Dear TF community,
In 1995, Nancy Franklin published an essay in The New Yorker (wonderfully non-dated, its digital title is “No Place Like Home”). Ostensibly it’s about a youngish woman and her challenges navigating NYC apartment life—sound familiar, Rental Diaries readers?—but the larger message is a weighty one about the costs of waffling and wondering what-if. The last line in particular always punches me in the gut: The great, unexpected realization I’ve made has been that by deciding to stay…I am now also free to go.
Conventional wisdom says that once you find the holy grail of a good job in Florence you should never leave it. To my detriment, I’ve never been conventionally wise (probably why I moved here to begin with). As of this issue, I’m leaving my full-time role at The Florentine to concentrate on my own writing and freelance Italy-based journalism. It will take time for this to gain traction, but time passes whether you jump into such fires or not. Y’all don’t need little old me to tell you that.
Mary Gray interviewing Fabio Zaffagnini of @rockin1000 ahead of the group’s Florence performance on July 21, 2018 / ph. @marcobadiani
We joke in the office that no one really ever leaves The Florentine, and I’ve been heavily involved for nearly six years, so you’ll still see me on these pages and around town, too. The big boss here has always said I tend to be autobiographical in my writing and I can’t argue. But I hope in my work for The Florentine you’ve seen yourselves and your concerns reflected, because for me this has always been about you.
Con affetto,
Mary Gray
