#37 On Leaving

Soon I will be leaving Italy and returning to Canada. I'm full of gratitude, hope, and despair all at the same time. It's difficult to leave, I feel like I've just got here!

Looking back, I realize how much I needed to come here. I had been tired and lacking motivation in my old life. Italy offered me something new, and exciting. It offered me opportunities to feel accomplishment every day in small ways and in major ways. Every day that I was able to communicate, buy a whole new set of foods, find friends, and maintain clients. I have been motivated and inspired to take long walks, create websites, write articles, and enjoy the warm Italian sun.

Yesterday I told a good friend about my plans to leave. I explained that over the last few months, but heart had been pulled in different directions: should I stay or should I go? The truth is, my visa expires in December and it won't be renewed. I'm very lucky to be on the visa that I am on currently. Getting a visa here is almost an impossible task. It has surprised my friends, as they thought that because I'm Canadian (from a rich country) that I could go anywhere I wanted. Surprisingly to all of us, that's not the case. They were shocked to hear that I cannot even work in the US.

That's why so many people who are here long term are married to locals. I can see how being married to a local provides a crucial element of support for the people who live here. In Italy, communities aren't created and maintained the same way they are in Canada. Here, your family is your community, and it's revered. People keep tight bonds with their aunts, uncles, and cousins. They BBQ on the weekend together, they vacation together, they stay together. Of course, divorce rates are going up in Italy as well, but families still have a great deal of respect for one another.

I do know strong families in Canada, they exist. My family, on the other hand, are spread out around the country. We are all part of our own communities of interest. My mother volunteers at her neighbourhood community centre, my father and his wife are active members of their Church and also business groups. When I moved to Italy, my father asked if I had been to Rotary yet - a well known group for business people. When I asked my students about it, they told me that Rotary in Italy is a closed-group reserved for millionaires (you can't just show up, especially if your Italian is a work in progress). That had surprised me, as I had visions of going to a meeting and being met with the same welcome as in Canada. To be honest, I thought I was going to be fawned over as an English speaker and that I would have lines of students who would want to take advantage of my skills.

It's not like that.

The groups are very closed and people have a trepidation to try new things, to meet new people. It's fascinating, because I hear the same complaint, "I haven't met new friends since University! I can't meet new people." But yet, I run a community group called, "English in the Park" where we meet for free every month and have beers and play games: the people who are dying for new interactions don't come. One student admitted to being afraid of meeting new people, afraid of speaking broken English to a group of people who presumably speak better than her.

It's an amazing experience to live in another country as a member of society and not as a tourist. There are so many things that I've been able to understand, that I wouldn't have known had I not been working here.

Everyone knows that Italian food is amazing. But there is so much more to the culture of food than of pasta and pizza. Roasted meats, sauces, vegetables, balsamic reduction - sweet cheeses and savoury cheeses. The food is respected in the highest form. People know where it comes from and what it's made from. "This cheese is from Parma, the olives are from Tuscany, and the basil comes from Genoa. This Genovese Basil is different from the Sicilian one", for example.

In the end, it is bittersweet. At the same time, dealing with leaving has helped my heart develop an ability to be satisfied with the past. You can't change the past, you can't change the future. You can only develop your present, one decision at a time. This is something my heart has learned.

That, and how to love: mozzarella and tomatoes.