Depression

LOOKING OUT ONTO THE MOUNTAINS, I can’t help but wonder whether depression is even physically possible in Italy. Driving through beautifully green fields with exquisitely colored flowers laced throughout the edges of green and brown forests, breathing in the freshest, purest country air—how could anyone be unhappy in a place like this?

I wonder if they are so used to it that it doesn’t faze them anymore. The way I walked swiftly and nonchalantly past the Empire State Building every morning on my way to work, yet people come from all the way across the world just to see it. Do they pay as little attention to clear flowing rivers as I did to the twin towers? And would they miss them as much when they’re gone?

America is full of thick, smoggy air, dirty streets, dried up, dying plants (if any), flat, boring countrysides, and either tall, ugly buildings or small, broken-down townhouses.

So, looking out onto the mountains, I wonder, would America still be America if it looked like Italy? And would Italy still be Italy if it looked like America? Somehow, I seriously don’t think so.

-Rebecca Albert