I’ve just spent a highly sociable fortnight in Italy, part-business, mostly great pleasure. I’m writing this on the diesel two-carriage train from Siena to Empoli, and then on the air-conditioned electric train from Empoli to Pisa, and then on the flight to London, on my little laptop, that gives me more satisfaction than a non-vibrating machine should. The wonders of wireless broadband haven’t quite manifested everywhere they could yet, but are enough to save the day in getting these words to hotpress, just in time from the baggage reclaim in Stansted airport.

I’m heading home to my flat and my fish tank and my cats, and I know now I’ve spent more than enough of my life there. Too much time on my own, navel-gazing, fretting about academic stuff and sex and men and the meaning of life. It’s time for a change. I’m not talking romance or partnership – that’s increasingly off my agenda, because it’s apparent nothing I do or say will make the slightest bit of difference as to whether someone interesting and kind comes along and stays. I’m thinking along the lines of the other antidote to isolation – communal living.
I mean working towards a way of life that is more connected with others, more social. Increasingly, more and more people are living on their own – in Britain, it’s nearly a third of the entire population of adults. As we move away from the traditional social units that involve maternalistic extended families, or cradle-to-grave paternalistic structures such as rural fiefdoms or big companies offering jobs for life with pensions and retirement homes, we in the West spend increasing amounts of time on our own. We have not yet acknowledged the implications of this in popular culture or in social policy, nor have we come up with solutions to the problems it can generate.
There is nothing inherently bad about living on one’s own. Periods of isolation are important in anyone’s life, for it’s then we discover our strengths – what keeps us going when left to our own devices, when it’s not about pleasing anyone else, or even caring about anyone else. It can be an enormously educational and creative time, often in spite of ourselves, if we’ve got an addictive or self-destructive streak. It’s total freedom, and if we give ourselves enough rope we can, if only metaphorically, hang ourselves.
Living a single life is a step that many of us take, voluntarily or not. And surviving it is satisfying, in the end.
Moving to a big city involves an initial anonymity, a re-invention of one’s personality, defining oneself on one’s own terms and not by what people expect of you, and finding out if it’s possible to achieve one’s dreams. Most gay and lesbian people need to do this, at least once, to meet a critical mass of people of one’s own kind, to find ways of living that suit us. But of course it’s not just us – it’s anyone who wants to stretch, change, or grow away from their roots. Anyone who dreams of specialness, of recognition, of fame, will find themselves in a big city to test themselves, to prove themselves. It’s a haven for narcissists, for only in the city can we fool ourselves into thinking we’re unique.
To choose to go to the country after living in the city is often called downsizing, which is a misnomer. There is nothing small about country living, at least the little bit of Italian countryside with the mixture of Irish/Italian/English/American/ Canadian people that I’ve got to know and love. It is highly challenging, but in a different way. In choosing to live in a small rural community, there is little or no emphasis on fame, fortune or success – but you do have to be an expert in relationships, a master of the subtleties and intricacies of living intimately and being known. Not as how you’d like to be seen, at the best restaurants and in the latest fashions, but as you really are, warts and all. This is what frightens the narcissists – for people have no time for illusions in the country. Daily contact with the same people in the same few villages can drive you nuts, and one may be forced to retreat back to invisibility, to opaque urban living. But it can be the sanest, fullest way of passing the time. Which would have passed anyway, as the man said.
Country living is about telling and listening to stories about your own life and that of everyone else you know. It’s what takes up everyone’s time, it’s what links people to each other. The currency is information. TV soaps pale in comparison, becoming deathly dull – for truth is consistently stranger than fiction, if you listen – really listen – to real lives unfolding, in all their gothic horror and weirdness and sadness and surprise and generosity and wit and wisdom.
In the rural area I visit, I find that there is little or no judgmentalism – but nothing can be kept secret. One lives transparently, knowing everything about everyone else, and accepting that everyone else knows everything about you. I know where the bodies are buried, literally, which priest is sleeping with which nun. I know who’s dying, who’s trying not to die, and whose relatives are in psychiatric hospitals. I know that the village cinema owner got sacked for having his hand in the till in his last job, and I’ve taken part in heated discussions about the risks of fundraising to stop the new DVD projector being repossessed, because he now says he owes lots of money on it still. Does he or doesn’t he? Is this another scam or not? Is the little cinema precious to people in the neighbourhood or not? Is bailing him out now going to keep his business going in the long-term, or are the locals and the ex-pats going to have to fork out again to keep something valuable going? I’m dying to find out. It’s at once both enormous and trivial, because it’s a life outside the anthill of London. People’s lives are bigger. To me, at least.
People come to communities like this to die, to heal, to be accepted, to write, to farm, to raise children, to paint and make sculpture, to sleep with each other and marry and divorce. To eat and to talk and to drink lots of wine and have lots of good food, with intensely beautiful countryside to inspire and calm. One can’t keep your illusions about yourself for long here. Luckily, this community I know is basically kind and generous and fair – people go about their daily business and are extremely tolerant of people’s craziness and foibles in a way that would shame and surprise city people. You have to be tolerant – if you want a community to accept you, you have to accept them. That means learning the language, respecting the traditions, paying your bills, not treading on people’s toes. It’s not hard – most people are kind, and simple courtesy works wonders. For many city people, their greatest fear is that their dirty linen will be exposed for all to see. Where I’ve just been staying, the dirty linen is flapping in the sunshine from every line, and the world keeps turning, and people still have time for each other. It’s very calming, reassuring. Or it is, for me, now.
Ex-pat communities are formed by luck as much as anything else. Like seeds drifting along the ground, something catches you and you find yourself laying down roots where others have settled. Someone once said that we are as sick as our secrets – and I can go along with that, up to a point. With that rule of thumb, this particular community in Southern Tuscany is fighting fit.
As with anything, I couldn’t stand continuous communal living, I would need exactly that which I’ve spent the past ten years struggling to avoid – time on my own. But that’s easily arranged. It’s community that’s hard to find in the first place. And I’m so glad I found one.