The Real Reason I Keep Going Back to Italy

I have a brain that is almost always somewhere else.

Not necessarily in a bad way. Sometimes it's tomorrow. Sometimes it's six months from now. Sometimes it's replaying a conversation from yesterday while simultaneously thinking about what I need from the grocery store and whether I ever responded to that email. There are usually a million tabs open in my head, and I'm constantly clicking between them.

I don't think I'm particularly unique in that.

We're really good at being physically present while mentally being somewhere completely different. We eat dinner while thinking about what needs to happen tomorrow. We finally sit down to watch TV and pick up our phones five minutes later. We spend months looking forward to a vacation and then get there and start thinking about what we're doing the next day. Sometimes I wonder how much of our lives we actually experience while they're happening.

I've been thinking about that a lot lately because, in a little over two weeks, I'm going back to Italy. I've had a relationship with Italy for most of my life. I lived outside Naples as a teenager, and I've returned many times since. There are a thousand reasons I could give for why I love it. The food certainly doesn't hurt. Neither does the wine. Or the fact that drinking an espresso while standing at a bar somehow feels infinitely better than drinking coffee while answering emails. But none of those things really explain why I keep going back.

Italy is one of the few places where I regularly forget what time it is. I don't mean that metaphorically. I mean actually losing track of time. I'll sit down somewhere for an espresso and realize I've been there much longer than I thought. I'll start walking with somewhere vaguely in mind and stop caring how long it takes me to get there. I'll sit down for dinner and, at some point, realize I haven't checked my phone in an hour. Nothing particularly extraordinary is happening. That's the part I love.

I'm not standing in front of the Colosseum having a life-changing revelation. I'm probably sitting at a table. Or walking down a street. Or drinking a glass of wine. I'm just so completely involved in an otherwise ordinary moment that I've stopped thinking about the one that comes after it. I don't experience that feeling nearly enough at home.

At home, I am constantly thinking about what's next. I like plans. I like calendars. I like knowing what's coming. If I suddenly discover that I have a completely empty afternoon, my first instinct isn't always to enjoy it. It's to figure out what I can put there. There is always something that could be done. Another email. Another errand. Another idea. Another plan. Another thing I could work on now to make life easier later.

The problem with constantly preparing for later is that eventually you have to ask yourself when you're actually going to live in now. I don't have a particularly good answer to that.

I also don't think Italy has some magical cure for an overactive brain. Italians aren't wandering around all day drinking wine and admiring sunsets while the rest of us answer emails. They have jobs and deadlines and families and stress and alarms going off in the morning just like everyone else.

Italy doesn't change. I do. I give myself permission to sit. I don't feel guilty when lunch takes a long time. I walk somewhere instead of figuring out the fastest way to get there. I order another glass of wine because I'm enjoying the conversation, not because another drink was part of the plan. And eventually I stop thinking about time altogether.

Maybe you have a place that does that to you, too. Maybe it's not even somewhere far away. Maybe it's your family's lake house. A beach you've been visiting since you were a kid. Your grandmother's kitchen. A trail where your phone doesn't have service. Your backyard on one of those first warm evenings of spring when you suddenly realize the sun hasn't gone down yet.

Maybe it's not a place at all. Maybe it's cooking. Running. Gardening. Sitting around a table with people you love and realizing nobody has looked at their phone for a while.

I think we all have moments when the noise gets quieter.

The problem is that they're usually happening while we're busy looking for the big moments.

Travel has taught me that the experiences I remember most aren't always the ones I spent months planning. Of course I remember seeing incredible places. I remember beautiful hotels and amazing meals and things I crossed oceans specifically to experience.

But some of the memories I return to most often would sound incredibly boring if I put them on an itinerary. Sitting somewhere. Walking somewhere. Talking to someone. Eating something. Being nowhere other than exactly where I was.

In a little over two weeks, my mom and I will travel through Bologna, Parma and Rome. I have trains booked, restaurants saved, and things I absolutely want us to experience. I'm a travel advisor and a chronic planner. I'm not suddenly going to become someone who lands in another country with absolutely no idea what he's doing. But I don't want to plan every moment. I want to leave enough empty space for us to forget what time it is.

I want a lunch that goes longer than expected because nobody feels like leaving. I want to walk down a street because something looked interesting from the corner. I want to order another glass of wine because we're comfortable and the conversation isn't finished. And maybe that's actually what I keep going back to Italy for.

Of course I'll keep going back for the pasta, the wine, and the beautiful cities. But underneath all of that, I think I'm chasing something much simpler: the feeling of being somewhere without already thinking about where I need to be next.

Because I spend enough of my life thinking about the next thing. I don't want to look back someday and realize I was so busy thinking about what came next that I missed what was happening right in front of me.