| It’s a
Nice Life, But… |
| Living
In Italy |
| by Deirdré Straughan |
| There are
many people in the world, and especially in some of the online forums
where I hang out, who would consider me to have reached the best of all
possible worlds. I live in Italy, after all.
In 1995,
Adaptec bought Incat Systems, the small Italian software company I was
working for, and I was part of the package. I wanted to become a regular
employee of Adaptec, though at a distance, since I was by then working
from home with quarterly trips to the US office. The idea was radical (for
Adaptec, anyway), and they refused; as long as I remained in Italy,
they would hire me only as a consultant at an hourly rate.
It was a high
rate, no complaints there, but I wasn’t a regular employee. |
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| I happened
to be at the US office when the sale was completed, so I was able to lose
this fight in person, at least. We were all called in for a meeting
with Adaptec HR people, to explain the company benefits etc. etc., none
of which applied to me. After the official presentations, I was chatting
with one of the HR people. I mentioned, wistfully, that I would have preferred
to be a regular employee. “But this way you get to live in Italy,”
she said. Well, yes, but it would be nice to have regular employee benefits
(paid vacation, sick leave…). “But you get to live in Italy!”
she said.
Clearly,
she dreamed of living in Italy. Many people do. Funny thing is, I never
did. Until I met Enrico, I had barely even visited Europe, and never Italy.
It just wasn’t on my radar screen; if I thought about it at all, I assumed
that I would somehow end up in Asia – seemed logical, given my personal
history and my college degree in Asian Studies. Had I been actively seeking
a husband, it wouldn’t have occurred to me to look for an Italian mathematician.
But there
he was, and here we are. He claims that we could have stayed in the
US; he could have looked for teaching positions there after graduate school,
had the job market |
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I don’t remember ever expecting to stay; perhaps I knew earlier than he
did that it was inevitable we would live in Italy. When I bought my first
car in the US, I bought it with a manual transmission, knowing that almost
all cars in Italy are manual, and assuming that I should keep in practice
against the day.
In any event,
Enrico landed a teaching position in Italy while still finishing his PhD,
and we have never since seriously considered living outside Italy for any
significant length of time, nor is it likely now that we ever will. We’re
here for the duration. I don’t miss the US; didn’t have strong ties to
it to begin with. Being a third-culture kid, I find it easier to live overseas,
where I am “out” as an immigrant, than in the US, where people assume
that I’m a native, then are baffled and resentful when I don’t behave quite
the way they expect me to. |
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Offshore
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| Italy for
me is a happy medium, with all the comforts of developed countries (and
then some), but just enough chaos, and history and cultural depth,
to keep my interest. Italians are even quite like Indians in some ways,
though many Italians would be horrified to hear me say so.
God knows
there’s little to hate about living in Italy. I write (extensively)
about the follies and foibles of life here, but, overall, it’s a damn comfortable
life. Thanks to my husband and his family, I live in a very nice home and
have few financial worries (though I do need to find *some* paying work
about now…). I can concentrate on raising a teenage daughter - always
a complex, demanding, and fascinating task, and the most important one
of my life. I look out my windows and see mountains. I go into my huge
new kitchen and cook wonderful food. We go on trips, we have friends, life
is beautiful.
So What’s
Missing?
Italy is gorgeous
and wonderful and all that, wouldn’t trade it for the world. But it *isn’t*
the world. |
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| There’s a
whole world of other countries out there, most of them equally full of
interesting people, cultures, history, foods, etc. Why limit myself to
just one? There are so many places
I still want
to visit (Australia, New Zealand), and others, especially India,
that I want to visit some more. I’ve been able to do some non-US travelling
in recent years, just enough to keep my feet from itching too much.
When you’ve
spent your formative years all over the place, settling down anywhere,
no matter how wonderful, is very hard.
So I don’t
expect this settled phase to last much beyond my daughter’s reaching adulthood.
I’ll keep Italy
as a home base, but I’ll need to get out, way out, at least sometimes. |
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Offshore
Resources Gallery
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| Funny thing
is, my daughter, who has had a very stable home life in Milan (we’ve
just moved 50 km away to Lecco), also can’t wait to get out. “I’m
not staying in Italy when I’m grown up,” she says. “It’s boring.”
To see Deirdré's
website on living in Italy Click Here
To contact
Deirdré Click Here |
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