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BOOKS
Marriage problems? Try moving to Italy. It works.
Tim and Susan Pohlman’s marriage was not going well. Love had turned into seething resentment and competition over who worked harder and was appreciated less.
Every little comment was a perceived slight; every moment spent together felt like clocking in at a job you didn’t much like. They were headed for divorce, a fact made all the worse when Susan contemplated how that would affect their two children, Katie — a 15-year old — and Matt, who was 11.
So, they did what was only natural: uproot the family from their upper-middle-class life in Los Angeles and relocate to Luguria, a stretch of beautiful coastal land in the north-west part of Italy.
For the hyper-organized and competent couple, it was a decision that surprised and vaguely terrified them. But they were adamant. Life in Los Angeles with its intense professional competition, obsession with appearance and endless supply of distraction wasn’t working.
Maybe this would.
“Halfway to Each Other: How a year in Italy brought our family home” recounts the year the Pohlmans spent in Italy. It’s part travelogue, part family drama and part journal.
Pohlman has a natural voice in her writing, and the book rarely feels stiff. She manages to weave colorful characters in and out of her short chapters and paces her story with a good rhythm.
It also helps that she has such winning source material. A very tall, blond family wearing shorts and Nike shirts couldn’t be more out of place in Italy, where everyone around the Pohlmans was a foot shorter and impeccably dressed.
The peculiarities to a visitor of any foreign country always entertain and exasperate in equal parts. Take for example the way Italians board trains and buses. There is no such thing as a line, rather clumps of ragazzi battle with clumps of octogenarian women to see who can force his or her way onto the bus first.
Elbows are swung. Feet are stomped. The delicate sensibilities of tourists are often bruised. But for the Italians boarding the bus, it’s just business as usual.
Living as strangers in a strange land brings the family together in ways they never thought imaginable. It’s only natural that you get to know your sibling better when you have to spend hours with her waiting for buses or entertaining each other with card playing.
It’s only natural that these same siblings would feel removed from each other when they could retreat to their separate wings in a suburban American home to play video games or watch TV.
It works this way for Susan and Tim as well. Forced to spend lots of time together with no planned activities — no business dinners, no carpool scheduling — they begin to rediscover each other. It’s the kind of growth that takes time and is not without its fits and starts.
They relapse throughout their year in Italy into bad habits of nagging and arguing for sport. Please, please don’t argue about where to put the soap in the shower, you find yourself pleading with them while reading the book. Please, please don’t assume every comment is loaded with seven layers of subtext.
But they work through these moments, and the reader begins to root for this family. Let’s be honest, it’s a little difficult — especially in this economic climate — to feel too sorry for a family who is well-off enough to put everything on hold and move to Italy for a year.
In a way, though, their situation makes a larger point. They were able to move to Italy because they had lived a hyped-up version of what Pohlman describes as the American dream. Tim worked endless hours to pay for their large home and cars, designer clothes and comfort.
The families they met in Italy were completely different. Large and loud, crammed into apartments and strolling with each other on Sunday afternoons, it became clear to Susan and Tim that changing their priorities was not only possible, but maybe it was pivotal for saving their family.
Yes, the buses in Italy were late, packed and windows permanently shut even on the hottest day. Yes, it took forever to move from butcher to baker to greengrocer to buy ingredients for dinner. Yes, it was often inconvenient.
But the benefits were vast and difficult to express. Pohlman was surprised at her pleased reaction to having to leave the house if she wanted an ice cream, instead of buying it in bulk from the grocery store. Or how everyone popped into a café for a quick espresso instead of driving through somewhere on the way to work.
It’s sometimes difficult to express these realizations because they often have an air of pretension to them or fantasy. What’s key is to realize that the perceived inconsistencies and inconveniences of foreign living do go a long way in reforming priorities. But they’re not a cure all.
Pohlman walks this thin line well in her book. She was able to remain open during her sojourn and became a different person because of it. At the same time, she was able — with her husband — to take their stronger marriage and family back to America when it was time to come home.
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“Halfway to Each Other: How a year in Italy brought our family home,” by Susan Pohlman (Guideposts, 2009). $16.96. Available at www.shopguideposts.com
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