Perspective

Fairy tales, dreams, and reality; waiting and presence

I’m back in Idaho, for one week now. Crazy how time passes, isn’t it? Swoosh! And a week is gone. Nothing like when we were kids, when the wait for Christmas, or vacation, or anything we were looking forward to, passed with agonizing slowness.

The big realization of my return was that Tom’s 2002 Lexus RX300 with 260,000 miles has laid down for its last nap. There’s an official diagnosis, of course, something I can’t remember, but honestly, I think it’s just fatigue and worn-out knees.

I’m inclined to philosophize but, bottom line, we needed a car. Snow hasn’t fallen yet in this region (the first time in 25 years), and this is terrible for our watershed in addition to the tourism economy. But for us it is, momentarily, a gift. We’ve been *hoping* to replace my 2009 Mazda 3 with 242,000 miles because it needs a lot of work. Instead, we’re putting on the snow tires for one more miraculous time (because the last two winters we were told had to be the last). Still, there was no way we could get through winter with just the Mazda.

So our five-month car search went from blasé to full blast. I won’t bore you with the search. Suffice to say, we’re not folks that spend money on cars.

This week, not in dire distress but well aware of our circumstances including impending weather, we purchased a 2021 Hyundai Kona with 71,000 miles for $14,000. It’s a zippy little car with great lumbar support seats and a ton of headroom. We can run our phones through the “brain” and talk hands-free. It doesn’t have a CD player (I’m so old school) or a tow hitch (for transporting yard waste to the dump), and it doesn’t have much room in the back. It’s small. (Which feels great but has its drawbacks.)

Signing the papers was difficult. Many hard gulps. Holding our breath, stepping away, coming back. Three hours of discussion, weighing the pros and cons. Do we LOVE it? No. Does it check all the boxes of things we hoped for? No. But it’s a good car (according to reviews) and it was a really good deal.

Perspective.

You can’t get to where you’re going if you don’t have a way to get there.

What I am most profoundly aware of is how incredibly fortunate we are. We needed a car and we got one. Even with my school loans and other debts lingering, we got 4.44% interest rate. One painful day of deliberations and we drove away with a new used car.

That’s pretty freaking amazing.

I’ve named her Happy (H from Hyundai). it’s fun to say “I’m driving Happy”

Which brings me to Sicily. There is not a day that I’m not amazed we own a home in Sicily. We own a second home. We own a second home in a foreign country. Italy!

Pinch me. Yes, I wanted this. Yes, I believed it could happen. And yes, sometimes, even in my gratitude, I take it for granted.

It was only 5 years and 9 months ago that I arrived in Italy for the very first time. And literally the second time I was there and Tom’s first, we found a home that we fell in love with, and six months later, it was ours. No longer a dream but a reality.

Most of you don’t know me. You don’t know about my history working for nonprofits or working for myself, mostly as a massage therapist and a nonprofit consultant. You don’t know about my dreams of being a college professor, thwarted by a changing academic landscape that offered me only adjunct positions. You don’t know about Tom’s long career as a public servant.

Translation: we are not people with money. Or as I often say to Sicilians, non siamo americani ricci.

Like me, you are probably influenced by social media, if even just a bit. Even those of us with over five decades under our belts can succumb to Instagram scrolls (or Pintrest or… lots of options). Even traditional news sources are filled with stories of Americans moving abroad and creating a fabulous new life. It’s hard not to see these fairy tales publicized as something within reach.

But the reality is far different. Especially today. When the “middle” class is nothing like it once was. When food prices and health insurance and everything else is weighing down normal Americans, threatening our stability and security. Maybe in these times, we turn to fairy tales and dreams all the more. We look to them for hope and escape. They register possibility in our brains. Possibility.

These *success* stories, just like fairy tales, activate the child in us. The impatient child. The part of us that experiences any waiting as agonizing. Every obstacle as unfair. But that’s the reality of life. Waiting is not a passive act. The in-between time is the work before the reward. Things are rarely smooth sailing, and a breeze never lasts.

In my last post, I was lamenting how hard it’s been to get an appointment with the Italian Consulate. I was considering giving up hope of ever obtaining the visa I need to move to Italy and stay longer than 90 days at a time (with 90 days away before I can return). And the post before that, I complained about how long it was taking for renovations to get done. About the need for another bathroom in our four-room house. (a bathroom which already exists but is unusable according to my standards)

Crazy. Ridiculous. At least when you put it in perspective. As a few friends have said, “You have more than one bathroom?” Yeah. We do. Not in Idaho, but in Sicily. And that’s crazy.

the bathrooms that came with our house

I am so grateful to everyone who responded to my last post – either in the comment section or directly through email. The thoughtful feedback was spot on.

So many good points and questions were made that they deserve a follow-up. I’m sure there are other readers wondering similar things. I forget how much goes on in my own head; how much I don’t share. See below, if you’re interested.

Meanwhile, here’s my current perspective:

This holiday season I’m giving thanks for all the gifts I have, the abundance that overflows in my daily life, so many “necessities” that are truly luxuries.

During these weeks of Advent, this holy time of waiting, I am embracing the seeds already planted, slowly taking root, and nurturing them to my breast as the treasures they are.

May it be the same for you: may your December and January be filled with tranquility and gratitude, hope and the promise to come.

Blessings, friends!

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Details of my dream, based on questions from readers:

My Italian gets better with each visit and I’m even learning some Sicilian. I can converse, but not well, and only when the local is forgiving and patient. I’m fortunate to have three Sicilian friends who also speak English and generously help me when things get difficult (with bills, bureaucracy, orders, translations and such). On top of that, I have more friends than I can see in each visit. People who genuinely like me, are interested and even invested in my quest, who stay in touch when I’m back in the States. - AND – even with all this, I know I will always be an outsider. I will never think like an Italian. I will never be able to fully express myself in their language.

For as many things that I love, there are equally things that are a challenge. Even small things like trying to find unscented detergent of any kind (dish, laundry, etc), full-fat Greek yogurt, and half & half (all non-existent, to my experience).

The nearest hospital is 12 minutes away by car, and it’s a good one. But once I receive residency, I only have one year before I must pass the Italian driving test – which is only in Italian and notoriously difficult. It requires you to attend driving school in advance (which I would need a car to do) and basically study for a full year, and even then there are no guarantees. Our house is not in town, so a car is needed. Since it’s too expensive to rent FT with each visit, I now have an electric-assist mountain bike with saddle bags. But that limits where I can shop and it still takes over 20 minutes to reach the nearest store, and 25 minutes to reach the “bar” (café) by the water where all my friends hang out. (vs 5 minutes by car).

My language skills, though conversational, are not enough for clarity with construction crews. Google translate only works so much (and WIFI is an ongoing struggle). Added to that is my ongoing education in remodeling in general, along with the Italian way of doing things and their laws. And yes, work takes much longer to be completed.

The one time I had to see a doctor (a dentist), he finally said (graciously), it would be easier if you just spoke in English. Professionals, more than anyone else, seem to have a better command of English than I do of Italian.

We have an attorney who helped with our sale and completes are property taxes twice a year. But I’m no longer confident in that relationship, as I was unable to secure an appointment with him when I was just in Rome, specifically to discuss income tax ramifications. I think we will have to look for someone else to assist us.

My dream is to live there from mid-September to mid-May every year, returning to Idaho each summer. Will I grow old there? Who knows? Tom will most likely never live there but only visit, and that is more of a consideration to me than it once was. Our families are aging and I want to be present when any of them need me. But I can tell you this: I absolutely want the experience of living there, not just visiting. I want to try it, to challenge myself, to move through the difficulties as best as I can, to grow in multiple ways from the experience. And yes, I do long for the solitude that comes with this. The solitude that allows for reading and writing and resting in a way that is not possible in the States.

With Mazie, my pup, who is only shy of seven years old, but still so skittish from her early experience in a horder home that sudden or persistent noise sends her running to my bed. Clearly, she cannot be with me until the construction is done.

And the construction will take some time. Because all construction takes time and because due to our finances, it must come in small steps. If we can just get the walls and floors of the living room done, and the bathroom that is attached, that would be heaven. Then the house would truly be livable. The kitchen is functional but far from ideal. That’s okay, I can live with that.