These days, I have mixed feelings about travel. I still believe wholeheartedly in travel as an antidote to ignorance, an enriching and mind-expanding introduction to the gravity of being a member of a global community. But there are other things to consider that are increasingly urgent, not the least of which is the environmental impact of travel, and from an alternative perspective, the essentiality of roots, of belonging somewhere, of nurturing a home base. In a country founded on an “every man for himself” mentality, roots and the sense of belonging to a place are elusive. Immigrants have consistently been pressured to assimilate, rather than to retain customs, languages, and identities from their countries of origin. I’ve grappled with the sentiment of a lack of belonging and a sense of disconnection from some sort of ancestral grounding before, but the internal conversation was reignited during my recent visit to Napoli.

And as I most often do, I decided, with pen and paper, to sort through the chatter:

“The jury is in, I love Napoli. The pace of life suits me—the lack of intensity, the absence of rush. Nothing seems quite so important; we’re not going to take ourselves so seriously.

There is bustle, for certain, the bustle of life rather than the bustle of achieving, chasing—competing. And the din, the din of the city is voices, so many people talking, laughing, moving through the motions of living, clusters and groups and couples and lots of dogs. My daughter asks, “Did you notice the old couples all holding hands?”

Yes, I did notice.

Cities are frequently described as pulsing, alive in a certain sense, and they are. And like any living organism, cities have personalities. I won’t be so arrogant as to attribute one to Napoli, where I’ve spent less than a week, but I can usually locate the feeling of a place and this one makes me smile, and laugh out loud on occasion, like when our taxi driver threw his hands in the air in a gesture of surrender after being cut off by another driver. He paused to wave them in and then shrugged and smiled at us in the rear view, “whatcha gonna do, some people are in a hurry.” Can’t remember the last time I’d seen a taxi driver amused rather than irate by such an inconvenience.

And it’s not like the traffic is tame, quite the opposite, it’s insane. But there’s a flow to it, an understanding between cars, people, and scooters—a rhythm, the breath of ceding space and then filling it. Although there seem to be fewer traffic lights, stop signs, or crossing signals than most cities this size, there are still an abundance of crosswalks and waiting for the traffic to stop would be—never—so we just walk, following the lead of the residents, knowing the space will be ceded as predictably as the inhale comes before the exhale and the rhythm will continue uninterrupted.

And it’s not just the city that has wooed me, but the way it is a jumping-off spot for so many places worth exploring. I never imagined I’d be intrigued by the ruins of Pompeii, dismissing it as a tourist trap, but human history here is so ancient that it is humbling and intoxicating at the same time. I should have spent our tour enthralled by the story of the eruption and its devastating aftermath, but that’s not what captured my attention. Instead, it was the moonstones, placed strategically along the carefully planned streets, that lit the way at night by reflecting the moonlight—ancient streetlights still functioning thousands of years later. It was the stepping-stones placed purposefully at intersections protruding above street level to ensure safe movement when the streets flooded, 2000-year-old plumbing, and even older intricate works of art. A city that thrived nearly a thousand years BC—meticulously planned, organized, and maintained.

I didn’t know we would end up here. I was longing for the sea without the requirement of marooning at some resort with over-priced, mediocre food, and the claustrophobic and depleting nature of mandated relaxation turned stressful by the urgency of getting one’s money’s worth. It was only once I began to plan that I discovered the wealth of human history etched into the fabric of the place. I can’t navigate these streets without tingling with the awe of the millions of feet, well-healed, sandaled, and bare that have shuffled, slapped, tromped, pattered, and raced over the very same black pavers worn smooth and shiny over the millennia. Most of the streets are steep and barely wide enough for a small car—or two scooters zipping expertly along, side by side, so the passengers can shout conversations to each other, as the case may be—and sidewalks built for a single person walking toes to heel. The occasional dripping vine or batch of drying laundry reaches out to caress our heads or brush our shoulders as we dip and dodge. Late at night, the fumes from scooter tailpipes waft and mingle seamlessly with the tantalizing smells of all things cooking, snaking from just behind the propped-open cucina doors. The street is the yard and the playground; lives are lived spilling out into the public spaces as much as they are within the home.

I wax poetic, I know, and I reserve the right to do so. As a visitor, I can only assume and imagine; I have no delusions about that. I am an observer first and foremost, and I always find myself wondering at the distance between my observations and the actuality of the lives being lived.

That being said, our interactions with people who live here, from shop owners to taxi drivers and restaurant staff, have been marked by an undeniable enthusiasm for their city. An eagerness, not only to share their home, but to know our story—storytelling, it seems, is at the heart of everything. It has been a heartwarming, if not challenging experience due to my very rudimentary grasp of the language, which is further complicated by the fact that they assume I speak Italian and are surprised when I don’t, which, in turn, exacerbates my shame and embarrassment.

No matter.

They continue their tales meticulously and slowly, and I nod my head and smile, whether I understand or not, because the enthusiasm for the story is contagious. For years, my kids have poked good-natured fun at my sometimes-unrealistic identification with, and clinging to, my Italian heritage, but my experience here has magnified it and beckoned me to dig deeper. One of the first things people ask when they discover I don’t understand what they’re saying is, “Where are you from?” For the most part, the reaction to our origins is an enthusiastic welcome followed by mountains of advice on what to do and not to do. But on several occasions, the response has also been, “Certo, ma, e Italiana, no? (of course, but you’re Italian, right?)” Or “yes, yes, you live in the States, but you were born here, right?”

“No,” I reply, somewhat sheepishly, as if my answer will disappoint them, “Born and raised in the U.S.” Sometimes it ends there with another enthusiastic welcome, but others continue to inquire, “but your parents, grandparents?” To which I can finally reply, that yes, my grandparents were first-generation immigrant children. It’s difficult to ascertain what prompts these exchanges, although I’m inclined to conclude that it’s simply human nature to seek out similarities and connections. Secretly, I wish it were because I look like I belong, a wish followed swiftly by silent chastisement of such audacity and gullibility, but also by perplexity. By all accounts, the spark for these conversations is unimportant, but I would love to unravel why I so long for the reason to be my ease of belonging.

When I lived in Costa Rica and had a decent command of the language, I was often mistaken for being local, which was flattering and appreciated, but it ended there. Here, it’s different, tied to a deep ache, an ache that feels borrowed and preposterous, like I am claiming something I have no right to. The experience has intensified my longing to be from somewhere, to have a history, an ancestral tie—generations of belonging. I sat outside a tiny cafe late at night and asked myself, “Do I belong? Do I feel at home? What do I have in common with the people I see coming and going?” But there was very little. I folded into that vacant cavern of lack for a night, mourning it, wondering how to build from scratch the thing that I perceived was missing—was it even possible?

The next day, we chatted with a shop owner whose great-grandparents had immigrated to the States, but whose grandmother had moved back to Calabria. His grandmother and mother were Calabrian, but his great-grandparents were American, while he lives here in Napoli. And I was shocked and unexpectedly comforted to hear him say that he had a difficult time knowing where he was from or where his roots were because of it. He lives here, speaks Italian, has Italian citizenship, doesn’t speak English, but still, he’s unsure if he’s Italian or American or both. The universality of the feeling put me at ease from one perspective, and from another, urged me to dive deeper.”

Upon returning home, I discovered contentment, satisfaction, and gratitude for the roots that we’ve nurtured, the life that we’ve built, and the village of humans, here and around the world, who are the lifeblood of our belonging. Perhaps, in this global community, belonging to a place isn’t quite so important as the human commonalities that foster connection beyond the borders of a town, state, or country. I know I will return often to Italy, as it is close to my heart, but without the sense of urgency that comes with a desperate search for identity. Instead, curiosity and appreciation will fill the space once occupied by lack.

I still believe in travel. I hope we will discover methods that are less detrimental to our planet because the sharpening of perspective that hatches from discoveries beyond the usual and the comfortable is invaluable. I am grateful I have had the opportunity to be an observer in so many places to which I will never belong, but that have cheerfully hosted me temporarily. I look forward to settling into my observations with a new lens, one of knowing who I am and who my people are, the roots of my belonging stretching far beyond the boundaries of physicality.