July 1st. D-Day. The day of departure. That’s how I planned it, right? Leave my nice little life in Austin and move out into the great beyond, jump and the net will appear stuff…

 

I was going to leave yesterday. I had set my jaw, resolved my spirit, and was ready to just go and scratch that itch.

 

But that didn’t happen. I didn’t leave. I am not writing this bleary-eyed and sleep-deprived in the foothills of the Italian Alps. I am writing this wide-eyed and well-provisioned at my friend’s backyard porch in the ATX, here for at least another month.

 

Why?

 

Because it was all a massive fakeout?  Because I’m not really leaving? Because I just like going-away parties and well wishes and presents?  Because I like measuring the barometers of my myriad friendships to see if anyone would really miss me when I was gone?

Let me explain. No, scratch that. Let me sum up…

 

You see, the net appeared before I even jumped.

 

A week ago I had long given up hope of ‘actually finding a job in Italy’. I mean no one just does that. No one I know anyway. Plus, the unemployment rate is 12.6% (43.3% in the 15-24 age group). Why hire an American?

 

Yet it happened. Out of the blue I got an email from the International School in Genoa and after three rapid fire Skype (pronounced by Italians as Skee-pay) interviews I was offered a teaching position.

 

“Great! I’m planning to leave Tuesday for Italy anyway!” I was going to continue in a torrent of exuberance, but pulled up short when I saw the school’s director shaking his head, his woolly locks bobbing with the gesture. He took off his glasses and pointed one of the arms at me, thoughtfully, ponderously.

 

“Jeffrey,” he starts. He has a gently Persian accent to his English, which is impeccable. “Jeffrey, I do not advise travelling to Italy now.”

 

“No?” Images of the foothills crumbled before me.

 

He shook his head. “No. I do not recommend this. Why I do not recommend this is because you are now entering the world of Italian bureaucracy.”

 

“I am?”

 

“Yes. The Italians have made bureaucracy an art form and it is summer and they are sleepy or sleeping or thinking about sleeping and they are not, in-truth, so serious about the working. Now you will have to focus all your energies on assembling documents to submit for your work visa. It will be long and arduous, but hopefully worth it…”

 

“The art of bureaucracy…” I muttered, chewing on the phrase.

 

A sage nod of the Director’s head. “The Italians have a phrase, ‘Never do today what you can do tomorrow.’

 

“That’s pretty funny.”

 

“Not funny. Annoying. You are entering this world. We welcome you to it.  We want you to work here, but to do so you will have to wait a bit, collect your documents and wait some more. Maybe by August your work visa will be ready.”

 

I pondered this for a moment, mulling the math and his timeline, trying to make it all fit. It didn’t. So I asked the obvious next question.

 

“And if it doesn’t come in time for school to start?”

 

The Director of the school laughed. “We’ll cross that bridge tomorrow.”