Arrivederci, Au Revoir

I started this blog entry last Thursday, moments after we enjoyed a roadside picnic (pique-nique in French) a few kilometers before the France-Italy border. We overlooked a hazy, soft, sapphire blanket— endless as it was serene, the Cote d’ Azur. We sat beneath the cool shade of slouching pine trees on an utterly gorgeous, spring-like day & made quiet small talk. As I sat there staring onto the Mediterranean, in a befuddled mix of disbelief, confusion, frustration & sheer, deep, profound sadness, my first teardrops fell.

Final photo in our sweet little casa

My heart is absolutely crushed, it’s positively shattered as we made the decision to (hopefully temporarily) walk away from one of the biggest dreams (& happinesses) of my life, one that we mercilessly chased & untiringly brought to life over the past 5 years. And the kicker of it all was that the choice wasn’t totally ours, it was forced by the awful circumstances of our world today.

We raised the white flag last Saturday & are now home, in Truckee. Amidst Italy’s continually soaring & world-leading Coronavirus infection & death numbers (last week the country saw its largest death-tolls to date); healthcare system that is utterly overburdened & facing a “we choose who lives & dies” enigma (plus our hunch that foreigners with fly-by-night international health insurance would fall last on their priority list, should we get sick) & a lockdown that has no foreseeable end & left us with 0 pleasures beyond the 4 walls of our 800 sq ft home, we lost faith that the turnaround we’d desperately hoped for would happen anytime soon & concluded that heading home may be our safest bet.

What actually put things over the top for us was an email we received from the US Consulate last Wednesday evening, urging all United States Citizens to travel home as quickly as possible, noting that waiting any longer could result in being unable to return to the US, indefinitely.

Now, we do acknowledge that the US is in a similar, perhaps soon-to-be-worse scenario, especially given the complete disregard some folks are giving “sheltering in place” (only Americans would create a fluffy, PC phrase for “lockdown”) & social distancing, coupled with “you can’t strip my 1st amendment freedoms!” attitude, but perhaps we needed to run back to the comforting arms of our country & bury ourselves under a blanket until the thick of this awfulness passes us by.

Last week my cousin (who lives in Tokyo) & I texted back & forth, waxing about Coronavirus. We marveled at the differences in numbers & severity between Italy & other countries & pondered the why. He noted that the Japanese people bow to eachother—converse to the Italians a kiss-on-each-cheek, high-touch greeting; Japanese also wear masks routinely, to stifle the affects of pollution or illness (he joked that they’re almost a fashion statement). But it was his last comment that struck me most—he said that Japanese people are also very respectful; they do as they’re told & follow instructions. I told my cousin that, generally, people in Italy (& the United States) are not this way (‘rebellious teenagers’ may have been a phrase I used) & that these 3 things, plus Itay’s second-largest-in-the-world elderly population, has likely been the perfect storm that has found the country where it is today.

Time Magazine has an interesting article out right now about Coronavirus & how it was anticipated that Singapore, Hong Kong & Taiwan could’ve suffered massive numbers & deaths due to their proximity to Wuhan & the strong tourism connections they each share with this area. However, they were prepared for a pandemic, having been affected by SARS & MERS years back, & they also took swift action, their people listened to instructions & held themselves to a strict quarantine. Hence, their numbers are manageably small at:

· Singapore: 558 cases/2 deaths

· Hong Kong: 386 cases/4 deaths

· Taiwan: 216 cases/2 deaths

This, compared to Italy’s 69,176 cases/6,820 deaths & the United States 52,921 cases/684 deaths. If those numbers don’t make the case for staying at home, following your government or local authority’s orders & social distancing or isolating—nothing will.

Somehow, I’d always envisioned us heading back to the US after we’d stuffed ourselves to the gills with memories, moments, culture, cuisine & exploration. Ironically, just 3 weeks ago, hubby & I made the wobbly-kneed but exhilarating decision to stay a second year in Italy. We brought pages of “why stay, why go” notes to a restaurant near our home & formulated a decision over a long Italian lunch, complete with Chianti, salsiccia pizza & spaghetti carbornara; it was almost poetic, almost.

95% empty flight home

At this point I have no idea if we’ve made the best decision or the worst, only time will tell us that. But we’ve gone back & forth so many times & made, what we feel, is every last effort to ride this out (within reason) that, by default, home now seems the smartest place to be. After 2 weeks of self-quarantining (don’t worry folks, we’re ethical, caring & intelligent people who know & will always do the right thing) we look forward to seeing our dogs, our friends & our sweet mountain town.

Should this situation dramatically improve in Italy in the coming months we do plan to go back & let Caiden graduate/finish out 5th grade with his friends & I, personally, must go back to properly close this unimaginably exquisite Italian Adventure (one of the biggest joys of my entire life), to say goodbye the right way. We intend to see some folks we came to care so deeply about, pick up some left behind items, tie up loose ends & even see a few more sites, re-bask in the ones we especially loved. Ultimately, we hope to cobble together a departure that gives our hearts some peace & our heads surrender & acceptance to the road ahead.

3 days after our return & I am still wrestling sharp, incessant feelings of sadness, embarrassment & disbelief. As such, I hadn’t had the energy to share that we’re home, nor respond to recent messages. For that, I apologize but hope you’ll understand. We’re taking it one day at a time & looking forward to the ‘Super’ :) bright spot of our fur-babies return on Thursday!!

PLEASE folks, stay home!!! Practice – for real!! – social distancing & “sheltering in place”. We have never, in my lifetime, been called to work together as one world, as one global partnership, for a greater good -- but we are now. I was feet-on-the-street in Italy & France where it’s quite intense with semi-automatic armed police patrolling every street & plaza to enforce the quarantine, residents needing a government-issued document to even visit the grocery store for bare essentials, people being told they cannot travel in a car with more than 1 person at any time – & still so many refuse to follow the rules & do their part.

For awhile I, admittedly, had a “it’s a _____ problem (insert location, i.e. China, Milan, North Italy)” mentality until I realized that it’s not “their” problem, it’s “our” problem, it’s “my” problem & the sooner we cooperate & care about eachother’s health & safety & LIFE – right to life - the sooner we can all get back to the beautiful spring that awaits us & our regularly scheduled lives of work, dinners out, school, sports, social events, outdoor play, travel, shopping, laughter, freedom! & more.

The last thing I must say is that I’m so incredibly grateful to ALL of you who reached out with calls & texts, Facebook posts & messages, emails & so on. You will NEVER understand how much your notes meant in an admittedly scary & extremely stressful time. There were many days I was on my own when Steph was in the US & the situation kept changing, getting dramatically worse day by day, hour by hour. I was lost, confused & beyond anxious, & yet I needed to keep a smile on my face & calm in our home for my son. In the late hours, after he’d gone to bed, I’d read up on the latest news & alarming stats & then I’d pour through the unbelievable number of messages I’d received. Each of you gave me strength, encouragement, kindness, support, compassion & helped me breathe — helped me feel less alone & isolated so, again, thank you, from the bottom of my heart.

Sending wishes of peace, love & good health to each of you; stay safe.

PS If you’ve closely followed our travels, you’re probably having a head-scratch at my mention of being in France & at the France-Italy border. Someday, over wine & tears, I’ll have to share that story which included an insane border crossing that Steph, Caiden & I will never forget-- one that we’ll surely tell C's children/our grandchildren about.