benvenuti
“You didn’t need a clock to tell time in Viareggio; you lived by the bells and the baker.”
It’s been two years since I moved to Italy.
Since then, the thought of starting something like this has occurred to me countless times. But I’ve always managed to push it down (“Who would care? Who would read it?”). I think you can relate that it’s so easy to let yourself get mired in the muck of life and suddenly wake up, years later, with all the days blurred together in a puddle and a fog. It’s also just as easy to get so caught up in the beauty and the dream your life has bloomed into, so much so that time flies away from you too fast.
But becoming a mom and losing a parent within the same year changes you. (Duh, right?). It’s a catapult into this version of yourself that wants to be her champion while at the same time not wanting to make the same mistakes of your father. You see things with alarming clarity. The meaning of time changes. The bullshit you used to care about just goes away. I guess I can get to all of that somewhere between pasta recipes and Italian travel tips, but in the meantime:
Here we go. Hi. Ciao ciao… I’m Darcy Jane but everyone calls me DJ.
It’s been two years since I moved to Italy as a newlywed. I’d never even been to Italy before, but when my husband mentioned it could be a possibility I thought, “Let’s go for it, sounds like an adventure!” (This was pre-pandemic, certo, and I had no idea what was ahead of us).
We moved from the east coast of the United States in the fall of 2020 to a rural country hillside commune, where very few people speak English. Our alarm clocks have been replaced with roosters and church bells, and seasons are marked by whatever the farmer next door is harvesting. The pace of our lives has changed tenfold to one that is slower and full while also impossibly hectic and crazy (we are raising a toddler without the convenience of American consumerism, after all). But it didn’t start out that way.
Little did we know that one week into living here I would be let go from my job, like so many people were at that time, pausing a 13 year career working in corporate retail. That one month into living here we would find out I was 5 weeks pregnant. That the borders would be closed, eliminating any chance of family visiting (or helping) with the arrival of our daughter. That in the time between then and now, we’d learn the language, coffee culture, learn to travel, experience foreign health care, love, postpartum depression, the passion of Italians, their love of babies, and their love of food (mangiamo!!). That I’d meet the mother I’d become while meeting the grief of losing my dad to cancer. And so much more.
There have been countless twists and turns, and now that the whiplash is starting to settle I guess it’s time to finally start sharing the places, the lessons, the “American in Europe” tips and tricks, the recipes and the experiences that have made this place home. Because I can honestly say now: I’m home.
Ciao, a presto!
