But I was an American, with American friends and American habits, and so I soon learned that my family was not the norm. That other people didn’t eat lunch for three hours while lovingly screaming at one another across a table. And as the years passed, my family would become more Americanized, too. Not enough to fit in, not enough to blend seamlessly, but enough.
The biggest meal of the day became dinner. Lunch became smaller. Pasta was exclusively of the dried variety, and sometimes it was cooked past al dente.
Things changed. But the foundation of all those meals of my childhood remained, and so the structure and timing of authentic Italian meals never was all that foreign to me. It’s more like a rediscovered memory.
Rand carried with him the assumption that my family’s habits in America were the same as they were in Italy. The multicourse extravaganza was more of a stereotype than actual practice. And so, when a massive plate of pasta was placed in front of him, the noodles hand-rolled by my aunt Rosamaria with a bit of help from her mother, he ate it with the (mis)understanding that this was the entirety of the meal. He even took a bit more when it was offered to him.
Rand is a notoriously slow eater, and as he finished the last bit of pasta, he looked up, trying to figure out why everyone was watching him so expectantly. And when he placed the last bite in his mouth, one of my uncles clapped and two or three people at the table shouted, “Finalmente.”
Rand apologized for taking so long to finish, failing to understand what the big deal was. Weren’t Italian meals hours-long affairs?
Yes. They undoubtedly are. But until he finished his pasta, we couldn’t get on to the next course. That was what he didn’t grasp.
The look on his face when my aunt brought the rest of the food out will remain etched in my memory forever. His jaw dropped, ever so slightly, his eyebrows knitting in the middle. And then he broke out into a small smile and a shaking of his head, as he finally realized what had happened.
He had stuffed himself on the first course. And there was so much more food to come.
The meats and sausages that had been stewed in tomato sauce. My aunt’s costolette di vitello (tender slices of veal, breaded and fried). A place of vinegary vegetables that she’d pickled herself. A massive, simple green salad. A dish that resembled a frittata but was loaded with potatoes and pecorino and surprisingly little egg. An assortment of salumi and cheeses, most of which were made locally. They were placed on the table, along with the expectation that he would try a little bit of everything.
And, being the love of my life, he did just that.
When I asked him about it later, he told me that he just took a deep breath and thought, “Okay, let’s move on to stomach number two.”
We were at the table for hours. As we ate, my uncles and aunts affectionately shouted at each other across the table. My cousin gave Rand a highly biased (but still totally accurate) account of why food in southern Italy is far superior to the cuisine of the north. My great-aunt occasionally broke into the conversation with some declaration, her hands waving. Something about the cadence of her speech reminded me of my grandmother. And yet the closeness of their voices only made me think of the differences between them.
I participated in the conversation, but I kept having to stop, kept needing help on words or phrasing. When I finally did say something, or a long stretch of somethings, I’d pause and ask my cousin if I had said it right. I used to speak the language so well. When I was little, it was effortless.
For dessert, we dipped amaretti into red wine and nibbled on chocolates and talked about how we’d eaten too much.
After it was over, I looked at the tablecloth. We’d decorated it in the same manner that we had those of my childhood. With drops of wine and smears of bright red sauce, and a generous sprinkling of breadcrumbs.
I realized that this was what I had wanted Rand to experience. This was why I had dragged him all the way to a tiny village nestled in the mountains. I wasn’t trying to show him Italy. I was trying to show him what my family was like when I was young. Back when lunch lasted three hours and I spoke Italian effortlessly and my grandparents weren’t simply alive—they were life.
When I was small, I remember my grandmother talking to me about how I’d one day get married. I never put too much thought into it—the idea seemed distant and remote, and honestly, as the years passed, I’d never considered it an inevitability. In high school and college, I would sit and relay to her all the drama of my life (somewhat censored), would spend long hours telling her about who I was dating or who I had a crush on. She would nod, ask a few follow-up questions, and always conclude with, “If you’re happy, then I’m happy.”
She would meet every boyfriend I had until Rand. There is nothing I can do to change this unfortunate reality. There’s no way for me to go back in time, to let her know that I would end up absurdly, ridiculously happy.
The closest I can come to that is to take him to the village where she and my grandfather lived, to crowd around a table with my family, eating too much and laughing too loudly for far too many hours.
Though seemingly interminable, that meal and that day came to an end. We said our goodbyes, long, drawn-out affairs that involved dozens of kisses and promises to visit more. We all dispersed, and Rand and I walked through the village in the fading light of day.
There, walking arm in arm with him on the streets where my grandparents once walked, I gave voice to the same thought I always had when I missed them acutely.
“I wish you’d met them,” I said. It wasn’t a particularly emotional or even sad admission. It was just the truth.
His answer was short and matter-of-fact.
“I sort of feel like I have.”
And I realized that even though I’d spent earlier trips to this tiny village searching for my grandparents, this time around, I wasn’t doing that. For the first time in a long time, they didn’t feel so far away.
We walked back down the hill, I navigating the narrow streets of their village, arm in arm with a man they never knew, but who knew nearly everything about them that I could remember.
I never slowed down as I made my way back to our little bed and breakfast, never made a single wrong turn.
17
JUST GO
AS I’VE GOTTEN OLDER, I’ve noticed that there seem to be fewer flight delays now than when I was a kid. I figured it had to do with the patience that naturally comes with age, but I recently found that’s not the case. There really are fewer delays, and flights get canceled far less often than they used to ten or twenty years ago.
It’s because airplane technology has gotten so good that the pilots don’t need ideal conditions to land or take off. Visibility isn’t that important. Everyone I’ve relayed this fact to always seems to think it’s incredible—but it’s not all that surprising to me. Sometimes you can’t see the path you’re on. That doesn’t mean there isn’t one.
I never imagined that putting more miles between myself and the people closest to me would somehow help me understand them better than I ever had. That the chaos of Italy made my mother less cryptic or that a clock in a distant corner of Greenwich would help me understand my father. My brothers, my cousins, my aunts and uncles, and my grandparents—I got lost on winding streets and in turn found myself deciphering all the people I thought I knew so well.
Sometimes in order to understand where someone is coming from, you need to literally see where that person came from.
And in the end the perfect trips I had with Rand were not the revelatory ones. It was all the mishaps—the missed turns and the overflowing toilets and the lost suitcases—that made me realize I’d follow him to the ends of the earth.
When I started my blog, all those years ago, I never thought it would take the place of the job I had lost. When I began traveling with Rand, I never suspected that I’d keep doing it, that somehow I—seemingly the least-qualified person on the planet to do so—would ever write a book about it.
&nbs
p; In my defense (and you should know this by now), this book isn’t going to teach anyone how to travel. The only thing this book can do, if you read very closely and critically, is teach someone how not to travel.
But I think there’s value in that, too. Because travel writers are always weighing in on how we should see the world. That we all need to follow the road not taken, that we need to quit our jobs and sell all our stuff and buy quick-dry underwear that we wash nightly in our hostel sink. They tell us what to pack and which places to visit and how Cuba is just so over now that Americans can legally travel there.
Most of the time they use that damn J.R.R. Tolkien quote to tell you just how hardcore they are.
“Not all who wander are lost.”
But you know what? I usually am. Hell, even if I’m not wandering, I’m lost. I might be striding down a street confidently, and to any observer it looks like I know exactly where I’m going. Believe me when I tell you I don’t.
“Not all who are lost wander.”
And that’s okay. There are very few moments in our lives when we get to embrace sucking at something. When we get to fail miserably and still find value in it. Travel is one of those things. Even if you don’t end up where you planned, you still might end up somewhere great.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My friend Dan told me specifically not to thank people by name in the Acknowledgments section of your book, because you will inevitably forget someone critical. As a safeguard against this eventuality, I’d like to begin by offering thanks to this list of pet names I just came up with. I will kindly ask that any dear, overlooked friends pick the one that best applies to them:
Little Frankenstein
The Phantom of the Oprah
Lady MacCheese
Goatface Killah
Old Tidy Bastard
Gonad the Barbarian
Other Dan
Mike
Thank you all.
On a rare serious note, I am truly humbled by the amount of help, guidance, and support I have received in creating this work and would be remiss to not mention those wonderful souls who are to blame for making it a reality.
My perpetually positive and endlessly supportive agent, Zoe Sandler, believed in this project before I believed in it myself. Without her invaluable feedback, guidance, and expertise, I’d probably be… I don’t know, supporting myself by kidnapping house pets and ransoming them back to their owners. You’re the best, Zoe. No, you are.
My incredible editor, Colleen Lawrie, made this book funnier and more beautiful than I ever could have with her keen eye and amazing sense of humor. She displayed a bottomless reserve of patience and unparalleled professionalism while dealing with my incoherent asides and rambling phone calls, and she was surprisingly indulgent every time I wanted to talk about Hamilton and Daveed Diggs instead of narrative arcs. You had me at “Let’s meet at a pastry shop,” Colleen.
I am indebted to the entire team at PublicAffairs who helped bring this product into fruition, dealt with my incessant questions, my what-the-hell-was-I-talking-about-again emails, and patiently helped me with humor and grace: Jaime Leifer, Kristina Fazzalaro, Melissa Veronesi, Miguel Cervantes, and Lindsay Fradkoff.
A sincere thanks to my blog readers, for their support and their kind words and for being my personal curators for any news articles pertaining to desserts or Jeff Goldblum. Y’all are my favorite kind of weirdos.
I owe a great deal to my friend Kerry Colburn for her invaluable advice about publishing and life in general, as well as her willingness to meet me over baked goods. Kerry, if we all had the same confidence in ourselves that you have in us, we’d probably be locked in a bitter battle over dominion of Earth.
The luminous Emma Alpaugh was a constant source of support and wisdom and endless optimism and I kind of hope she agrees to run away with me someday.
Cristina Urrutia once took me to a bookstore and waved her arms around, saying, “Pssh, you got this,” while simultaneously ignoring my self-deprecating ramblings. Happy, happy everything to you, Cristina.
Christina Atkins has made my life brighter simply by being in it. You are a wonderful human, Chrissy, and an incredible friend.
Nicelle Herron’s hard work and thoughtfulness made so many of these trips possible and is the primary reason why Rand and I aren’t useless lumps of human goo. We love you to pieces, Nicci.
Chad Peacock was the driving force behind me completing a manuscript in the first damn place. You are a royal pain in the ass, Chad. (Just look what you made me do.)
Many awkward hugs and thanks to my writer’s group (which soon proved just a veiled excuse to eat carbohydrates)—Marika Malaea, Pam Mandel, and Naomi Bishop Tomky—for their humor, guidance, and encouragement. And all the cake.
Thank you to all our countless dear friends across the entire planet who have made us feel at home in far-off places and tried in vain to get us acclimated to the local time. You are a big part of why we travel. Sorry we fell asleep at the dinner table/in your car/on your toddler.
To everyone who’s ever had the misfortune of traveling with us: sorry I freaked out that one time and that I haven’t yet uploaded our vacation photos. Also, I think we owe you money. Or maybe you owe us money? If it’s the latter, that’s cool, take your time. I don’t want stuff to get weird between us.
Much love and gratitude to Seymour and Pauline Fishkin for teaching their grandson how to read a map, ride the subway, and pick out the best theater seats for your dollar. He’s got a hell of a tuchas on his shoulders, and it’s all thanks to you.
My wonderful, crazy, inimitable family: thank you for giving me and my therapist so much to talk about. Thank you for reminding me that the world was always bigger than I thought it was and for never, ever being boring. (Note: you have not been absolved of anything.)
Lastly, endless thanks, praise, and apologies are owed to the undisputed love of my life, Rand Fishkin. Contrary to the implications of Chapter 2, you don’t actually make a mess of the toilet, but you do laugh at all my terrible jokes and make me obnoxiously happy. I’d go the whole wide world just to find you.
Credit: Rand Fishkin
After getting laid off from her copywriting job, GERALDINE DERUITER started traveling the world chronicling her adventures on her blog, The Everywhereist. Despite consisting mostly of long digressions about cake and Jeff Goldblum, the site was named one of TIME magazine’s Top 25 Blogs of the Year, one of Forbes magazine’s Top 10 Lifestyle Websites for Women for three consecutive years, and one of The Independent’s 50 Best Travel Websites. Also, she was once interviewed for a US News & World Report article about motion sickness (mostly, she talked about barfing).
When not on the road with her long-suffering and infinitely patient husband, Rand, she can be found in Seattle, usually getting into fights with people on the Internet. You can follow Geraldine on Twitter @everywhereist.
PublicAffairs is a publishing house founded in 1997. It is a tribute to the standards, values, and flair of three persons who have served as mentors to countless reporters, writers, editors, and book people of all kinds, including me.
I. F. STONE, proprietor of I. F. Stone’s Weekly, combined a commitment to the First Amendment with entrepreneurial zeal and reporting skill and became one of the great independent journalists in American history. At the age of eighty, Izzy published The Trial of Socrates, which was a national bestseller. He wrote the book after he taught himself ancient Greek.
BENJAMIN C. BRADLEE was for nearly thirty years the charismatic editorial leader of The Washington Post. It was Ben who gave the Post the range and courage to pursue such historic issues as Watergate. He supported his reporters with a tenacity that made them fearless and it is no accident that so many became authors of influential, best-selling books.
ROBERT L. BERNSTEIN, the chief executive of Random House for more than a quarter century, guided one of the nation’s premier publishing houses. Bob was personally responsible for many books of political
dissent and argument that challenged tyranny around the globe. He is also the founder and longtime chair of Human Rights Watch, one of the most respected human rights organizations in the world.
For fifty years, the banner of Public Affairs Press was carried by its owner Morris B. Schnapper, who published Gandhi, Nasser, Toynbee, Truman, and about 1,500 other authors. In 1983, Schnapper was described by The Washington Post as “a redoubtable gadfly.” His legacy will endure in the books to come.
Peter Osnos, Founder and Editor-at-Large
*I’m obviously referring to my husband, Rand. Unless Jeff Goldblum is reading this, in which case, Jeff, I’m talking about you.
All Over the Place Page 22