Things I Miss (but enjoying the differences)

Bob’s cousin Ginnie who has been a faithful emailer and blog-commenter asked the other day if there were things I missed here in Italy besides the obvious of the people like my kids, my sister, my neighbors, friends and family. And those truly are the only things I miss. And so, first off, I miss being able to pick up the phone whenever I want, time difference notwithstanding between Phoenix and New York and all parts in between. Three hours now seems a drop compared to 6 and 9. So I have to wait until the weekend when everyone is home because by the time say, Chris gets home from work in the evening, it’s past midnight here and way too late for me to be up and coherent enough to have a phone conversation.

I miss my house. I knew I would. I miss talking with all my neighbors as they passed by my house when I was outside working in the garden. But honestly, I don’t miss all the hard work and hours spent weeding, pruning, trimming and cleaning up out there. I miss impromptu conversations with George and Bitsy as they passed with Nina and Rusty. Chats with Mike and Michelle, with Shawn and Steven, Matt. And watching Kellen, Rachel and Nina play together. Talking with those little ones, watching them grow. Seeing Dennis and Peggy, Mary and Dick, Roberta. Our lovely street on West Granada. A warm and wonderful bunch of people
But that is the obvious, isn’t it? The people. I miss the people. Lunch with Ann. Getting together with Art and Chris, with Jeff and Janet, Sally and John. Talking with Liz and Margaret, the friends at work. Running into folks around town like Susan and Scott, Richard, Roberta and Byron, John and Gayle, and on and on. But this is the obvious, the people.

I miss being able to log on to the Internet, and check email in the privacy of my own home without having to go out somewhere to do it. But this has also kept us from spending too much time on the computer, which I think is a good thing. It could easily eat up hours doing it and really I don’t want to spend my time here in Italy sitting in front of a computer every day, so I think that’s really a good thing. And I like chatting with Giovanna at the Internet Café.

People who clean up after their dogs. This is probably my biggest complaint in Perugia. Having to look out for the dog droppings. The street cleaning crew picks up after the dogs every day, but still there are messes to watch out for and I am amazed that the city doesn’t crack down on this. I think there is a law that says you have to, but people mostly don’t and no one seems to do anything about it.

Bread. I know that sounds crazy. You think Italy and you imagine wonderful bread. But Umbrian bread is not what I think of as Italian bread, growing up in New York, the incredible loaves of crusty, delicious bread. It took years in Phoenix for some good bread to arrive. But the breads I know of as Italian bread really originate further south, in Naples and Sicily, not Umbria. Here, the breads are heavier, drier, super crusty. You must request one with salt – this goes back to a feud with the pope when he taxed salt and they stopped using it in their breads and never went back. We’re still experimenting and trying different things. We’ve discovered the torta for sandwiches, which I really like. It’s a large flat bread, somewhere between a focaccia and a tortilla and I’ve discovered if I drizzle it with olive oil, add salt and some basil and heat it in a pan on the stove, or in the oven, sliced in half and filled with meat and cheese, it’s really wonderful. But I love the way breads are sold. In the pasticceria, on open shelves, you see all the different shapes of the breads and you don’t have to purchase a whole loaf. You can just buy a piece – the big crusty loaves can be quite large. These are best served sliced, toasted in the oven and drizzled with olive oil and salt or made into bruschetta topped with tomatoes or pesto or Tartufata (yumm).

I don’t miss TV. Although we do watch it. But it’s totally in Italian. It’s hilarious to see Will and Grace or Friends in Italian. I’ve always wanted to try living without television altogether so I think I would not miss it if I didn’t have it. I do miss being able to tune into the news and understand the whole story. We do feel isolated from what is going on at home, although we could easily check online for the latest news and do occasionally. But I can’t really say I miss the frustration of our current political situation at home and cringe when I see George Bush’s smirking face on the front page of the paper so I think it has helped our blood pressure not to be constantly bombarded with the entire goings on of his administration. Our kids keep us posted on the important stuff. I don’t miss hearing about all the shootings or car crashes or trivial stuff that hardly seemed like news most of the time. We pick up an English language paper from time to time. It does get tiring when you don’t understand what is being said, even though we understand quite a lot, we watch the local news and read the Italian language newspaper with a dictionary close at hand.

Counter space. Not that I had a huge amount in my house in Phoenix but more than here in this tiny kitchen. But I manage all right. The kitchen table has served quite adequately as my prep space. My good knives! A really big cutting board. I remind myself that I wanted to live a simpler life, to see how much one really needs.

Zip-lock bags. I have not found these, but have found bags with twist ties so that’s been fine. Packaging in general has surprised me. I expected all things Italian to be so well designed but have found, and I hate to admit this, that the packaging in the U.S. is really superior to much of what I have found so far. But it’s fun to use what they use and see how they do it. Milk for instance comes in these little boxes you have to cut open with a scissor. I then pour it into a little glass pitcher which I love doing, or into a glass jar.

Sometimes I think about Oreos and chocolate chip cookies. Hostess cupcakes. But then I find a scrumptious pastry or Italian cookie. And gelato. There is always gelato.

I have totally gotten into the cappuccino for breakfast and don’t miss the huge mugs of coffee I had every morning. It feels more like a ritual, make the little pot of coffee, put a spoonful of sugar in the cup first, heat the milk, froth it, top the cup with it, sip slowly, savor it. We have also fallen into the Italian custom of a simple breakfast, bread, coffee, some fruit, yogurt. Sometimes we have oatmeal or eggs. But mostly we keep it simple. Our goal. A simple life. The recurring theme.

Not that it is when you can’t really speak the language. I do pretty well though and I’m amazed at how much I can understand and thrilled when I can actually have a conversation in Italian. But for every one of those there are two where I don’t understand a word they are trying to tell me and that’s frustrating for both of us. Fortunately for us, the people we have met and become friendly with speak at least some English so we are not so isolated as we could be in a town where that would not be the case and so we hope to be better at it by the time we leave Perugia and go elsewhere.

I had to think for a while as to what I was missing because really, the point for me has been to experience this different life and try not to pine away for the old and familiar. But I do think it would be dishonest of me to say that everything was perfect and that there weren’t at least a few things I missed. But also, with many things I miss, the opposite of what I had seems new and fresh and interesting. And I wanted to see what this was like, this Italian life. Even though I know we are outside of it as retirees. The people who work, who go to work every day have a different life than ours, which is really like one big vacation and I am torn between wanting to do nothing and sit and admire the view every day and wanting to get out there and visit every city, see everything there is to see and fill every day going somewhere. This is my big challenge, to balance this new life, much as I tried to balance the old one.

Yesterday I had this sensation of a giant ball of twine unraveling in my hands and I cannot get a hold of it. Time is slipping through my fingers and I want to make the most of it. To not waste a single moment. To do all the things I want to do –– and to do nothing. To see everything –– but to sit and stare. And will I spend the next two years and make it mean something. Make it worth the trade of the old life for this new one. Appreciate the gift I have of this time together here in this foreign place. To be open to the changes whatever they may be. To learn, to experience – to soak it in. Time seems even more precious now, knowing there is a limit, self-imposed as it is. Having sailed away from my safe harbor, I want to dream, to explore, to discover.

Rosemary