On the Places We Call Home
Reflections on belonging and identity in two countries
When my childhood best friend told me he had just gotten engaged, it was October, we were drinking, and the old town centre still sweltered with an unusual summery heat.
He recounted the proposal, which involved sending the slightly reluctant fiancée on a treasure hunt to all the significant places in our hometown - where affections were first revealed and exchanged, where a communion of interests blossomed… where their cat hid for hours on end, unleashing chaos in all the WhatsApp groups.
Places, as much as anecdotes, were taking centre stage in the story of how two people pick each other as partners for life.
I have spent a lot of time thinking about how we pick these places.
My Italian hometown, Cremona, has a number of things it can be proud of. Most of my adult expat life I have been answering a variation of the same question: “Where exactly in Italy is your hometown?”. I normally indicate its proximity to Milan but, if prompted, I will gladly illustrate its history as the home of the most famous violin-makers in the world (Antonio Stradivari might ring a bell? If not, please indulge in that wonderful rabbit hole1). Which often prompts the question, “Do you play the violin?”, and then I have to mutter some excuses and make an apologising face. “No, I do not play the violin”. My parents used to live in a flat in the town centre and their neighbour’s daughter would spend several hours per week attempting to learn the violin… I believe they can still sometimes hear the offbeat screeches at night.
Another thing that Cremona can be proud of is the aforementioned medieval town centre. The main square hosts the 12th century cathedral with the Torrazzo, a bell tower measuring 112 metres (369 ft) in height that is the iconic symbol of the town. There is a rude rhyme that lists other Cremona sights that begin with a “T” but we shall not get into that here, other than saying that nougat (”torrone”, in Italian) also features2. In front of the cathedral we find the town hall, also an old structure from the 13th century, a majestic sight for the fans of exposed brick. And thus the religious power and the administrative power have been staring at each other in the face for a good 800 years - the jury for this particular contest is still out, if Italian customs are anything to go by.
Despite its illustrious history as a commercial and political centre during the Middle Ages and early Renaissance, Cremona today is a small/medium sized town of around 70,000 inhabitants with socio-economic statistics placed in the solid average of most scales, with the exclusion of air pollution, where it scores quite highly. It’s small enough to feel cosy, and big enough to find pretty much everything you need to cover the basics. You can potentially find a job, you can potentially rent a place, you can potentially discover new hobbies, and you can potentially find communities to be part of. Some of us are content with its potential, and some of us are terrified of the fact that is merely potential, and one that we are not even sure about. I have always considered myself to be a follower of the terrified group, which has shaped some major life decisions such as moving to the UK for university and subsequently to London for work, with a couple of intermissions living in France and in the United States.
The curse of cosy
A few months back, I was in Cremona for the Easter holidays and one of my London friends decided to visit. “It’s so cosy here,” he said as he took in the sleepy atmosphere of a Tuesday night in the medieval square, sipping on a €5 Aperol spritz, punctuating his observations with “London is so expensive!” and “Do the nibbles actually come for free?!”. Yes, the nibbles come for free, as they should. Londoners take note!
Many other things come for free in Cremona. Existential dread, for example.
You might think, everything you’ve described so far sounds perfectly splendid - what’s so existential about the €5 Aperol spritz? I’ll have one of those with the free nibbles too, please.
OR, you might be a member of my tribe and begin to see all sorts of hidden pitfalls, thinking loops, and matters of identity emerge left, right and centre. If I stay, will I ever leave? If I leave, will I ever move back? Will I lose myself, or discover a new dimension, a new way of being?
Many people do not get the privilege of choosing a place to live or move to, but for those of us who can, or in some cases are forced to by external circumstances, place becomes a very meaningful question.
If I had listened to my existential dread when I was 18 years old and packing to leave for university, I would probably still be in Cremona on a permanent basis. Nothing wrong with that. After all, it is so cosy here! Instead, I decided to go, not just to a bigger city, but to a foreign country. I had a plan.
Go slay some dragons
Living abroad was always meant to be temporary. It wasn’t my “real” life! I was on an adventure, on the way to slay some metaphorical dragons, find the treasure, and return triumphantly as the hero at the end of their journey. I headed off to Shakespeare’s home county to attend the University of Warwick, having spent the summer coaching my Cremona friends on how to pronounce it properly3.
The fact is, I did change, a lot more than I imagined. I discovered parts of myself I had no idea existed, in a truly cheesy fashion. I would come back to Cremona to visit family and friends during term breaks, and it all felt very glamorous at first. It did not last long. I was homesick for most of my first and second years at university, but refused to rethink my choices. Looking back, I could have, and maybe it would have been a good idea to do so. Instead, I persisted, and I began to notice other things.
As I changed, what was familiar became less so, and even the feeling of homesickness evolved. It wasn’t Cremona I was missing. It was home, the concept of it, that caused a tightness in my chest. I was not prepared to detach home from place, and that place was still Cremona, even as it felt less and less like home.
After university, I moved a little further south to London, as most of my peers did. Once again, the job was meant to be temporary, another adventure in the search for something greater and more permanent, in a hypothetical future where I would swagger into any Italian workplace with my big-city experience among loud cheers. Five years later, it turns out that I don’t particularly want to swagger into any workplace, especially if it looks like a corporate office. Another unexpected evolution is that London has, at times, felt like a place worthy to be called “home”. The problem is that this feeling cannot always be relied upon. Much like some alluring but elusive dating prospect, it is emotionally unavailable.
For better or worse, I don’t give up on romance so easily, and thus I embarked on another quest.
Full English breakfast
On a wet September morning, I am sitting in a highly secure assessment centre somewhere in Stratford, East London. They check my ears for microphones and put all my belongings in a locker. I open up the test on the screen, and the first question is about what Margaret Thatcher is famous for. I chuckle a little too loudly before realising it is a bad idea. It’s all good, I don’t get kicked out and I successfully pass the Life in the UK test. I am now one step closer to becoming a British citizen!
The funny thing about the Life in the UK test, and many of its equivalents in other countries, is that the average native might actually struggle to pass it without doing some semi-serious studying first. You can buy a handy booklet and download an app to practise mock questions, which very much feels like trying to pass the driving test. The upside is that I had plenty of time to mull over some thoughts on, you guessed it, home and identity. The highly bureaucratic nature of the path to citizenship does not lend itself to philosophical musings - most of the people that I know who went through the process did so for equally bureaucratic reasons: “They can’t kick me out anymore”, “The passport”, and also the more compelling “They’ve got nukes!”.
The nukes are hard to argue with. I, however, tend to dwell more on the implications of having the “full English breakfast” become my new national dish, and on the part where I get to affirm my allegiance, saying things like “I do solemnly, sincerely and truly declare”, and “I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty”.
Aside from this little Game of Thrones moment, the core question remains: will British citizenship make the London “place” more of a “home”? Or is home now an even more abstract concept, hovering somewhere between Cremona and London, in a dimension of its own, straddling a duality that is my responsibility to reconcile?
October weddings
Once again, it is October in Cremona, and the friend who got engaged last October is getting married.
The church is still empty when I arrive. The choir is setting up and doing a few last minute rehearsals. Two chairs adorned with flowers sit at the end of the central aisle, facing the altar. I am not religious, at least not in the Catholic way, but the sight of the chairs really hits me. By the end of the ceremony, I have become dangerously emotional at least three times.
The congregation where vows were uttered softly turns into a boisterous party by the time we reach the wedding venue. “This is Italian wedding,” declares one of my friends in English, mocking my observation that this is the first Italian wedding I attend as an adult. Indeed we proceed to eat and drink for ten hours straight, with more speeches, cake cuttings, party games and dancing scattered in between.
In a truly Cremona fashion, the fun is interspersed by moments of alcohol-induced existential dread. Cremona plays unfairly tonight. This kind of emotional build up can only be achieved over decades of personal history, and London is still too much of a beginner in comparison. Despite this, I sense that roles have been reversed - London feels like the “real” life, and Cremona is the adventure.
I have learnt that it is a privilege to live through a range of human experiences spread across different places, with different understandings of what “home” is. It’s also a trade off. Two places can never converge into one, just like two people can never melt into one another.
They can, however, radically accept one another. And thus I must change the name of the game. It’s not about reconciliation, it’s about acceptance. Cremona will provide a spoonful of existential dread, London will serve the full English, and all I can do is look for the shiny bits, the ones that catch the light in all the right ways.
The wedding party is coming to a close. It’s October, we are drinking, and Cremona just about clinches the “home” contest for tonight.
By popular demand, I will include a reference for this: https://www.mindthetrip.it/2016/11/04/cremona-touroon-turas-tetass/. It is in Italian but I am sure Google Translate will be able to assist. The name of the website is “Mind the Trip” with a logo that clearly references the London underground, which I find hilarious considering what this essay is about.
For non-UK people, this will be terribly counter-intuitive, but the “w” in the middle is silent.
As someone who isn't sure where 'home' is anymore, I love this piece
"London feels like the “real” life, and Cremona is the adventure." -- this idea really has me thinking about what I see or don't in my home (Oakland). I have so much passion for my space but am equals parts being displaced and pushed by the changes it is taking on. And at the end of the day Sly Stone style, "where I put my hat is my home" is an ethos I subscribe to. It is a privilege to go anywhere, to be anywhere. Thanks so much for your essay!