Speaking of the end of a... whatever...

Speaking of the end of a decade whatever, I'd just like to acknowledge that the past ten years of my life a huge improvement over the previous ten. Not necessarily financially—I earn more money, but between inflation and the family, I'm actually poorer per capita than ten years ago. But I'd much rather be the man I am now than the teenager I was twenty years ago, or the man I was ten years ago.

If you read the newspapers, you know that opinion writers have been writing off the terrible decade we just survived like some sort of business loss. Many people really did survive it at best, but opinion writers really ought to know better.

Sure, I could focus on the bad aspects of the past decade, and in some ways I guess I had a pretty miserable decade. But as Nonno Felice used to observe in his recollections of the Second World War, many experiences that would otherwise be awful can be made bearable, even pleasant, with a little optimism and a sense of humor. To place this in context, he was speaking of a time where much of Italy was destroyed, the Germans occupied his city and eventually expelled all its inhabitants, including the sick and infirm, sending them wandering for months until, after a brief stay in a concentration camp, they ended up in occupied Rome.

In that spirit, I'd like to reflect on some of the happier parts of a not-nearly-so-miserable decade as that one.

To start with, my life is much better, and much happier, now that I'm married, and have children. I'm not sure that they feel that their lives are better and happier, but I'm resolved to do my best to ameliorate that. That's one of the down-/up-sides of marriage: you discover defects you never knew you had, or (from a different point of view) opportunities to weed out your vices and grow in the virtues. If only I had more than half a life to do my best for my family!

I completed my education with the proverbial "terminal degree". The discovery of new knowledge has been among the greatest pleasures I've experienced, enhanced by sharing it with others, learning what they've discovered, and combining it. I can't for the life of me fathom why more people aren't fascinated by science and scientific research: it's wonderful!

I've been lucky to have traveled both in the States and abroad over the last ten years, for work, family, and spiritual reasons. As for places abroad, I'd recommend:

• in Italy, Gaeta, Pompeii, Lecce, Cuneo, Minturno, and Ponza;
• in France, Nice and of course Lourdes (in the offseason, which is when I went);
• in Austria, Linz;
• in Germany, Kaiserslautern (or if not, riding the ICE train is by itself worth the price of admission);
• in Russia, Sergiev Posad and Kazan.

Just don't expect them to speak English, wherever you go. The guidebooks lie, lie, lie about that, and people who visit places where lots of people speak English haven't (in my opinion) discovered the real place they're visiting. Then again, I'm not sure I have, either.

I've read, or reread, some great books. My favorites would have to be Il fu Mattia Pascal, Gli ultimi soldati del Ré, Lettera a un bambino mai nato, Безы, and Братья карамазовы. (The Late Mattia Pascal, The King's Last Army, Letter to a child who was never born, Demons, and The Brothers Karamazov.) I've read some excellent English novels, too; I just can't call them to mind.

I'm proudest of the moments when I made my wife and children smile. The only pleasure that could outshine that, is the same one I have been privileged to share in since Easter, 1994. I described it to my three year-old last week in my atrocious Russian grammar: самый лучшее тортик—Евхарист. The sweetest treat of all, is the Eucharist.