I don't want to say I've found myself, or that I've figured out what path to walk, because saying that would be, well, cheesy, no matter how true it is. Luckily I find myself in a place where cheese is its own food group. A place where cheese is respected, even coveted.
Wandering around Naples alone for six weeks provided me with a number of opportunities that I expected and planned for. I saw the sights and museums, I ate good food, I spent time with my uncles. But what I hadn't planned for were the benefits of alone time.
Sometimes you find yourself sitting under a tree at the Villa Comunale, and you're alone and you can see the Mediterranean and everything is simple and nothing is bad and you start thinking about how to keep that simplicity forever.
A year ago I wasn't such a big fan of or advocate for simplicity. Because there was never really room for it. New York doesn't have room for it, Smith doesn't permit it, and perhaps I never really knew what it was. The Italians, however, they get it.
Americans live to work. Italians work to live. Americans choose a job or a career, and then build a life around that. Italians choose a life, or rather a lifestyle, a mentality, and their jobs and careers are a part of that. This became clear to me last weekend. I went with an old friend of my dad's to Santa Maria di Castellabate, where he has a summer home. He goes on the weekends before going in ferie, and when he does get his contractually guaranteed extended vacation he stays longer. At their beach club, I met a lot of his friends and relatives. They're all there for most of the summer. Vacation here is not a reward or a rarity. It is a priority. An expectation.
For Americans that's a hard concept to grasp. Because America is work. America prioritizes activity, efficiency. But there's a reason Italians live longer lives.
I don't want to come home and choose a job- that given my interests would necessitate graduate school which would necessitate passing too many hours of my youth alone- and then build a life around that job. I want to choose a life. I want to choose a mentality. And pay the bills with whatever job works with what I want.
This isn't the only thing that has been going through my mind, though, since arriving in Naples.
I've realized that I need to be somewhere old. Perhaps this is too critical, too mean, but America has no real culture, and it's because it has a very short history. What's worse is that we tend to reserve said culture for a very small, intellectual elite. It's not nearly as accessible as it is here. And that's because we don't walk past ruins on our way home. It's because we don't teach philosophy and art history in our high schools. Because we never experienced the Renaissance. It's so hard to describe, but there's something to be said for living in a place older than the US. You learn so much more about history, about how interconnected the rest of the world has been for, well, ever. One of the things I am most grateful for this year is having had the opportunity to study history from a non-American point of view. America is a very audacious and at times rather arrogant little child, and it would do her well to open a history book and learn a few things about the rest of the world.
I've also realized that I have a need- not a wish or desire or fancy- but a spiritual and intellectual and otherwise difficult to describe need- to be near my roots. Throughout this experience, but especially the last two or three months, I've been more in touch with myself than ever before. I know myself better. At the risk of being cheesy again, coming here and spending so much time near my roots, near where I come from, has helped me to not feel lost. Naples, the history and culture, language and people, have affected me greatly. I feel an attachment to this place and the things and people in it, a longing for them and a desire to learn everything there is to learn about them. People here always have a reason to laugh. They are clever and resourceful, loving and funny, wise and aware. There is nobody else like them. They carry their history on their shoulders and their hearts on their sleeves.
It's been helpful for me to know that I'm a part of something much bigger. Because the thing about being Neapolitan is that you're also, possibly and probably, Greek and Turkish and Moroccan and French and Spanish and perhaps a number of other things. Being Neapolitan means, automatically, that you are Mediterranean, and that's really special. But I don't think I'd have ever made that connection at home. Because it's not taught. America might not practice an isolationist foreign policy anymore, but it sure has an isolationist public education system.
This is where I want to be. A place with a past, with age. A place with ruins. A place that has contributed much, and continues to do so.
This is where I want to be. A place with culture. Where Dante is recited at the dinner table by a man who sells copy machines.
This is where I want to be. Where people work to live. Where people buy bread in the morning for later that evening- not for later that week. Where there are palm trees.
This is where I want to be. Near the sea. Where history meets the present. Where the fish is fresh.
This is where I want to be. Where everyone is a philosopher. Where carpe diem is not just a phrase screen printed on to t-shirts. Where the food is good and life is lived for living.
I want to come back here. (After graduation, of course. Don't worry). Teach English. Write. I am choosing a lifestyle. A mentality. I am prioritizing feelings and the quality of sleep I get every night. I am prioritizing simplicity and worldliness. Words and thoughts. Books. Teaching. Experiences. Not hours or dollars. Not grades. Why should my life not be a poem?
It's a little odd being so aware of myself. Mostly because I never really have been. It's a little scary realizing and accepting that the girl- woman- who arrives at JFK on July 29 is not the same one who left last September. It's scary because I don't know how people will take it- if they'll believe it. But I can honestly say now, after almost eleven months of experiencing and growing and reflecting and praying, that I am my favorite version of myself. I've never liked myself better. I've never been better. I've never slept so well at night.
So I have a lot to figure out- logistically speaking. But I'm not worried. I'm not losing any sleep over it. I'm writing poems and eating pizza.
