Americanness, Part 2...trade-offs

Some thoughts have been rolling around in my mind.

A few of the differences between Italy and America...

there are a planetful, these are simply representative, the tip of the iceberg...

Italy: low wages (1000 Euro a month average for an office job), great food, long lunch breaks; extended families, predictable work hours, no social mobility; young adults trapped by the economy into living at home well into their 30s, late marriages and the lowest birth rate in Europe; endless laws and regulations, spurning of same, admiration of being 'furbo'...the ability to be (from the American point-of-view) sneaky and devious in order to get around burdensome laws. Italy is an ask-permission society. A throwing up of the hands, a shrug of the shoulders, a grudging acceptance of the status quo.

America: high wages, average food (from the point-of-view of an American living in Italy who now appreciates fresh unadulterated food), 15 minute lunches at your desk; dispersed families, 60-hour-workweeks in corporate America, the-sky-is-the-limit social mobility; young adults expected to leave home by their early 20s, four years of college and you're out; marriage after college, growing families; a nation of laws...we are taught, brainwashed, not to litter, not to park in no-parking spots, blah blah blah...we have police who enforce our laws. America is a do-it-and-ask-forgiveness-later society. Seeing something that is not right, taking action to change it. Finding injustice, taking action to change it.

Our Italian friends always ask, 'Which is better, America or Italy? Italy, true?' I have always answered 'not better, only different'. But, all-in-all, I have to say that my native's appreciation of America, the United States, has reasserted itself in the two years I have lived in Italy. We in the States have many seemingly insurmountable problems...immigration, lack of universal health care, safety of our Ports, aging infrastructure, a debtor society, cultural decline, damaged standing in the world community thanks to GW...the list if long. However, and this is huge, our system works, its slow, but it works. We have mechanisms to solve problems and historically have always done so. A modern democracy is cumbersome, and may grind to a halt at times, but it corrects itself and gets going again.

So, despite the flaws, despite my frustrations over the choices my fellow Americans have at times made, I cast my vote unashamedly, unabashedly, positively, without hestitation for America. Am I naive? I don't think so. Am I being unfashionable? I don't care. There seems to be a lack of hope for the future in Italy. I still think that Americans have hope for their futures. I came here thinking that I would find answers in 'Old Europe', and I think that I have.

We spent an incredible day yesterday showing new American friends the city of Verona. Beautiful weather, a 'ten best' day, sitting on an historic bridge by a castle, a real musician with an accordian playing a mix of American standards and old Italian songs nearby...it doesn't get any better than that. But this is not my country, this is an experience in my life. I will enjoy it to the fullest, I will always have these memories, but someday...maybe three or four or five years from now... I will go home. Someday I'll be ninety (I hope) with no regrets.