consuming: spreading nets under the trees, raking the olives off the branches by hand and with small plastic rakes, pouring the olives caught by the nets into plastic crates, and moving the crates to safe storage until our scheduled time on the press. The speed and efficiency of every moment matters. We picked about 85% of the trees on the same day we took them to the mill, a record for us—any delay getting to the press affects the flavor and longevity of the oil.

This year, our hundred or so trees produced an abundance of olives. They are only produced on second-year growth and no matter how hard we try to even things out with pruning, the trees seem to have their own schedule of big yields every other year. Even with that baseline, everything matters. If heavy rain, wind, or hail hit when the tree has just produced blooms and is being pollinated, the crop can be destroyed. Olive flies can be a problem, ruining the mature fruit, unless there’s been enough heat in the summer, or a deep enough freeze in the winter, to kill the larvae.

The culmination is going to the olive oil press, or frantoio. The crates of olives are unloaded and weighed with great import, carefully watched by the others in line for the press. It’s a “I have more olives than you” moment—one of the few times when a competitive spirit arises in the valley, apart from sports. We do respectably well with the olives we have picked so far, with the olives weighing in at over 500 kilos (over half a ton), in 25 crates.

I remember one year when we had a similar yield, and we felt proud. We were put in our place by three scruffy 40-something guys who unloaded about 75 crates. “Smug devils,” I thought. We eyed them. They eyed us. No smiles. English is not spoken at the mill and the owner decided that our lack of fluency did not hinder communication in the slightest when it came to the important topics of life. He pulled us over to look at the olives unloaded by the three guys. “Idioti!,” he told them, encouraging us to chime in with our opinion. They’d used mechanized rakes, getting a great yield, but bruising the olives in the process, and mixing in a lot more twigs and leaves than is desired. The guys didn’t blink in the face of this criticism and complimented our smaller yield on the lack of leaves, twigs, and bruises. We were all laughing and chatting away now.

When it is our turn, the olives are poured into the hopper, one crate at a time. It is the last chance to pull out any leaves and twigs before the olives go up a conveyor belt to olive heaven to be washed and then crushed. It’s loud and the process takes at least an hour or two. There’s plenty of time to play with the dogs who are underfoot and peek through a trapdoor into the mid-press vats of olive paste, and be hit by a wave of the most delicious olive scent.

Finally the oil comes streaming out. Dark green and very peppery.

Once again the cycle is complete and the trees can rest. And they whisper that some seasons are abundant and other years a freeze or other setback hits. And some years a disaster strikes.

This all seems to matter more to me this year than most. In the scope of things—this village, this land, this process of turning olives from the trees into oil—time and events happen on a different scale while our ephemeral human selves pass through. But, hopefully, things like the olives remain. And I am listening carefully to what the trees are telling me this year and trying to accept their wisdom of patience and the big picture.

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The Joy of Being L’Intrepida

When was the last time you felt pure, unadulterated joy? In our village, we can schedule it for a Sunday in October, when L’Intrepida, a vintage bicycle rally, surges across the starting line. L’Intrepida, which means ‘The Intrepid,” embodies many things that bring Italians joy: dressing up, bicycles, an announcer over a loudspeaker, a marching band, food, and a big crowd.

It happens every October. Over 900 people take part, choosing routes of 42, 85, or 120 kilometers (26, 53, or 75 miles). Lest one still thinks that this might not be too difficult, bear in mind that only steel-framed bikes prior to 1987 are allowed, and that riders must wear vintage clothing. Forty percent of the ride is on unpaved roads, and there are loads of hills. Plenty of scenic rest stops (some in front of castles) are provided, well stocked with wine, vin santo, pastries, and pasta. In the twelve years since it began it has grown to being second only to the L’Eroica vintage bicycle rally in terms of participants and prestige.

Even after watching the rally depart for twelve years, I still get choked up when the riders start, with the mayor in a sash and the priest leading the way. Watching their faces, so alive and filled with joy, brings me such pleasure and a reminder of the things in life that matter.

Some friends of mine from California and France have come to ride in L’Intrepida twice. These friends have always intimidated me with their athleticism, taking on insane challenges like the Death Ride (cycling over 100 miles and five mountain passes in the Sierras.) As experienced as they are, they approached L’Intrepida with focus and caution—practice rides to get used to the rented vintage bikes, checking and rechecking all aspects of the equipment, poring over maps.

Within this group, my friend Dee was the lone non-extreme athlete. But a year before coming to Italy for L’Intrepida, she realized that the best way to spend more time with her husband was to start cycling. So when this band of cyclists signed up for the rally she gamely agreed to do the 42 kilometer race, while the others opted for the longer routes.

As the day approached, I could see her getting more and more worried, especially as she’d be doing the route by herself. We planned out what would happen if she had a flat tire or became too tired. She’d call me with her coordinates and I’d pick her up.

On the day of the race, John and I cheered them on at the starting line in the main square. It was an amazing scene: hundreds of people in wildly-varied vintage costumes, old bikes of every type, and rally support vehicles which included classic Vespas with sidecars and old Fiat 500s.

The starting gun went off, L’Intrepida started, and slowly the square emptied, our friends tucked into the middle of the pack.

We went back home and waited. By afternoon our friends slowly started to arrive back as they finished their routes. I kept checking my phone to see if I’d missed a call from Dee, but there was nothing. The 85-kilometer group arrived back, full of stories. Then the 120-kilometer participants stumbled in, exhausted, but having had a wonderful time. All agreed it had been their favorite rally ever. Still no Dee, though. We were all starting to get worried.

We decided to go back to the square to look for signs of our missing friend. And we found her, at the center of a circle of a dozen older men, laughing as they toasted her with prosecco. Turns out she’d been adopted by a group of Italian friends who were riding together in the rally. The fact that they spoke no English, and Dee spoke no Italian, turned out to be irrelevant. They communicated partially through songs, like “California Girls,” describing her. One man indicated he was from Milan but preferred the countryside. Unable to express more about why he liked to get out of the city, he sang a line from “The Sound of Silence.”

The group stuck by her for the whole 42 kilometers. During a particularly tough unpaved climb, one man, whom Dee guessed was in his mid-70s, rode beside her and placed his hand on her back, helping to propel her to the top of the hill. By the finish, they still wanted to hang out together at the bar. And Dee realized the joys of being intrepid, and the special type of kindness typical of Italians, even perfect strangers.

The second time my friends came to participate was also memorable, culminating in eating and dancing to big band music in the square after the finish. One friend was amazed to see a man’s expensive bike frame, which he’d just bought from a vendor near the dance floor, grabbed from his arms and passed over the heads of the swing dancers. One dancer found it perfect to play air guitar on. Instead of being worried or angry the empty-handed bicycle buyer joined in with the dancing. laughing, until the frame made its way back to him.

Today, watching L’Intrepida depart, I was hit by the importance of finding and embracing moments of joy. Tragically, our friend Dee passed away a couple of years after her ride. For me, L’Intrepida will always be infused with her spirit and her knack for finding joy, even on a steep uphill climb on an old bike with lousy gears. May she, and this crazy place where I live, continue to help us all find our way to joy.

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Getting to the Bottom of Italian Wine

“Don’t worry, I wash really well before I get into the barrel to crush the grapes,” Filippo told me.

My visit to Filippo Volpi’s winery—note that the word “winery” is not linked as there is no website—started at one of our favorite local restaurants, a Slow Food gem. The wife (he’s in the kitchen, she’s front of house and always greets me enthusiastically by name when I call for a reservation) highly recommended a local, organic wine from Il Bioselvatico. The full perfection of the winery’s name, which means “The Wild Organic” became clear only later. We loved this wine. After two bottles—for the record we were with friends—we decided that we had to learn more and buy some. This was a bit of a challenge as we could only locate a not-frequently-updated Facebook page and a bunch of great reviews. I contacted the owner via Messenger and mentioned where we had encountered his wine, and he encouraged us to come by.

Living for years near Napa Valley, traveling a lot in France, and now living in Italy, I’ve been to my share of big, fancy and small boutique wineries, and thought I knew the drill. Nothing even remotely prepared me for our visit to Il Bioselvatico.

The first surprise was finding it. We entered the address into our GPS and arrived via a tiny country road to a driveway. I was looking around for some sort of sign that marked an entrance to a winery, but there was nothing. We finally found the handwriting on the mailbox.

At the end of a dirt track we pulled up to a house with a couple of outbuildings in the middle of fields of grapevines. Filippo yelled to us from a balcony about where to park and a bearded man with sparkling eyes came out to greet us. He invited us into his house for a coffee, then to the adjoining building where he makes wine. It didn’t take long to show us around. It’s a small operation. It’s only him, working the land he inherited from his father and aunt, and doing everything by hand.

Filippo is charming and passionate, producing wine with ancient techniques, organic and with no added sulfites. He started making wine in 2015 after spending years working in fine restaurants and learning about wines in Burgundy. His wines have gained a devoted following, mainly bought by restaurants. A Michelin one-star chef had called that day about purchasing some of his wine.

The old vines are only one type of grape, Sangiovese, and he has just ten acres. The vineyard is located at the intersection of four Tuscan valleys, one of which is the Val di Chiana, famous for its Chianina beef. Filippo said he gets a couple of these huge cows which graze loose in the fields, eating the grass and doing their bit for fertilizing the vines. After which, he told me, they are very delicious.

All the processing and aging of the wine happens in one room. There are no tastings offered or fancy cellars. He makes only one wine each year, 100% Sangiovese. He picks the grapes from the fields daily as they ripen and presses them throughout the harvest season, adding to the complexity of the wine. There is only one piece of machinery, which he uses only a couple of times a year, this pump.

The grapes are pressed by hand, eschewing modern techniques. Or rather, by more than hand. Filippo showed us two rows of barrels. Between the loose fitting wooden lids and the stew of grapes were sheets of heavy plastic, secured by large bungee cords. Several of the barrels had been pressed four times, others only once. We asked how they were pressed. Standing next to the barrels, the contents of which came to his belly, he said he gets in and stomps. Neither John or I had the courage to ask exactly what he wore during these pressings. After his careful nod to hygiene, noted above, and the sanitation guidelines on the door—plus the fact that we were alive and thriving after having two bottles over a week before—I felt reassured.

After the wine gets adequately macerated by his vigorous actions in the barrel it gets taken outside for the final press.

He was all out of the 2020 vintage, which we had loved, and he hadn’t had a chance to put the labels on the 2021 bottles yet so they weren’t for sale. He did have some magnums of 2020, so we bought two. He described the 2020 as very elegant, and the 2021 as more intense. Every year is very different, he said.

I can’t believe what he has pulled off. We’d visited an organic winery in this same area a couple of years ago where a couple was working hard to make it successful. The only way they could do it was for each to work full-time, and to run an agriturismo in some restored outbuildings, saving the winery work for the time leftover. The wine had been underwhelming, as much as we wanted to like it. What Filippo has accomplished with his ten acres, manual labor, cows, and traditional techniques is impressive.

A few comments that I noted about the wine and the unconventional way it’s made:

“Up front the taste is elegant but in the rear there is a hint of something unexpected.”

“While drinking this wine, and savouring the story of how it is made, I wish this glass was bottomless.”

“Grapes won’t be the only shriveled fruit that went into making this wine.”

“The 2020 vintage, often described as elegant, will leave you wishing there was no end to it.”

“This wine is everything you want it to be… and a weenie more.”

Bottoms up. Thanks again for reading.

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