Changing Places

May 6, 2003

It's a phenomenon familiar to people who have moved around a lot: when you're about to leave a place, you are suddenly out of patience with it. Annoyances you've put up with for years loom large, and you count the days til you can get the hell out. This is a defense mechanism: by concentrating on what you dislike, you hope to lessen the pain of leaving the things and people you do like.

Thus with me and Milano at the moment. We're getting ready to move to Lecco (a mid-sized town on Lake Como, not very far away), and I am at the end of my tether with everything Milanese. I've had enough of sidewalks used as dogs' toilets, gypsy beggars who all whine the same tale with the same words and faux mispronunciations (I could recite it along with them), of nearly getting run over in crosswalks, of bitchy old ladies who bear a grudge against anyone younger than themselves. Most of all, I am tired of pollution and the respiratory problems that result; I hope Lecco will cure all that.

This move is different, though. I've been in Milan - in the same apartment! - more than twice as long as any previous place in my life. I now know what it's like to be part of a neighborhood. The shopkeepers know my habits (odd American ones, such as making pot roast out of beef rather than veal), and will give me credit when I don't have cash. They adore my constant striving to give them exact change, and always carrying a cloth shopping bag instead of taking plastic ones. The owner of the coffee bar downstairs frequently gives Rossella chocolates; in all these years, he never figured out that she always gives them away.

I will miss some favorite restaurants, where we've been regulars for years. I will miss knowing where to find things, especially things that are hard to get in Lecco, such as Indian spices, Basmati rice, and fresh coriander. I will miss being able to get almost everywhere I need to go by public transport - one of this summer's ordeals will be getting an Italian driver's license (and, believe me, it will be an ordeal). I will miss having many cinemas, theatres, and museums close by, even if we hardly ever go to them.

On the other hand, in Lecco we'll be living three blocks from Lake Como, instead of three blocks from more gray squalor. We'll be living in an apartment twice as large as our current three rooms, and I can finally have an office NOT in the bedroom. And a kitchen larger than one meter by two. Am I looking forward to the move? You bet.

What happened next

July 31, 2003

We always bought coffee on a "subscription," a punch-card system, where you pay in advance for ten coffees and get a slight discount. During our last week in Milan, I finished my last card and began paying for each coffee individually. Around the third coffee, Italo said to me: "You can still get a new subscription; it will be honored after I leave."

I was massively confused. "I'm not buying the subscription because I'm leaving," I said, "We're moving."

"You're leaving?! But so am I!"

It turned out that he had sold his bar, and would be leaving it to the new proprietors on July 15th. His explanation was that the neighborhood had changed, many of his old clients had moved (or died), and he just didn't know how to do business in the new climate: "There's always tension, always arguments." The neighborhood is now multi-ethnic, with recent immigrants from South America, North Africa, and China, and Italo's clientele was becoming noticeably more mixed. Maybe there is tension between the groups, or between immigrants and Italians. I had never noticed anything particular going on, but of course I wasn't in there 14 hours a day like he was. It was disconcerting to realize that this neighborhood fixture was leaving just as we were. You can't go "home" again; if you do, it will have changed out from under you.