There are a lot of things about this situation that blow my kids’ minds. First, what is this crazy piece of plastic housing a mysterious, tiny photo? It’s as though I pulled it straight from a spy kit. “Details only visible when held to light.”
Second, and more importantly, is the story behind it all. Gargoyles high on a church spire. Strangers walking below, unaware of their witness hiding closer to God. We were so young and willing to explore. We stayed in hostels with shared bathrooms, walked everywhere, wore the same clothes for a month, reaping satisfaction from bread, cheese and salami eaten on trains between countries.
This is unlike any travel they’ve ever known, a reality I’m determined to change. Their idea of travel, thus far, is either going from our house to a relative’s in some other Canadian city, or going from our house to a whitewashed resort in Mexico where the only Spanish they utter is ola, per favore and quesadilla.
Once, on the way back to the airport, our daughter looked out the window of the air-conditioned van and said of the stark contrast to the past week, “This is the real Mexico, isn’t it?” It didn’t sit well.
Back when I was young and trying to figure out what to do with my life, one of the top musts for my future profession was the ability to travel. It was up there like a dishwasher was on the list of deal-breakers for our first house. It had to happen.
I often try to figure out why and conclude it must be a bit of FOMO. There are so many places to explore, people to meet, ways of life to understand. How can I possibly know the one I’m living right now is the best fit? Maybe the need to keep looking would suggest it isn’t.
There was a story a while back about a town in Italy that would pay people to move there. Good lord, did that ever pull on my heart. I desperately wanted to do it, for so many reasons. I still do. I had visions of hanging sheets on the line, eating biscotti for breakfast, children running freely down cobblestone streets, adorable nona’s taking us into their homes to roll pasta and bake focaccia. These dreams, despite my continued problems with gluten.
It wasn’t only the life experience that sang its siren song. It was the tale waiting to be told. I know it’s been done before, written about ad nauseam. North American family abandons remarkably clitche life to experience small Italian town. It could be the start of something beautiful, or it could be a reincarnation of Funny Farm. Either way, it’s a great story I’m longing to live.
Of course, I realize the impossibility of it all. Some people might be able to swing it, but not us. I also understand it’s not all rainbows and lollipops. There’s the honeymoon phase and then there’s the realization people like me always come to whenever they embark on these kinds of life shifts: wherever you go, there you are. There’s also the issue of the dog.
So I’ll set my sights on something more manageable. A taste of something new, something challenging and differently uncomfortable. We’ll laugh, we’ll cry, we’ll get lost and debate next steps on train platforms. Most of all, we’ll come home with stories of wonder and survival to tell.