It might have seemed as if our life in rural Massachusetts was idyllic, but I was struggling with the post-tenure blues. After 18 years at the same small college, I knew I would become the kind of professor I hate if I didn’t make a change. It wasn’t a bad job. I had even published a textbook that had thrown off a colossal sum in royalties. But still, I was bored beyond words. I craved a challenge, a new mountain to climb. I was fearful of getting too comfortable. There was something too privileged and too cosy about my life – and it was beginning to make me itchy.

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When I finally got a sabbatical, we took a lavish six-month tour of Italy. Did we see every church and museum in the entire country? No, but to Randy it may have seemed like it. We lived for a couple of months in Rome, Florence and in rural Sicily. We spent weekends in Milan, Naples, and Ravenna. I was on a hunt to experience the best of the mosaic art that decorated the ancient churches of Italy. We visited the 6th century mosaics at the Basilica of Saint-Apollinaire in Classe, in Ravenna, which was once the capital of the Roman Empire. We marveled at the golden dome mosaics at St. Marks in Venice, at the Basilica of St. John Lateran, the Montreal Cathedral in Palermo, and the 4th century hunting villa, the Romana del Casale at Piazza Armerina in Sicily.

 

Home schooling was travel. I suspected that, in American public schools, only 40 – 50 minutes of the whole day consisted of academic work. So, to facilitate the learning, each child got a laptop computer for writing and composition. No internet access, of course. But for Roger, at age 13, who needed more than word processing software? Soon, he was writing every day, for hours at a time.

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I’m a big fan of reading aloud. During our honeymoon, I had read Robinson Crusoe to my handsome young husband. It was a big part of our family tradition. Each evening while we were in Italy, I read aloud from the The Agony and the Esctasy, the biographical novel about Michelangelo Buonarroti written by American author Irving Stone. I loved the novel for its rich descriptions of life in the Italian Renaissance with its rich description of Rome and Florence. It relies heavily on Michelangelo's correspondence and captures his voice through excerpts from nearly 500 letters that capture the personal challenges of being an artist in the age of the Medici.

 

In Florence, our family were also regulars at the British Institute’s weekly film screenings and discussions. We went to an American movie every week at the Odeon theater, at Piazza Strozzi. I practiced my Italian by reading the Italian subtitles while my children munched on popcorn. Entering a 15th-century palazzo renovated to 1920s standards, we reveled in the plush velvet seating and ornate decorations.

 

One film we saw in Florence was a Hollywood heist film called The Italian Job, and it was one of Roger’s favorites. The story involves a professional safecracker whose team aims to steal $35 million from a safe in Venice. There’s a wheelman, a professional fixer, a computer whiz, an explosives expert, and an inside man. There’s a villain, a murder, a double cross, and a van crashing over a bridge. There’s an armored truck, a helicopter, and a lot of safecracking.  There are mansions galore, along with bribes and guns. But no girls or sex. Action adventure films rarely hold my attention, so I don’t remember much about it except that Mark Wahlberg was in it.

 

With no distractions of school or friends or work. I learned so much about my children during this trip. Family life and learning were embedded into everyday life. I noticed the places and experiences and the small moments of daily life where they found their joy. For Rachel, it was the playground of the Renaissance, Parco dei Mostri in the Garden of Bomarzo. Built in the 1550s, the park is filed with bizarre and fascinating sculptures including a war elephant, a fish monster, and other oddities. Rachel cavorted through the place gleefully.

 

“Check out this little stone house built on a tilt!” she called.

 

“Stand inside the giant’s head, his mouth opened wide in a scream!”

 

“Look – it’s one giant tearing another giant in half!”

 

For Rachel, Bomarzo was a Disneyland theme park from ancient times, a curious and surreal mix of history and fantasy set in forest of pine trees, where if you looked carefully, it might even be possible to find a porcospino, the porcupine’s quill.

 

For Roger, it was the Carnival Viareggio, an experience which fused Roger’s understanding of the intersection of art and politics. It started out as merely a day trip for us. We departed from the Santa Maria Novella train station in Florence and arrived in Pisa in only 90 minutes, transferring to Viareggio and following the crowds on a mild day. Was it in late February or was it early March?

 

We stood in the street alongside the local beach, alongside thousands of Italians, to watch the parade of paper maché floats, each with as many as 250 people in each. These were truly breathtaking works of art! The colors and the artistry were like a comic book had come to life, and some floats were more than 70 feet high. Alongside these allegorical papier-mâché floats were traditional music bands and performers wearing unusual masks.

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Many of the spectators were themselves dressed in costumes, and we saw a variety of human dragons, witches, and superheroes. Whole families were dressed in playful, homemade costumes. There was papa dressed as an Egyptian mummy, mama with braided hair and the stereotypical costume of an American Indian, and baby daughter in her stroller, dressed as charming little apple core!

 

At first, the scale of the parade was overwhelming -- we weren’t even sure what we were seeing. Soon we began to notice caricatures of popular people, such as Silvio Berlusconi, Pope John Paul, and President George Bush. Within minutes, Roger was noticing that each one was a type of moving theatre with a commentary and critique of current social and political events. For example, one float featured the depiction of the people of the world, all in little cups surrounded by a large teapot. But while the North Americans had plenty of water in their little teacup, the Africans had none.

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As a young boy, seeing those floats, something sparked for Roger that day – the stories and drama of the present era were being communicated visually, through colorful symbols that were not just entertaining, but also offered a commentary on the state of the political world. During Roger’s time in Italy, he wrote detailed narrative about a 12-year-old boy who becomes a cardinal. With vivid details and robust dialogue, this short story was the product of his home schooling. I remember being startled at its quality – the writing quality was better than I get from my undergraduate students. I marveled at how Roger was drinking in the experiences of his childhood and producing imaginative stories that featured rich, detailed characters and personalities.

 

That afternoon, as we lay exhausted but happy on the lawn, after a climb up to the top of the leaning tower of Pisa, I took a picture of Roger. It is one of my favorite pictures. Here he was, the dreamer, a poet, with the righteous spirit of a change agent and the open heart of an artist. Maybe just maybe, art and writing could change the world. At age 13, the whole world lay before him, a complex place indeed, in front of him to explore.