Napoli via London

The best thing, hands down, about our move back to Europe has been that my eldest son has come too.
When I look back after the past 15 months, I'm not sure I would've made it without him.
In fact, I'm pretty certain I wouldn't have.
The fact that he's here too makes a massive difference.
He came last fall, twenty-three years old, left everything in the States -- friends, car, jobs, roots -- a few months after graduating from college, and moved into our spare room in London.
Which made sense, since he was our kid.
But he had no life here, knew no one.
So I fretted.
Got an internship here, had the time of his life.
Even made some buddies. Loves to come back.
Then he got another internship in Rome in the new year.
We moved him there.
When I look back on the day he and I arrived at our side of the hill in Italy -- January 6, a national holiday there -- it feels like light years ago.
Our place was way too far for him to live in, we realized suddenly. But where would he live? His internship was starting in a week and a half. Our usually sunny, warm house felt like a meat locker.
January in central Italy. Instead of July.
Reality.
Four months have gone by since then. Only? Feels like four years.
Don't want to tempt fate, but his internship looks like it's going to turn into a job.
Most importantly, though, my son likes his new life. Christ, he's got a new life to like.
He's made friends.
Yesterday, he was in Naples, where I was born.
At a company overlooking the port. Sounds like he was working right near the hospital where I was born.
I was born, 56 years ago this summer, on a bright hot day, in a hospital room overlooking the Mediterranean off Naples, an amazingly beautiful seaside city. No wonder I love the sea.
I was born a couple of weeks early, on a day my parents were supposed to go to Capri on the ferry with my grandparents for a day in the sun. No wonder I'm a sun-worshipper.
Fast-forward 56 years to yesterday afternoon and my son.
Who's in Naples overlooking the port. On his computer.
He sends me an email saying it may be the most beautiful place he's ever seen. Took some pictures on his cellphone for me to see, but they don't do it justice, he wrote.
He's seen this amazing place -- where I was born, where my father's family is from, where my mother's family ended up, where my own family lived before we moved to the States, through his own adult eyes, at work, unfiltered by me.
And he's realized how amazing it is.
My son has moved to Italy at the same age I moved to Italy after growing up in the United States.
Is that a coincidence?
My Italian parents moved to Washington from Italy when I was three years old. At twenty-four, soon after I finished college, I moved back to Italy too. To discover who I was.
My parents weren't there, but friends of theirs were. I stayed with them when I first arrived.
My son came because we were here.
Why were we here?
Soon after I arrived in Italy when I was 24, I met my British husband, who was also there, working, from England.
Where we are now.
Last night, my son went out with his new Italian buddy on the back of the guy's Vespa, riding around Rome by night.
God I loved that when I was his age.
We worried. That's dangerous.
"But we did it," I said to my husband.