Musings

Sometimes I wonder whether I'm in the right place. If what I'm doing is right. If I can actually finish what I have started (and chased for so long).
I came here for the first time in 1998, for summer school, and I elected California as the very first place I would visit/live in in the United States. There is a reason for that, it wasn't random. My first city was San Francisco, where I stayed for 4 weeks. I never had such a cold summer in the northern hemisphere; every morning at 7 I'd go out and hop on the bus wrapped up in the fog and a very thick sweater. But it was ok, it was only for 4 weeks, I could bear with it. That very first time I also visited Las Vegas, for a brief, 3-day Independence day celebration. Up to now, no fireworks can beat the ones I saw in Vegas that night, or maybe it's not just the fireworks, but the situation in itself: the people I was with, the music (I still have that tape, and just listening to it brings me back to that night), the weather...
Then I picked Los Angeles, in 2001. I love big cities just as much as I love small towns and villages. In big cities you can truly experience everything they have to offer, from museums, concerts, sport games, opera and everything in between, even though it is quite hard to get to know your neighbors... Again, the time was limited, I was an exchange student, so I knew that my presence depended on the extension of the academic year, September to June. Apart from the initial feelings of displacement and the cultural clash, I think I survived pretty well.
After that, my presence in the US was not bound to school anymore, but to something else. My being in Northridge, Walnut, and now Riverside was an effort to be close to the area, not necessarily an effort to be in the US.
Now that reason is not there anymore. And I am still here. Do I like it? Sure, some days more, some days less. Can I have a decent life here? Sure, I am somehow independent. Do I have friends? I certainly do. Do I like what I am doing? Yes, again, I most certainly do.
Do I feel at home? No. I don't feel at home, as much as I don't truly feel at home when I go back for the summer. I feel that my only true home is in an airport, on a plane, but in none of the two countries. When I am here I miss my life there, my family, my dog, my friends, my food, my room, the familiarity of the place I grew up in, knowing the streets of my town like the back of my hands, riding the bicycle on Saturday afternoon in the town center, window shopping and mingling with the crowd, being a citizen and having some basic rights and knowing how to handle situations properly. When I am there I miss my life here, my friends, the large roads, my apartment, decent hamburgers, granola, my unimportant TV series, being able to speak the language, sushi, the academic environment, the ocean, the openness of the sky (I always had the feeling that there's more sky here than in Italy), the breathtaking sunsets, the bead shops.
Probably it's because the holidays are approaching, and I feel this displacement even more. The holidays are a family moment, the traditions of decorating the tree, decorating the windows and the balcony with lights, candles, grandma making pasta in a cloud of flour and familiar smells and voices.
What am I doing here? Now that my main purpose for being here has faded, why can't I go home?
But would I be able to give up all of this? It took years to get where I am now, in a graduate program, doing things I like (teaching) and studying what I like to study. Probably giving this up would be even more unbearable than missing home.
I'd feel like I were giving up my life.