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| View of the land that's been my family's home for ages, and now is also my home. |
No really! I'm writing again, for real this time. :) After a couple false starts over the last decade or so, I'm back in the saddle and writing over on Substack. You can find me here: https://aliambrosio.substack.com/
In many ways it feels like the good old blogging days of yore, back when we all were connecting pre-smartphone over RSS feeds and sidebars listing our favorite fellow writers. You all - my readers from the Austin to Africa, Brasil to the Bay chapter - made my life so rich, helped me endure homesickness and culture shock, held my hand through so many changes, and stayed with me through several major endings and beginnings.
I've missed you so much. I now live on my family's historical estate on the Italy-Slovenia border with my husband and our daughter. We basically picked up the life my grandmother left behind when she immigrated from here to the US after WWII. It's like a step back in time and into the future at the same time, for while we inherited generations worth of history, we're also making changes for what will work for us, now, in 2026 and beyond.
We've been here in the village for 4.5 years now full-time. That's how long I lived in Mozambique, which blows my mind. I think this is the general chunk of time for one to really feel rooted in a place. It's also when, if change is calling, it feels quite urgent and very scary to pick up and restart. Here it's the opposite, at least for me. I've never felt so connected to a place. I think I'd be happy here forever, even if I never set foot off the property again. Given how travel-oriented and location-independent I was for much of my younger years, it's a surprise to realize how rural and rooted I've become. Maybe I was always like this deep down, but just hadn't landed on the right location yet.
In fact, I think I've known since I was a little girl that this place on the Italy-Slovenia border would be my destiny. I first came here when I was two years old, and I've been coming back nearly ever summer since then with a few gaps here and there. There is no other place where I feel such belonging. In the cemetery behind our property there are six generations of my ancestors, and I can trace our origins on the family tree that my great-great-grandfather drew going back to the 1600's. It's wild to think about who all came before me, that we've all stepped on this same soil, watched the sun rise and set against the backdrop of the same hills.
Times have changed wildly in those 400 years, but here I am. Here we are. We've returned to care for the land and rebuild the structures, inject new life into this place so that the line can continue unbroken for another 400 years (if the world is still alive then. who knows. such are the problems we face as the generations who steward a broken planet).
In the meantime, it would mean so much to me if you followed along in my new writing home. I have so much to tell you about life right now. Where I am, who I'm with, what we are doing, and how we got here. It's free to subscribe, and I have hopes that one day I will see your names on the list of who is reading and commenting, and then I'll know it's a real housewarming party with all my OG original blog friends. I hope you're all well, and see you on my substack, which is called Origins & Routes.
