Just Visiting ... giving up the old story

There was a time when I thought I would retire in the golden Tuscan countryside and morph into a modern day Maggie Smith, holding court in a beautiful stone villa with olive trees outside and a lovely "contadina" to fend for me and my house.  Nice picture.  I would have all the comforts of home, including whatever cats were present in my family at the time, my books, my writing devices, and perhaps a piano.  I would spend my days writing and reading and/or visiting some beautiful church to look at paintings and frescoes, I would write lengthy reflective letters home to show my clan that life was just perfect, and I would continue to practice the art of cooking which meant getting the freshest, most beautiful food on the table.  I don't know when this Ivory Merchant version of my life first started to present itself in my mind, but I do know that it has been with me a long time.  This Italian culture won me over when I was 12 years old, and the place had always felt like a home ground for me...  I have been returning again and again to nudge this story just a little bit more.

I discovered something interesting this time around in Florence, or perhaps the discovery came as I sat on my Air France flight from Paris to New York and I looked back on the previous 17 days.  Turns out I don't want to become another comfortably off expatriated American woman in Italy...  What I love about the Italians, their graceful manners, their exquisite food, their full of life energy, their art. history and their wine is not enough to hold me there indefinitely.  There are other issues about life here:  the bureaucracy, the political corruption, and a lot of small things like too much dog poop on the streets, horribly narrow sidewalks, cigarette smoking everywhere it seems, a layer of male chauvinism that still prevails, insane drivers, the unsalted bread, a lot of noise, and the suggestion of  a narcissistic life style.  During the two weeks in my apartment on the Oltrarno I had a chance to notice a lot about the container I was moving through and note my responses to things like cigarette smoke and noise and a more aggressive manner on the street than I was used to.  Walking into the butcher shop and conversing about how to roast my little chicken was a delight, and I loved that Italian women ALWAYS had conversations about what they were buying and how it was going to be prepared and for whom.  It brought people's stories out into the public domain.  The cheese shop didn't have quite the sense of hospitality but things were still very cordial.  The general grocery shop lady was very cheery until I deigned to touch one of the little loaves of bread, having forgotten the sacred "no touch" rule in grocery stores.  There was a lack of cordiality, however, in the various churches and museums where I traipsed to look at art, and at some of the trattorias that hadn't figured out they were in fact there to serve the public.  Those places were rare, but in central Florence especially there was indifference and brusque treatment when sitting down to table that surprised me.  Happily I never took it personally.  Times were changing, I realized, and not every single Florentine was committed to be gracious to the city's visitors.

I don't think the issue lies with the surface imperfections I just talked about, however.  I believe my new view has everything to do with being seventy years old and more vulnerable, a person not always steady on her feet who doesn't just forge ahead so doggedly anymore.  My mind is alive and brimming with questions and appreciations of culture and history, and my body is quietly telling me to slow down and do less.  And with that vulnerability comes the belief that living in my old home town of San Francisco is the right and proper choice.  Certainly an easier choice than owning property in the Tuscan countryside...  This is the place whose landscape I know better than any other, whose sidewalks are not narrow and perilous for touchy feet like mine, where dog poop is generally cleaned up, and where I don't have to dart here and there to avoid smokers.   And of course San Francisco is an international city.  I need this multicultural landscape, I guess, because I have been voyaging for so long, and want to continue to breathe in new sounds, and smells, and ideas.

There is another reason that transforming myself into an old expat is not such a good idea, and that's my family.   I love this family.  I had a chance to spend the day with one of the stars in the family yesterday on my passage through New York and back to California (yes, I am still traveling).  Her name is Sutton Howard and she is my youngest daughter's oldest child who is in her first year in college in the New York area.  She is 18, tall, and beautiful, and with an exuberance for life that is infectious. She is also in love.  To spend time around those who are in love is to be washed in a bath of smiles and happiness.  We walked and shopped and hung out in a park on a warm spring afternoon, and I felt gratitude, especially as I looked into the eyes of the young man who seems to be smitten with her.  Gratitude that I struggled long ago as a young thing myself to bring life into the world even when I didn't know what the hell I was doing.  Gratitude that this young life taught me something about becoming a mother and about family.  I have two beautiful daughters, one who will become 50 this year, and who walks a path of real righteousness both in her spiritual calling and in her dedication to service and to kindness to all she meets.  She is heroic in her life.  As is daughter #2 who has blossomed into a magnificent mother and wife and has shown courage, heart, and wonderful humor as she grows.  These girls and those they brought into the world are my tribe, and if I were to become a modern day Maggie Smith in Italy I wouldn't have all the many joyous, profound times I have now with these young people.  It just wouldn't be possible.

So I return to my hometown with an understanding that while Italy is deeply etched into my heart, I will not become a citizen there, will not try to decipher the arcane rules and put up with the chaos so I can have this make believe expatriate life.  Instead I will return every once in a while and rent a small apartment and slip into the operatic daily life for just a time.  And it will be enough just as it is.  That's really it, isn't it ? -- that great moment when we can say to ourselves and the universe: my life, myself, is just fine the way it is.  I am complete.  "Basta," the Italians would say:  it is enough.