Home Rhymes With...

It's been a long time since I've had to acclimate to living in a completely new place... the last time was when I went to college. I guess I had forgotten how easy it is to feel at home somewhere, if you really love where you are. I don't speak the language here, I've only been to one other town in the country, and I am continually bewildered by the odd, idiosynchratic nature of the Italian people, but nevertheless I feel very at home here. I have favorite haunts and plans for my days off, I have a preferred gelatto shop and a favorite pizzaria, I've made friends with the proprietor of an English language bookstore... I recognize people who I see walking their dogs in the park, for pity's sake!

Some of the immediate wonder of being thrown headfirst into a place I've essentially mythologized for a large part of my life has worn off, and I'm starting to feel as though I might be living in a real, breathing city, not just a tourist attraction. Some of the urgency to see everything all at once has worn off, and I'm content to just be here, surrounded not only by the Circus Maximus and the Colloseum, the Vatican and the Roman Forum, but also Termini station, where people have to take buses to work each day, and the Todis supermarket down the street, where we have to buy food, since woman does not live by history alone... although that would really be nice for my bank account if I could.

Anywho. I guess the gist of it is: live somewhere else. I know most of you who might be checking this blog are in the process of doing that right now, and those of you who aren't have probably done it already, but still. I think the most important thing I've discovered while acclimating myself to this new place where I am still essentially the consummate outsider is that our comfort zones are a lot more elastic than we think they are. You just have to learn not to be afraid of looking like a jackass (which is certainly my most constant passtime) and to embrace the reality of somewhere, not just the nice postcard idealization of it. Because that's like buying Wonderbread when you're surrounded by ciabatta.