Entropy and emptiness are startling companions. Our first floor is now Basecamp Chaos. Battalions of giveaways and miscellany – books, boardgames, cowboy hats, kitchenware – await deployment to friends, marketplace, thrift store, and the rubbish bin. Meanwhile, the walls are bare, my office is decommissioned, and the status of other rooms teeters between rental-ready and solitary confinement. There’s no downtime for the gym or getting lost in a good read right now. Maintaining calm and clarity requires regular check-ins. Fortunately, even when my wife and I have freak-outs on the same day, it’s at different hours.

I’m thrilled to have so many new readers along. I encourage you to peek at previous episodes and get caught up on what you’ve missed. Where I’m going, why I’m going, how it all came about. It’s all in there – HERE.

You last heard from me on the afternoon of May 12. Amy Lee and I awoke the next day to our morning ritual of apartment-hunting. She’d figured out when new listings drop and then positioned us via 05:00 EST call-time for an early-bird-worm situation. To that point, we’d sent countless inquiries into the Verona rental market void and received two meager responses since March. After-hours emails and WhatsApp messages in broken Italian for apartments across an ocean that we wouldn’t occupy until July did not endear us to agencies who prioritize convenience, competence, and urgency. Add to that no Carta d’identità elettronica (digital ID), no conto corrente (Italian bank account), no contratto di lavoro (work contract), and a dog, and you can see why those with a queue of applicants skipped right over us. Troppo complicato. (Too complicated.)

Pressure mounted, but we were undaunted. We maintained the faith that if you want to get struck by a miracle, you’ve got to step boldly into the intersection of luck and intention. Worst-case scenario: we land houseless, post-up in an Airbnb or cheap hotel, and scour our preferred neighborhoods street by street to find something before we burn through our savings. Even if all we land is a soulless box on the outskirts, we know that Verona is a soulful city and we’ll create beauty wherever we call home.

Then, the moon came.

We don’t have curtains in our south-facing bedroom. Morning sunshine is a daily gift. A rarer treat, now and again – when the sky is clear, the path is right, and the phase is bright – I am awakened by moonlight. It happened on May 11 in the early hours before Mother’s Day: the very last full moon I’ll see out of those windows from my pillows for the next few years.

The anti–woo woo set can skip this next paragraph.

I’m an astrophysics enthusiast and a geek for geometry (see below: Elliptical backgammon board), but I also know that we don’t know everything and that insight can come from unexpected sources. When I gaze to the heavens, I see more than orbital eccentricity and dark matter. Astrology suggests that a waxing gibbous passing through Scorpio just hours before the Flower Full Moon is charged with the emotional tension of almost there. It’s a time of culmination that can be harnessed to fine-tune and finalize one’s vision. That moon shone as the receiver and it awakened me as a beacon. With lunar-spiked determinism, I spoke into existence everything that’s been hanging in suspense. I placed my order, like a pizza, with this-not-that specifics of what I desire for our family, the move, my career. Then the moon set behind some trees and the moment was done. Message sent. I hope they remember the anchovies.

The following morning, Amy Lee spied a marvel unlike anything we’d seen. I phoned the agency subito (right away). “It is around the corner from my office,” the agente immobiliare told us. “Would you like to see it?” By 5:38am, we found ourselves propped up, still under bedcovers, taking a video call as Signora Denise walked us through the space. Even in glitchy low-res, it was love at first sight.

Months ago, we surrendered to the notion of leaving the home we’d built, the artwork and curiosities we’d collected, for maybe but a flimsy foothold elsewhere. And we’d consider ourselves fortunate to do so. Yet, what did we really envision when targeting areas, toggling filters, and setting preferiti (preferences)? We aimed for abundant light, ample space, room for guests, maybe a balcone or terrazza, easy walkability, nearby middle school for Julian, green space for our Aussie Shepherd, and access to the train since we wouldn’t have a vehicle. It almost felt greedy to want or ask for more: Oh, and can we get that doppia vecchia (double old), please, with a side of molto Italian cool?

Our first phone call with an agent. Our first virtual walk-thru. Our first proposed contract. After so much dead air at the other end of the line, here we found ourselves dancing to the music of Sì, Sì, Sì. A second-floor gem with two baths and two bedrooms, plus a third room that’s begging for un letto a scomparsa (Murphy bed) and unfussy guests who don’t mind cozy. Gorgeous beams, parquet floors, frescoes, and terracotta tile. The showstopper is a huge living room with luminous archways. They open to a long balcony overlooking Le Arche Scaligere, 14th-century Gothic tombs that Amy Lee and I stopped to admire on our first wander through Verona in 2023.

It took fourteen days and more than three hundred (!) WhatsApp exchanges between us to close the deal. Along the way, there were five to seven hours devoted to the failed pursuit of opening an Italian bank account from afar. At one point, I looked at flights and seriously considered a quickie there-and-back to secure the account and not lose the apartment. There I was reciting IBAN numbers and my codice fiscale (Italian SS#) in NATO phonetics like a field lieutenant calling in fire support: “Zulu, Romeo, Four, Niner, Tango, Zero, Sierra, Juliett. This is Bravo One. We are go for bank transfer.”

Nevertheless, akin to how we got our consulate appointment for citizenship in the first place, calls on our behalf from Italian friends, letters of reference, unceasing kindness, and demonstrable commitment in the face of red tape got it done. Besides a helluva lot of new vocabulary (ripostiglio, propretaria, bonifico, fideiussione – storage room, landlord, bank wire, surety bond), I learned that here, there, and everywhere, are two kinds of people: those who find a way to say NO and those who find a way to say YES. Either way, you’re probably right, so it just comes down to which one you want to be.

It’s so damn hard!

Look what’s possible.

We need curtains!

Look, there’s the moon.

With a lease accepted, one giant piece of the puzzle is in place. The apartment opens doors to registering Julian for school, thinking about jobs, and building community. I’ve already taken a street view virtual tour around the block. Within a hundred steps, there’s an osteria, wine shop, post office, gelateria, café, tailor, craft pub with vinyl, and Piazza Garibaldi. Quiz me in September… I hope to know the signori e signore on the inside by then.

47 days to go.