Short Lived

A couple weeks ago, I was chatting with my friendly neighborhood baker when he asked me, “So, when are you going back to America?”

The baker and I have been getting to know each other a bit as I become a regular at his tiny shop where sells the most delicious breads.

I laughed and shrugged. “There’s no plan to go back,” I explained.

“Oh wow, you really moved here?” he asked.

“Yup, I did!”

This tends to surprise people. I think it’s because a lot of foreigners in Milan are here for temporary work assignments or university programs. My move, on the other hand, isn’t really temporary. In fact, I don’t really do temporary, at least when it comes to calling somewhere home.

Pretty much everywhere I’ve ever lived, I’ve treated like a proper home, even if it had a set expiration date.

A prime example: Back in college, I spent a summer in Philadelphia for an internship. I split a barely-furnished apartment with a friend for just a couple months, but even so, I arrived with bins upon bins of stuff. It was completely out of proportion with the amount of time I’d be spending there.

Then, after I graduated college and moved to upstate New York for my first big-boy job, I almost immediately started to think of my new city as “home.” Regardless of how long I might be there, I eagerly furnished, painted and decorated my apartment. Within months I became something of an evangelist for living in upstate New York. Within a year I bought a house there.

I think you’re getting the picture.

When I moved to Boston in the summer of 2024, I thought, “Okay, finally this one is gonna last a while. I can really double down on this home.” Again, I painted and furnished and decorated my apartment. I registered my new LLC in the state of Massachusetts (#regrets). I immediately got a new driver’s license. I was a Bay Stater, damnit!

Well. Not anymore. 😅 I surprised myself by leaving after a year for my new home in Milan. And you guessed it: I’m approaching this home much like the others. I signed a three-year lease (the standard/minimum in Italy). Within six weeks of arrival, I got myself shiny new Italian identity cards. I recently ordered a custom-made piece of furniture for a mini kitchen renovation I’m doing. And I replaced a homophobic track light with a pretty little sconce.

If you’re thinking, “Don’t waste all that money on a place you don’t own!” ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I don’t know what to tell ya! This is how I operate. Even looking back at my year in Boston, I don’t regret painting almost every room and buying nice furniture; it made my life better, if only for a year. I’d do it all over again.

Here in Italy, though, my penchant for nesting and adapting has me thinking a bit about the idea of assimilation, too. (It’ll make sense, stick with me!)

For a long time, I used to lament the ways in which my family so eagerly embraced American life after immigrating to the U.S. a generation ago. Sure, we retained a lot of traditions and recipes, and I spent many Sundays sitting at a dinner table while my parents and grandparents spoke Italian all afternoon.

But that’s the thing: My parents spoke Italian only to their parents; at home, we were raised speaking English. And I mean, of course we were. My parents were born in America (first generation), and executed the classic immigrant dream: Assimilate, go to college, win at capitalism, raise American kids. I don’t fault my parents for any of this, but I did sometimes wish I learned Italian at home, rather than in college.

As an adult, I had a growing distaste for my own country. I wanted to be more Italian, and less American. I struggled to understand why anyone would want to assimilate into American culture when they came from one that was, in my view, far superior.

That was all before I, myself, became something of an immigrant. (“Immigrant?” “Expat?” 🙃 I don’t know, it’s complicated). Since arriving here in Italy about two months ago, I have felt a deep desire to assimilate as much as possible. I speak Italian at every opportunity. I shifted my daily schedule to eat meals later, as the Italians do. I’m trying to learn as much as I can about the history and culture of this place.

Obviously, my motivations for assimilating are quite different from those of my grandparents, or even parents. Italian immigrants in America often faced discrimination, as does almost anyone who’s not perfectly white and perfectly fluent in English. I, on the other hand, could go about life here in Italy as a proud, English-speaking American and suffer precisely zero consequences.

Still, I’m starting to understand the desire to adopt the traditions, rituals and language of a new country. It’s not all that different from my previous pattern living in other American cities. I like to nest, okay??? But moving to Italy has given me a taste of how my grandparents might have been feeling when they arrived on American shores, some 60 years ago.

This week, I give you a moody sunset from a weekend I spent hiking in Cinque Terre recently.