World Ending Tomorrow

The good thing about the "clickbait" industry is that they always give you an extra day until the world ends. After all, if the world is supposed to end today, what would be the sense of going out to buy something.  By predicting that the world will end tomorrow, you've still got enough time to watch their program and buy a refill for your anxiety medication.  

Traveling is usually a good escape from the headline creators.  Traveling in Italy is even better because every day about 4:30 in the afternoon, most of the population goes out for a stroll (the last stroll before the apocalypse).  Italy was supposed to fall into chaos because a new far right government was just elected.  Italians still took to the streets en masse not to protest but to enjoy a coffee or an ice cream at their favorite hangout.  They already know that this new government will be gone in 12 months, just like the 74 that came before it since the end of WW II. Who cares?  It's time to walk the dog and have a "Spritz" with friends.

     

           Get a grip mate. Have a Spritz. Watch the parade. Relax.

Maybe I should be a bit more forgiving of the "hair on fire" media folks. They've got to make a living.  Their business is fear. If they can't sell their hysteria, they are out of a job.  Without fear, uncertainty, and doubt, why would you watch their drivel?  And to be fair, Italy has been subjected to 2 millennia of doom and gloom.  The Catholic church had an enormous vested interest in Dante's Inferno.  Everywhere you go in Italy you cannot escape the scenes of what hell will be like.  Hideous dark creatures dragging poor souls into the underworld.  If you didn't want that terrible ending, the church invented a great solution.  You could buy yourself a get out of hell pass because the church invented the business of selling "indulgences".  Just make a large donation to the church and get a free ticket to Paradise.  No waiting in line.  No background checks.  And, of course, no refunds.

     

      Botero's depiction of " Hell".  Botero loved "overweight" figures.

So the obvious solution to a life of "underachieving" was to simply make a donation.  Do not pass "Purgatory" (the Spirit Airlines of the past), do not collect $200.  Go straight to Paradise.

     

       A Paradise for everyone.  Even those who are "plump".

Finally.  Some relief from the doom and gloom media.  No more diets. No more exercise. No more social media shaming.  This was extremely comforting.  Life as it should be.  A few years wages for an immediate pardon.  It's like getting a 5 year opioid prescription from your doctor.  No copays.  No oversight.  No reviews.  No problems.

When I read the 35 latest screaming posts about how the stock market is about to collapse... about how the world is about to fry itself in a nuclear WWIII...about how the climate is cooking the planet... about how there are no more 75 inch flat screen tv's left on the shelves at Wal-Mart... about how I can no longer afford a loaf of bread...about how transgender prisoners can no longer get psychological help...my solution here in

Italy is to go out for a walk.

     

      This Lucca citizen isn't worried.  Why should I fret?

   

The minute I look up and see the deep blue sky and see my first glimpse of giggling kids on the wall in Lucca, I come back to reality.  I come back to the present. I come back to a world that continues.  

The world doesn't end here tomorrow. It just just continues with a delightful shrug.  Italy is just that apathetic!  That's why I love this place.  That's why I keep coming back.  It's my comfort food.

That's my story and I'm stickin to it

Dan

Only Half Here

For some reason, yesterday, I decided to take the long way home after I visited an exhibition of the Italian Immigration Experience to North and South America at the beginning of the 20th century.  Obviously, moving to another country to live and work is a topic I can relate to since that was my reality for many years.  You pack up a suitcase, trundle onto a plane, and try to make sense of your new environment as best and as quickly as possible.  Sooner or later you learn to get around. You pick up enough of the local language and customs to survive at first and then hopefully to feel "at home". It's a gradual process but fortunately human beings are somewhat adaptable.  We merge.

     

        Ad Promotion for Passage To America From Italy, circa 1910

I can't really beam myself back in time to actually feel what it must have been like to just up and leave your home for a strange new continent.  But I do think that it must have been an act of desperation.  All the birds on the ad poster are having a wonderful experience.  Being stuck in 3rd class below the water line and sleeping on cots placed 7 across and two bunks high must have required a real desire to escape.  According to the description of the immigrants in 3rd class, approximately half of the travelers had no documents, probably because they were too poor to afford such a luxury.  I remember as a kid in the sheltered little Midwestern town where I grew up hearing the term " WOP" as a negative slur against Italian Americans.  I was nearly 60 before someone explained the meaning of that term (With Out Papers or WOP).

     

     Cross section of a ship showing 1st, 2nd, & 3rd class travel

I can't really put myself in the minds of those poor huddled masses because I suspect that given the choice between grinding poverty in the South of Italy and heading off to North/South America, it might have been the best of 2 bad options to leave.  What I do know for sure is that such a major move to another country was a life altering experience.  I know from my own personal experience that traveling and living in another country rearranges your mind.  

At the tender young age of 20, I took the big leap to study abroad for a year in West Africa.  

Living abroad usually leaves a mark on people.  On me it did more than that.  It made me "different".  When I returned to my old surroundings, I just didn't quite fit in.  I looked at my old surroundings and always felt like I was half there.  I was physically in the USA, but I was mentally always yearning to be somewhere else.  The old friends and the old routines just didn't satisfy me anymore.  I was like the old song lyrics which said " How you gonna keep 'em down on the farm, after they've seen Paris (pronounced pair ee).  Indeed.  I had seen Paris, I'd studied in Geneva, I been to Madrid, I'd walked on the beautiful beaches of the Canary Islands, I traveled and lived in West Africa.  I was always "halfway" sitting in some cafe near the Eiffel tower watching the crowd pass by as I slowly sipped my cafe au lait with a croissant.  I just found myself not really fitting in any more amongst the old group of friends that I had left only a year ago.  I really was half there...half somewhere else.  Mentally and emotionally, I was a foreigner in my own country.  That was the thought that immediately hit me when I saw this statue on the wall in Lucca.

     

     Statue of half a person, clutching a suitcase...just like me!

So, at the ripe old age of 75, I guess I have come to accept that no matter where I go or no matter how hard I try to "Be Here Now", I will probably always only " Be (HALF) here now.

That's my story and I'm stickin to it.

Dan