I’ve always had this romanticized idea in my head of what living in Europe would be like. I imagined living in a little chalet in the French countryside, picking wildflowers, and singing chansons. When our family actually had the opportunity to live in Europe, that dream was a somewhat different from the reality of our German stairwell-apartment living. When we had the opportunity to spend a week in Italy, we decided to use this week as less of a tourist opportunity, and more of a week of living my countryside dream. We wanted the week to feel more like everyday European dream-life than a sightseeing trip.
We began by imagining the idea and then acting on it. We rented a villa in the countryside, backed by hills, a similar location to what we would select if we lived there long-term. We spent the morning homeschooling, lunch and afternoons in the city. We had friends who lived and worked a few years ago in Lucca, Italy, so we spent the majority of our time in that beautiful, walled city, piggybacking off of their experience. The friend who figuratively introduced us to Lucca, Ben King, was a professional cyclist. So our first stop was the bike shop and his friend, Laurie. Laurie shared with us all of the social norms and perspectives of what it is to be an expat of 25 years. We made friends with the guys at the pizza shop, which we returned to. We tried to find people in history who had been there that we were already connected to, such as Dante and Caesar. We visited the birthplace of opera composer Puccini, and watched one of his operas when we returned home.
We sought out the types of locations we typically love in places we’ve lived. We looked up the churches and libraries. The library in Lucca was a hidden treasure. Off the beaten path, my husband asked if we could see inside their archives. Two young librarians gave us a private tour of some of their rooms. Whole rooms of books from the 1500s. We got to touch them, turn the pages. They heard my boys enjoy botanical books, so they showed us nature books, hand-stamped.
When the Harvard Business School compared experiences of post-graduates to determine if depth or breadth was more important in developing self-concept clarity, they found that depth predicted higher levels. This means that having a deeper relationship with a single foreign culture builds self-concept clarity more than the number of countries lived in. I am not suggesting that wide travel is not beneficial; it’s just that it doesn’t substantially add to self-concept clarity, so we want to make sure that we are intentional about how we use our time.
One study followed high school science students into college. They found that high school science students who had at least one month of in-depth science studies in any topic did significantly better in their college science courses than students who studied all major topics of that branch in their high school science course. This is useful to consider depth vs. breadth in our travels, because we aren’t going to deeply bond with every place we visit. Intentionally creating a few deep experiences will make a greater impact on our time overall. If we want deep change, we need transformational experiences. These do not have to be as drastic as living in a foreign country on our own for five years. Even small intentional experiences help build who we are.
We took a day-trip to the city of Pisa. Since we do love botany, we planned a visit to the botanical gardens. We found that these gardens were the first university botanical gardens in the world. The flora of Tuscany reminded us of our time living in the Panhandle of Florida, especially when we saw the kumquat trees—like the one we planted in our front yard of our own home.
Having lived for fifteen years in the South, I particularly appreciated this magnificent magnolia, planted in the 1700s. I read on the sign that “In 1990 a large, rotten portion of the trunk was removed: a metal brace was then installed to improve the stability of the tree.” When we first moved here, I remember reading that when individuals are experiencing transition, they need a lot of support in order to succeed. I felt like that tree. Living in a location that is not native to me, a piece of me was dwindling away. But with additional support, I was able to go on, standing tall, continuing to be productive in my own way.
This magnolia has produced seeds that grew into thousands of magnolias throughout Tuscany. Our families may need additional support when we experience transition as well, but we can make educational adjustments that keep the most important things intact and even graft in new fruits. When we returned from Lucca, we purchased a kumquat tree that we kept in front of our fourth-floor balcony doors. It thrived. We returned to Lucca again the next year. It felt like coming home.
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