Tucked away in the mountains of central Italy is a wee village called Roio Vecchia. This is the place on the planet where 1/2 of my ancestry has lived for centuries. I feel incredibly blessed to be able to nail down, within 2 generations, the location from whence my DNA emerged.

My grandmother Emilia and grandfather Antonio spent the beginnings of their lives here and, somehow, managed to muster up the guts to leave this village of (probably) less than 500 people for the shores of America.

Sure puts my "big, lifechanging move" from North Hollywood to Silverlake in perspective.

I visited Italy for 4 weeks when I was 5 years old with my grandmother. No one spoke english and all I remember about the tiny town where generations of my family were born, grew, and died are chickens running in the streets and snails crawling up the walls during a rainstorm.

I suppose I'll be going back soon.