"Flexibility is the cornerstone of mental health." Aimee-Sawyer Philpott-Greenspon
I used to work in the mental health field and one of the staff psychiatrists, upon hearing of my plan to move to Rome, gave me two pieces of advice: 1) (and this was very important) Have a plan; and 2) (even more important) Be flexible, especially if you're plan involves moving to Italy. It sounded a wee bit contradictory but also like good advice. I had no idea.
There's apparently a law on the Italian books forbidding a landlord from kicking someone out of an apartment, whether they're paying the rent or not, so when the previous tenants of my apartment-to-be hadn't got around to vacating just yet, it fell on me (my flatmate actually) to find a new spot. Now this new apartment is actually quite nice. High ceilings, well appointed living room, even a washer and dryer (in one, more on that later), but it's a couple blocks from train station and, well, it's noisy as hell. Sometimes it's a group of African drummers in the park across the street (at 11 pm), or the nightly dumpster clearing truck run, maybe that accordion player squeezing out The Final Countdown, or just some expressed Italian emotion. Ok it's loud, it's not ideal, but what is. Last night, at around 2:30 the neighborhood fell silent. Not for any particular reason and not for long, but it woke me up and it took me a moment or two to remember where I was. Oh, yeah, I'm in Rome, and then, as if to punctuate the realization, a scooter whined by the window, then some laughter and, I don't know, maybe a broken bottle and everything was back to normal. My neighborhood is noisy, I can live with that.
Rome has a lot of potential for frustration. There's lots of great art to be seen for free in the churches but most of them close in the afternoon. Some at 12:30, some at 1:00 and they re-open some time later, 3:30 or 4, or maybe not. I waited outside of San Luigi de Francesca for about 40 minutes yesterday, along with 25 or 30 other folks. San Luigi is the home of Carravaggio's trio of St. Matthew paintings, a must see, and they close until four every afternoon. Every afternoon, it turns out, except Thursday, which it was. On Thursdays they close up around noon and that's it. Disappointing, yes. Particularly for people who have a morning plane or train out of town. On the other hand, A block to the East is another Carravaggio at St Agostino and a couple of blocks south of that is a nifty bit of Boromini architecture. In other words, there's always something else to see.
One last bit on flexibility. On a typical sunny day Rome, there are hundreds of guys, middle-eastern mostly, selling sunglasses and an odd assortment of children's toys but, as soon as a few drops of rain come down (and it seems that can happen at any moment), those sunglasses and bubble blowing space guns disappear and, God knows from where, they are all suddenly hawking umbrellas. Now I know from experience that the umbrellas suck. One good wind and your holding a stick with a hunk of fabric flapping from some spoke on the top, but give the guys some credit for flexibility and a plan.

May 5, 2010

This is, uh, a little out of character for me. I tend to be a rather cautious guy and if you had told me, say, five years ago that I would, at the tender age of 55, quit my job (two jobs actually...two jobs I liked) and move to Rome, where I knew next to no one and didn't really speak the language (Who am I kidding? I don't speak the language at all, especially not the Roman version.), well, I would have figured you had the wrong number. Yet, here I am.
So, how do these things begin. For me, it starts with saying things out loud. I don't know about you, but I come up with all sorts of plans and notions and as long as they stay in the internal musing stage then I'm safe. But as soon as I say it out loud, then I have to do something about it. Once the words are hanging in the air, I can't ignore them. So, when I started to think about leaving my adopted home of Baltimore and heading back to the Midwest, that was no big deal. And when the thought occured that, as long as I was pulling up stakes, this might be a great time to move abroad for a while, well, that kind of thought comes and goes all the time. But, then I said it to someone, I think it was my brother, and, with that, it was out there. A potential reality. Interestingly, he thought it was a good idea. His wife, a clear-eyed realist if ever there was one, thought it was a great idea. Of course, she's Italian and has marinara running through her veins, but the fact is that everyone I told thought it was a great idea...and I told a lot of people. The truth is that I thought it sounded like a great idea too (although certainly not in a sensible life plan and probably not financially sound-and we can take the word probably right out of that sentence) but I doubted that I would go through with it, so crafty soul that I am, my plan was to tell as many people as possible because I knew that the more people I told, the harder it would be to back out of it. I could say that I would rather regret something I'd done rather than something I hadn't done and all, but the truth is I was involved in one big game of chicken with myself. The saving logic was, What was the worst that could happen? Things don't work out (there is potential employment in this story but more on that later), I just come home early (we'll ignore the fact that the economy sucks and that jobs aren't exactly being given out like starlight mints these days.)
So last November I was standing in line at the local Barnes & Noble and my eyes alit on one of those literary refrigerator magnets, this one sporting a quote from Eleanor Roosevelt, admonishing the reader to "do one thing every day that scares you". Well, I figured traipsing off to Rome qualified, so I went home and booked the ticket.
A couple of months ago I was visiting that brother again. I had by then given notice at both jobs, suitable replacements were found and I had just begun what was to have been a brief period of prepatory unemployment when I had one of those middle age health issues crop up which caused me to postpone my departure from March to May (more on that later...maybe). Anyway, I was visiting said brother and we were in the car, running some errand or other, and there was a lull in the conversation and he quietly said "You know, I think this is a great idea and I hope you do it, but don't feel that you need to do it just cause everybody else thinks it's a great idea." Then he added "It's kinda like back in grade school and your friends are saying 'Go on over and punch that bully in the nose. We'll hold your coat." I appreciated the permission to back out but I came anyway. I'm shooting for at least a year. What could go wrong? And if something does, I'm going over to Eleanor Roosevelt's house and punch her in the nose. I'll just need somebody to hold my coat.