10 Years a Stranger

It’s hard to believe I just passed the 10 year mark in Italy.* At this point all my kids have spent more of their lives as residents of Italy than the US. When we take our family trips back to the States, as we did this summer, it’s like their visiting a foreign country—but one that they are intricately familiar with the language and culture. It’s that in-betweenness while occupying either of the cultures that I hope will serve them well in the future. The value of a critical eye towards the nationalist impulses that become part and parcel of being enveloped in your own private Idaho has never been more important. We’ll see, but the other side of that in-betweenness is a sense of restlessness that comes with being a stranger in both places, at least for me.

To be clear, I’m not nearly as acculturated to Italy as my kids. They’re fluent in the language; they attend the schools (a huge part of the assimilation process, and very much where they feel the most outside the US); and they actually have Italian friends. I have no claims to any of these features, but I still blame moving here when I was 43. I was already a bible-thumping nationalist by the time I set foot in Italy, so anything the European socialists might say or do to me could have no real impact 🙂

I’ve also been on the run most of my life. When I was 17 I left Long Island for college in Virginia for just a year and then on to California for another 7 years to finish undergrad and live life on the best coast. After that, back to New York City and grad school for 8 years. Then a practical move for a new family to Fredericksburg, VA where I “stepped in shit,” as they say, when joining the Division of Teaching and Learning Technologies (DTLT). After Reclaim Hosting became a viable plan A it was off to Antonella’s motherland: Trento, Italy.

This sense of being grounded is strange, the first 4-5 years here, up and until COVID, I was mountain boy. I was hiking regularly (probably in the best shape of my life since my early 20s) and essentially living Italy as a tourist. During and post-COVID things got a little more quotidian and despite being here for half a decade my language and acculturation was not getting much better (still true!). Irregardless of my head-shaking disgust with the trajectory of America, my sense of attachment to that identity remains ferocious, and arguably even more so the last five years as the Italian language feels like an impregnable fortress.

I often think about the Italian grandparents of friends I knew on Long Island who never spoke English. Whenever you saw them they would look at you with equal parts suspicion and wonder. They were truly strangers in a strange land—you could see it in their eyes, this was not their home. But like me, they probably learned that home is only where your family is. Those solitary visits back to Fredericksburg in 2016 and 2017 for work re-enforced how empty my life was in the US without my family—that house was no longer a home, just a house. This is still true, I have a good life in Italy despite my resistance to “becoming” Italian—which my wife is convinced is a mental complex on my part, for which I’m currently seeking help.

I’m also at the stage of life where in the next few years all my kids could be out of the house. Talk about losing a huge part of my stay-at-home (while working) dad identity. I’ve already started thinking about what’s next. I have a studio in the center of Trento where I started to work outside the house (a big step for me) and building dioramas based on movie scenes from the 70s and 80s. This has kept me somewhat placated and attached for the moment, and it has the added bonus of making me practice my terrible Italian with the random passer-by. But when you get to my age you also start thinking what what the hell you would do if you get sick and are holed up in a hospital where you can’t really communicate—that’s already created issues for me recently.

This year my dad died, that started my exploring the possibility of what a return home might look like. Turns out my love/hate relationship with Long Island runs deep—despite and because of so many people that I love so dearly on that island. I then imagine, 25th Hour style, what might a new life for the family out west in Portland, Oregon be like at this later stage of life/career.  As soon as I start entertaining that thought I’m reminded that Portland could very well be an occupied city by the time I’m ready to move 🙂 <– that’s an uncomfortable smile emoji, to be clear

Perhaps being a stranger is something I’ve grown accustomed to over the years, I may even relish it. Ten years into the Italian experiment there’s still much to explore and learn. And while the US government continues to do everything in its power to push others away it becomes an easy decision to stay put for the moment. But one of the things that haunts me is this sense of a final resting place, what and where does that look like? Have I arrived? I still feel restless enough to wonder if that’s even possible. The geo-political situation just reinforces any sense of “arriving” at a sense of peace or happiness divorced from one’s political and social context is primarily a myth.

What will the next ten years bring for this stranger?

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*Maybe even harder to believe that Reclaim Hosting turned 12 this past July.