I’m writing this reflection on the winding steps of a cozy airbnb apartment on a rainy Spring Saturday morning in Sorrento, the opposite of the weather one imagines for an Easter long weekend in the Amalfi. Aleksander is napping early because he woke up too early. Dalia is taking a moment to breathe, five months along with our next child. And Dalia’s sister, Christina, who joined us yesterday from Barcelona, as the last of our family members to visit Italy, is asleep since Aleksander started yelling about bananas at 6am to plunge her directly into toddler-auntie life.
We arrived on the coast yesterday, Holy Friday, stopping in Naples for a pizza before taking the ferry instead of the train to Sorrento, our first ever visit to this famous seaside city. It was on Holy Friday two years ago that we landed in Rome, moved into our apartment and began this wonderful Italian adventure that we’ve been squeezing into limoncello ever since.
As these things do, that arrival feels both a blink and an eon ago. Moving to Rome with an infant during a once in a century global pandemic has a way of locking itself into your memory banks. I can still feel the isolation and chaos of the flight here and the tint and glow of the morning blooms on and from our balcony once we arrived.
Aleksander has grown up here. Taken his first steps, spoken his first words, kicked his first few hundred soccer balls, casually, in or around Rome. We have grown as parents, as humans, not linearly and not without struggle, but always somehow finding a caffe, gelato or prosecco as needed. We’ve been able to share glimpses to weeks of our lives here with visitors, all inspired in some way by the beauty, history and dynamism of the Eternal City.
Occasionally people ask the most banal and profound question: so how is Rome? How is Italy? As time has gone on, I’ve developed an unusual timidity answering this, mostly because I don’t want to appear as gloating, but I’ve eventually landed on: there’s almost no downside (that’s too troublesome) about living in Rome/Italy. The weather is great, the food quality is divine, the people are incredibly lovely, the neighbourhood architecture has no business being as unnecessarily awe-inspiring as it is. Coffee costs a dollar, people say hi and thank you to eachother, and nonnas fawn openly and sincerely over our biondino. If I really need to reach, living in a beautiful place and paying for life in euros can pinch; 8pm dinner time nationwide is not particularly baby-friendly; and then another back-handed complaint, Italy has too many worthwhile and amazing things to see and do, and the fact is now obvious that we won’t be able to see and do them all before we leave.
The nature of my job and our lifestyle is rotation and change. Last September, we submitted our top five list for our next posting and early this year, were offered the third choice. At the time, we were considering lobbying for an additional year in Italy, but when our next post was floated over a video call, our backs straightened up and we elbowed and kicked eachother under the screen with excitement. Needless to say, leaving here won’t be easy, but we’re not disappointed with where we’ll go next.
There was a point last Fall, where for the first time since maybe my early teen years in Toronto, that I felt like I was in my forever home. The feeling quietly materialized out of nowhere over a series of weeks. After about a year of Italian lessons, I could manage most linguistic scenarios I found myself in, occasionally even with some charm. Aleksander was loving his daycare life, double cheek kissing his teachers, and bouncing home in the evening mumbling about his pals Ricardo, Margherita and Valerio. Dalia was working regular hours at the Embassy, seemingly in the treasured sweet spot of work-life-mom-wife-woman-adult-human balance. We had hosted a steady stream of visitors who left more full than they arrived. The pasticceria staff knew my daily order in the morning. We had the menu hilights memorized for a half-dozen favourite neighbourhood restaurants. And generally, we moved comfortably and unhurriedly through our moments, days and weeks. Aleksander had a birthday party with his friends when he turned two, we spent a magical weekend in Assisi for my birthday a week later, and my mom and brother joined us for their second Christmas in Italy soon after that. I thought, clearly, I could keep doing this, in this place, until the end. A real, honest and unforeseen rarity for me.
Then. In the New Year. For an equally unapparent reason, perhaps weather related, we felt bored. Limited. Serrendipitously underinspired by the those same exact, endlessly satisfying routines of a few months earlier. Maybe it was our subconsciouses preparing us for the inevitable, slowly encroaching reality, that almost all of our probable future roads will lead decidedly away from Rome.
So two years have come and gone, forever ours. And now we’re counting down to our departure in months. Beginning to take on a thousand and one administrative steps as our end date approaches weeks, days and hours, before we wistfully close our Roman time capsule and throw it in with antiquity. With the millions of others, over dozens of centuries, who have passed through the roads and piazzas of this incredible place, some leaving a mark, most others eternally glad to carry a piece of Rome in their souls for the rest of their days.
Humbly, gratefully, like us.
Dad In The World 