I’m writing this month’s article from our rustic kitchen table in our 17th century apartment in Northern Italy. Sounds fancy I know but it’s not as dreamy as you’d think. When I tell people I split my life between Lithgow and Pinerolo, a small town in northern Italy where my husband grew up, I watch their faces soften. Two homes, two countries, two lives. It sounds like the kind of arrangement people put on vision boards.
I believed that too, for a while. But after years of living between the two, I've made a decision: I'm putting all my eggs in my Lithgow basket.
You may have read my ‘Italy For Sale’ article a few months back, so, here we are now returned to Italy, possibly for the last time in our beautiful apartment, removing a few of the sentimental things so we can bring a little of our Northern Italian life back to the central west of NSW. My vintage porcini cookie jar, the lamp up-cycled from my husbands childhood trumpet and the aged Italy map that hung on the wall of the bedroom he grew up in. Nonna’s frilly umbrella and her precious sewing box. Some locally made art and a few lovely things found at markets and mercatino’s.
The Community You Can't Commute To
Community is built on showing up, and showing up requires being there. It's the neighbour who notices your bins haven't been brought in. It's the conversation at the shop that turns into an invitation, the committee that needs one more pair of hands, the friend who knows to check on you after a rough week.
When you live in two places, you become a visitor in both. In Pinerolo, I love our family, friends and the rhythm of the piazza, but I arrive as the woman who's "back for a month or so." In Lithgow, I return to find the conversation has moved on without me. Friends have made new plans, and local causes I care about have carried on in my absence. Belonging doesn't survive on part-time attendance. It needs consistency, and I was spreading mine too thin to give either place what it deserved.
Two of Everything
Then there's the stuff. Nobody warns you about the sheer volume of duplication that comes with a second home. Two kitchens to stock. Two sets of bedding, two lots of winter jumpers, two phone contracts, two sets of bills in two languages and two currencies. There's the paperwork, the insurance, (I take LOTS of snacks when dealing with any bureaucracy in Italy), the maintenance and the perpetual low-level worry about whichever house is empty at the time.
Every time I left one home, I spent the last days before flying cleaning, packing, and hoping nothing burst, broke or grew mould in my absence. Every arrival meant a fresh round of unpacking and an inventory of what had gone wrong while I was gone. I was managing two households instead of enjoying one.
And the things I did own never seemed to be in the right place. The good coat was always in the other country. The book I wanted to read was on the wrong shelf on the wrong side of the world. And yes, I hear your eyes roll at my ‘poor me, I have a home both here and in Europe’ whine and fully acknowledge that this IS a top shelf, first world, bougie as F%!$ problem.
And It Simply Isn't Necessary
Here's the part I had to be honest with myself about: I didn't need two homes to keep both halves of my life. I needed a home, and a way to visit the other place.
Those are very different things. A home is where your routines live and where your roots go down. A holiday, even a long and loving one, can be taken from a home base without the cost, the clutter, or the guilt of maintaining a second life. We can still fly to Italy, stay with friends, and eat far too much pasta. We just don't need to keep a house running in Pinerolo to justify it.
Once I let go of the idea that love for a place requires owning a piece of it, I felt lighter almost immediately.
Why Lithgow
Lithgow is where my days actually happen. It's where I know the streets, the seasons and the people. It's where I want to be woken by the chorus of birds and my own routines rather than jet lag. It’s where my heart, my community and my garden are. Choosing it doesn't mean loving Pinerolo any less. My husband's hometown will always be part of our story, and I'll keep returning to it as a welcome guest rather than a stretched-thin resident.
The dream of two homes is seductive because it promises we can have everything. But a life spread across two places often means being only half present in each. I'd rather be fully present in one.
So here's the plan: one home, one set of bins. I stop trying to live in two places and start choosing where to belong. Pinerolo will always be where my husband's story began, and it will always have a big chunk of my heart, and my carb intake. But Lithgow is where my story gets to keep going, It gets my time in the garden, my winter jumpers, and my full attention, and I couldn't be happier about it.
Wishing you home, community, and flavoursome tomatoes.
xxxx Marnee
