US Loneliness

Almost everything that you would think would still be with me about my month long 2014 Summer trip to Italy has more or less faded. Not in a bad way, as though I want to say I've forgotten it or I no longer cherish the memories, or even purposely lost them, but rather to say that it has moved into a comfortable place, where though the memories are joyous, they are not, as very good memories can sometimes be, "painful".

I do not, for example, think about when I saw the Leaning Tower of Pisa and wish, regularly, that I could see it again. I do not think this about the Roman Colisseum or the little town of Vinci either (which was where Leonardo DaVinci was born). I do not sit around dreaming regularly of Tuscany wishing and thinking that, if only I could be in Tuscany in specific again, speaking Italian and singing my Fabrizio DeAndre and Francesco Guccini songs , that all would be well in my life, and I would be happy.

Yes , naturally, those things come back to me from time to time and I wish, for a few moments, that I could go see the town of Vinci yet  again, or perhaps take a closer look at Rome , or Florence, or Pisa....or Bologna (yes Im proud to say I saw all of them and more in just a mere months time) but for the most part, as I stress, none of that really haunts me. I don't dwell on those things and lose my mind. I don't walk outside my home here in the northeast USA and wish that I was in the ancient Old world, in quite that sense.

My friends of course here, if they saw what I was writing, would tell you I was a liar for all of what I've just written. My cousin too, of whom I've often spoken to of Italy and my splendid avventura there, would tell you I was perhaps a liar. They would tell you that Italy is where I long to be and have been longing to be for some time now. Etc. In fact, even myself, until about a year ago, would have perhaps told you the same thing . I would have told you that any day in the old world for me would be infinitely better than a day here in the new.

But then something happened, you see, after enough time passed between me and my unusually splendid trip to that country: I realized, once and for all, what I really missed most of all from it, after all the time now had passed. I looked over my diary entries and my writings and I realized that one thing and one thing alone from my Italian esperienza seemed to come up time and time again, and like I said, it was none of the stuff you'd think it'd be. Most of that stuff, I simply can't stress enough, has passed away almost in a similar manner as to how the "artificial memories" of a place like Disney World pass away, or maybe even an airport. It's exciting while you're there, but once you're out you're usually relieved. Most of my memories are like that. I don't obsess over them. I don't constantly revisit them. Except of course for one.

Which is it before I drive you loony holding off? It's simple really, and at first, especially if you're an American , you might not get it  : it's The piazza.

Yes, the piazza, the generic piazza that is, in fact, a part of literally every Italian town or city from north to south, is what I miss the most, and I don't miss it - again- for any really "specifically" Italian reason. I don't miss it for the Duomo that is often in an Italian piazza. I don't miss it for the architecture. I don't miss it for the cathedrals or the old Roman style statues from 1-2,000 years ago or the Etruscan ruins or , in Florence's piazza at least, the golden doors that Michelangelo Buonarotti sculpted in the Renaissance. I don't miss it for any of that stuff because all that stuff was really, you know, just stage design.

No, what I miss it for is the way I saw that literally every night, weekend or weeknight, hot or cold, rain or shine, people congregated, essentially  en masse, in this place. And what was particularly shocking was how most of them really seemed to have no money either. Which is to say that they basically just took a stroll down to la piazza on Wednesday night, or Wednesday afternoon, and sat around there for a few hours, without spending money, or buying anything beyond maybe a Coca Cola, just merely socializing with other people. No one seemed to have any purpose or specific reason to be there. They didn't leave the house with an elaborate plan and pockets full of dollars (or euros). For them it was probably , like, a relatively subdued night. "We're just going to hang in the piazza tonight. Nothing special." Middle aged people, the elderly, young kids, parents with strollers, beautiful women in  dresses, people who were getting drunk, cigarette smokers, people who sometimes shouted things, everyone was at the piazza. It was fairly populated every night until at least 11 pm. People brought instruments. People brought animals. And then they just sort of took seats in random places--- like on the sides of walls, for instance --- and began talking. Many simply just stood around in the middle of the piazza, not at all attached to anything in particular, chatting.

Now It might sound ridiculous to some people but, coming from a working class American town with a population that actually outnumbers the Italian town with the piazza I got to know best, I have got to tell you: prior to arriving there and seeing the way that piazza came to life night after night, week after week, my eyes had never seen anything even remotely like this at work, anywhere in my own working class town., I had never seen people socialize in the manner they did, so freely, in that Italian piazza. In fact, I'll tell you the Gods honest truth: I met more people, especially old people, and talked to them, in that Italian town, in a mere months time, than I ever did in this working class American town, in my entire life. I met them just walking down the road, or sitting on a bench, or hanging around in some corner. Old people in my small town here seem , to some degree, to actually be non existent. You simply don't often see someone above 70 sitting somewhere, or out at night. In the piazza of course, they sometimes popped up. Frequently, in fact. I'd be strolling back to my buddy's house around 12 , and id pass 70 year old people in the street, also walking home --- or, yes, even just about to enter into the piazza.....

What was going on here?

I had never seen anything like this in my life here in the USA. I had never seen people do this.

Well, actually, maybe I shouldn't go that far, because I did see them do it sometimes, but only, you know, on designated days. Like, say, a carnival that comes around to the church here for one week once a summer, or the festival that happens in early September on the green to celebrate the fall. I saw this sort of socialization at work then here in my blue collar American town, and for many years I loved that, and like everyone else here , I cherished those few special socializing weeks of the year. I'd get very excited when those days would come up. Especially I remember, as a child. But I never saw what I saw in the Italian piazza take part in this town that has an actual higher number of people living in it happen on just a regular old day, or more importantly , a regular summer night. I never saw anyone here - besides children and teenagers who are regularly harassed by police officers -- congregate anywhere just to sit around and talk for as long as they wanted. I never saw big groups of old regular men or women - not drunks, not drug addicts, not "hobos" to be ripped away by American cops -- just, like, sitting somewhere outside , at 11 PM at night, talking, like I did nearly every night, the moment I wanted to, in Italy. I never saw anyone over 18 years old  in this town say "we should take a walk down the road and just, like, sit somewhere and maybe have a few glasses of wine or coffee.... " (In fact, drinking alcohol outside in the United States , I came to learn not long after my trip, is actually illegal. ... )

Now Yes I'll tell you again : I've seen children and teenagers do this strange outdoor socializing and walking around thing, I've seen people in massive cities do it, and of course people who have no cars do it (ashamedly and unwillingly) but I've never seen the regular americans in these working towns doing this. Regular Americans in working class towns, in fact, almost seem to have, in a certain sense, forgotten how to walk or use their legs. They've forgotten it to such a degree that it seems walking here , or parking the car and then just sitting out front of somewhere talking to someone,  is almosr  , as I'm saying, something one ought to be ashamed of rather than proud of. It's also something that, in this particular town im in and I'm sure in many others too, only certain people ought to do. Especially at night.

 In fact, walking along the roads  in a working class American town is so unthinkable from a certain angle that I literally can't even imagine seeing my mother, my sister, or my grandmother taking a walk  for no real reason, or even perhaps for a reason. In the first place, I can't imagine where they would even go, since there Is essentially no where where you can ultimately take a seat, unless you'll be paying. In the second place, I can't imagine who they would possibly have a chance to see. Remember: No one is out there. Next to no one  at all. You see faces sticking up behind steering wheels in cars. They beep at you. They might shout at you. But beyond that there is no one. An Italian would perhaps be inclined to think no one even lives here at all.

In fact, when I first arrived back from Italy, I almost experienced a sort of "jet lag" shock when I just sort of kept walking out of the front door of the house and off the lawn onto the street  , as I had been there, only to quickly realize all over again, as I certainly did towards the end of my youth,  that the only people you generally meet on foot here are drunks, hobos, some young kids, and drug addicts.

 I forgot, for example,  that if I want to take a nice long walk on a Wednesday night past 10 PM that I better be ready to have a police cruiser slow down and ask me exactly what I'm doing and where I'm going, since no one else besides me would probably be walking.  I forgot indeed that i probably just won't see anyone or anything at all interesting as I'm walking in this American town, except cars and cars and more cars. I forgot , you see, that there's really not even anywhere around here where I can just go sit , or stand, and eventually hope to see other people. I forgot that there's no where at all you can legally hang out at in an American town, unless of course you're buying something, and ten you have to get in your car and speedily depart the moment said thing has been bought. I forgot, you see, that though this country indeed has so many things, it actually doesn't seem to have this one vrry, very exceedingly simple thing called a piazza. It's just, literally, no where to be found. It does not exist.

When America was created, in fact, one could almosr say she was purposely created(mostly by those Englishmen of course) withput a piazza. And of course , to me now, after how much joy I received hanging around in the little Italian piazzas at night, all for literally  not one cent of money,  I have got to tell you: a country , or a town rather, without a piazza , is almost beginning to look very much like a place without a spine. It's like a place that just has no real character. How can it, after all, when there's no where to actually meet the characters who live in the town?

Of course, before I go any further and maybe accidentally offend some fellow American, Let me make it all very clear that, just like any other American, I lived 24 years of my life here in this working town and I never really thought too deeply, if at all, about what I now see as the extreme lack and impossibility of socialization here. I basically just thought what many people are probably thinking as they read this: if you want to socialize so badly, why don't you move to a city? Why would you stay in a town? It's thus to say that I looked at my town here and I just thought it was naturally tranquil, without the possibility to have walkers, or any real, solid congregation spot. I thought it was simply too small to have that sort of scene. I assumed also that the thousands of people who were around just weren't interested in it.....

All of this, of course, quickly faded away the moment I saw how the piazza functioned after landing in the old country, because as I wrote before, the main  town I was in over there actually had  less people in it than here. It was also, for the most part, just as spread out  too, from certain angles . For instance, when I left my Italian friends house at night, to go wander over to the piazza, I usually had about a 15-20 minute walk ahead of me. This is exactly the same amount of time it would take me and most walkers here to reach the "heart" of my town. There is no difference. Im not in some deeply wide spread American town. I'm in a pretty populated one, and the houses and apartments  are all very close together. In fact, for the people in the apartments on my main road in this town (of which there are many , and they're all packed with people) it would take all of 5 minutes to get to the heart of this towns center, to congregate as one and socialize.

 It was then that I realized, especially recently, that the main reason my town does not have this sort of scene is simply because this sort of scene actually is not even allowed here. It was a sort of epiphany really, as ridiculous as it sounds, that I had one evening: "'my god, this could all easily be arranged to be just as it was in Italy, it could easily be just as social and pleasurable, but they just won't let it happen...."

That's the trick of it actually and the big shocking detail that it took me some time to comprehend: Not only has a proper congregation spot never Been built here, but the ones that people actually try to unofficially erect , I now see, are getting squashed, repeatedly. And the reason why is so sad but so very American all at once: All of the places in my town here that actually do seem like they have the potential to become the natural piazza of the town-- guess what? They're all corporately owned pieces of property. They ain't , as they say, "of the people".

Take, for example, the Dunkin Donuts which is connected to a little convenience store , and just a little distance from a liquor store, on the Main Street of my working town here. Thousands upon thousands of people live within walking distance of this Dunkin Donuts, myself included, and some of them, you'll see, seem to have the quite natural desire to congregate at this Dunkin Donuts and hang around for awhile. They're people of all ages. All they want to do is talk. And they  do not even themselves realize it, perhaps, but what they're doing each time they occasionally congregate at this corporate   coffee shop is they are sort of putting together the initial layers of a piazza . They're doing what people are prone to do. They're doing what people , In my opinion, are meant to do. The problem of course is that, since that piece of property is corporate owned, they are only able to go so far. They're only able to feel so free. And , of course, if too many people wind up there at any given time, no matter their age, the cops are going to come, and they're going to ask you to leave. In other words, the beginning foundations of the piazza, as far as I see it, keep getting knocked down almost continuously, over and over. It's only allowed to breathe so much. What has thus wound up being the case is that only a specific crowd of people , it seems to me, have the "right" to sit there. They are generally middle aged family men. Younger faces are usually ripped out of that Dunkin Donuts area faster than you can imagine. I myself have been chased out of it , both on foot and in my car, by unusually angry police officers. And each time I was chased out, I was usually just drinking coffee with two other guys discussing the weather.

So then, the reader might wonder, what happens next? Where do all the others go from there? Isn't there, perhaps, another place in your working town where they can go, to congregate? Beyond this one Dunkin Donuts? Well, the truth is no, there isn't. There is actually no where else in this part of town (the main part) as naturally and as comfortably accessible as this one place, where anyone could possibly hope to sit and talk without having the police called on them. For example, around the corner from the Dunkin Donuts,  there exists a massive grocery store parking lot , which is actually a *plaza* also filled with a pizzeria, another liquor store, a Post Office, and a tanning salon--- but that plaza is also, of course, corporately owned, and besides the pizzeria, which has no outside seating, there is no sense at all that it would be OK to take a seat anywhere around there and simply hang out and talk.

 Directly across the street from the massive grocery store parking lot there also exists a massive , and yes, public, town green, which Americans might think is worth something like a piaZza is, but guess what? The public town green has never had any life to it at all, and is in fact somewhat terrifying once the sun has fallen, since there exists literally nothing at all around it, except houses, a huge graveyard, and a Church ive never seen anyone go near or in. The only time that town green comes to life is for one sliver of a week in September during that fall festival I told you about before. Other than that, the only thing you can really expect to find on it is nothing but peace and quiet and perhaps, as I occasionally did years ago, a good place to sneak a quick marijuana session in, since no one is ever there. This is of course exactly what we do not want, because what we want is a place where life can breathe. A place where the literally thousands upon thousands of people who live within walking distance of these places can actually walk out of their front door and hope to see other people congregating somewhere.....

So, the reader might now wonder, how exactly can we get this? How can we naturally take  back our own town here and make it so that we can have a place , a place for all people,  to just simply chat and relax , get to know each other and talk--- without fear of the police officers getting called to come and "remove" us?

Well, after all this writing, I hate to tell you.....but I just might have to save it for next time .....

---- END / early summer 2017 notes