June 6 - "Love Far from Home"

“Love Far from Home”
by Italo Calvino
Numbers in the Dark (1995)

* * * * * (Excellent) Realistic

A man travels from village to village searching for the place and girl of his dreams.

This is a story about the grass being greener on the other side. No matter where you are, someplace else – the next village over – seems different, better. You travel there and it’s everything you dreamed you were missing until it becomes familiar and the idea of a better village grows in your mind. The same can be said of women, jobs, and dreams in general.

I also made connections with how the narrator lives his life, ignoring the world around him:

“Then there were the grown-ups, whose job it was to deal with things, real things. All I had to do was discover new symbols, new meaning. I’ve stayed that way my whole life, I still live in a castle of meaning, not things, and I still depend on the others, the “grown-ups”, the ones who handle things.”

And focusing on the imaginary:

“When I see a machine I look at it as if it were a magic castle, I imagine tiny men turning amongst the cogs.”

And by far the coolest name for woman I’ve come across – Mariamirella.