“Stine, when are you moving back to Denmark?”- “Never.” I replied my mother with no hesitation nor elaboration. Italy is magic. Intoxicating even when you are completely sober. This night is no different. Underneath an orange moon the olive trees cast a grey-blue light over the grass. The sea is gently roaring in the distance and the cicadas sing so loudly that they appear inside my apartment.
A culinary revelation
"Merluzzo, del pesce che ha cambiato il mondo." - "Ah si?" he answered. This Merluzzo did certainly change my world, as it exploded in my senses and I sighed with suppressed excitement. Before I moved to Italy, I thought I’ve tried amazing Italian food. I was completely wrong. In Italy food is love. If an Italian wants to impress you, they take cooking to a whole other level. Altissimo livello! If you dare to ask for cooking advice, they usually just say: “Con amore, Con amore.” The white tender meat was lovingly turned in butter, lemon, salt and pepper and left an indelible impression. Next we had tartufo cheese, sausages with rosemary picked from the small vegetable garden he has behind the barn. The Tiramisu almost brought me to tears and I looked in the Venetian mirror to check my mascara. I could no longer recognize myself. "Sai veramente bronzatta!!" He exclaimed as if he had read my thoughts. I never thought it possible with my fair skin to become this tanned. Italy has physically altered me. The Italian sun has turned my red hair into a cascading lion's mane of rose and white gold sun reflections and sprinkled my skin with little light brown freckles.
The quest for happiness
I must warn you! Italy is like meeting great love. It expands everything, alters your DNA, leaves you speechless and afterwards nothing is the same and anything less is merely a tame anti-climax. Life is perspective, as my alter ego Beth Dutton says and mine has altered substantially. Before I was my job always wanting more. The less in the grand, but now all is reversed and I see myself appreciating more in the less.
Sorry, I am of course totally biased. Why did I move to Italy, initially? Back in Denmark in 2020 I was feeling like I was getting nowhere fast. I did not feel particular happy in this modern world of microwave velocity and success. Just before I passed my bar, one of my tutors said: “Lately, I have been surprised about how many former students and colleges, who tell me, that they are very unhappy. Maybe it is not for you to be partner in a big Law firm. Maybe it is something completely different. Don’t be afraid. Life is too short to be unhappy!” His words really stuck to me and I started to evaluate my barometer of happiness on a 1-10 scale. Quite rarely it was above 6. I do not in general nor in statistics recognize that Denmark should be the happiest country in the world. At that time, Italy was still a dream, but my tutor’s words were stuck inside me.
The decision to change
“I still dream of South Africa” said a Danish friend of mine, shortly after. She had been talking about her dream for 17 years. Dreams without actions are nothing but hallucinations. I saw myself being no better and future pictures flashed before my inner mental frame of myself - crippled and wrinkled, baffling on in an elder home, about what I could have done. The scenario severely bothered me. An Australian nurse has written a book about, what patients in hospice regret the most. On the top 3 are dreams never fulfilled. I felt an increasingly unsettled turbulence inside me.
On my return from a horseshow in Turku, I met an American guy in Helsinki Airport. We fell into conversation and he said: “Every woman has a Karen Blixen dream.” It seemed like the perfect beginning of a Hallmark romance. It wasn’t. The American did not mean it in a positive way, it was a generalisation of women, who dream their life instead of living their dream. But his patronising words were a match for me. They pushed me forward, like a book out from the shelve, where I had been hiding out – out in free fall into the unknown. My decision process of moving to Italy was swift. Within 2 months I found a region, a job and an apartment and had moved myself and my horses to Italy.
How Italy is realizing the Karen Blixen dream
These days, I have come to realize, that moving to another country is much more than just moving. For me it is sublime synchronicity – like finding the perfect relationship. Italy and I understand each other. Sure, there are problems, but there is great love and I can never leave.
As true love your reality is changed and heightened: Happiness, freedom and yourself. Your colours are enhanced in the right ambience. Italy has not altered me – I have become more myself or what I already were and just did not know. My Italian friend says – I am a typical Napolitana.
Karen Blixen said that the 3 most important things in life are: Courage, humor and love. In prioritized order, cause people are not mathematics. The brave will win and without courage – nothing is achieved nor gained. Karen Blixen described her years in Kenya is the most happiest period of her life and I do not believe it would have been possible for her to write the book Out of Africa without having lived her dream.
The Karen Blixen dream is not just Africa or in my case Italy. It is about new horizons, beauty, love and adventure. But in it is essence the Karen Blixen dream is about being bold and brave, true to yourself and explore the core to one’s existence.
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Foiano della Chiana, Tuscany
