Hillside Town

Sometimes, I forget to listen to things around me. I forget that I belong to the whole world and not just my small pocket in Berkeley, in my small life, taking up so little space. Sometimes I forget why I travel and that does not serve me well. It serves me well to listen.

               Today Amanda Knox’s murder conviction was overturned. She’s probably making her way through a country that hates her, one that she probably used to love, to go back to her wrenched-apart and bankrupt family, all because of her.

               Today, Meredith Kercher’s family feels like they lost the last fiber of their late daughter’s life. They lost what they felt they were owed, and today they probably have nothing, and certainly not their daughter back.

               Below is something I wrote after my stay in Perugia this past spring. It’s my attempt to listen better.

I sat on the half-lit church steps. Italian and American students were chattering around me, and the fountain gushed continually in front of me. The late sun was slipping behind Perugia’s duomo, and the hillside town was headed into shadow.

               I had a few days to spend somewhere after leaving Florence early. A dear friend had recommended Perugia. He said it was the most beautiful city he’d ever seen. In addition to his recommendation, I wanted to see the town for myself. This was the town where Meredith Kercher had been killed and Amanda Knox had been accused.

               Meredith Kercher was murdered right before I studied abroad in nearby Florence, Italy. The two pieces of advice I received before I left were 1) Watch out for the Italian men and 2) Don’t kill your roommate, ha ha! Chance would have it that I wound up having a roommate named Meredith, and my first name is Amanda, and it isn’t funny.  Amanda Knox is from my hometown and went to the University of Washington. Though I didn’t know her, I felt like I knew what she was probably like.

               She probably played sports in the rain in Seattle growing up. She probably studied hard and had a caffeine habit, and she probably preferred Peet’s or Tulley’s to Starbucks. She probably spent her weekends in college working to pay for study abroad. She probably hated doing laundry when she lived in the dorms because the dryer consistently shrunk her t-shirts. Her mom and dad probably worried about her and gave her quick, last-minute kisses before she boarded the plane to Perugia.

               And the same was probably true of Meredith Kercher.

With all of this in mind, I decided on Perugia. I was tired of my own study abroad city, so I went to Amanda and Meredith’s.

               I wandered the city’s labyrinthine streets that followed the rise and fall of the hills. They curved like spines and opened into larger arteries where students and local Perugians strolled on that Sunday night. The windows burned like candles and Italian faces were bright inside, busy operating behind their stone walls. Tablecloths covered old tables, and children did their homework. American students stumbled past me, giggling, and my shoulder felt cold, the shoulder that Mer—my Meredith—would sometimes lean against as we walked for gelato along the Arno. 

               I found the café recommended by my guidebook, but I was waved away. The lights blazed inside, and the hours listed on the glass door told me the café was open, but I couldn’t go in. It looked warm, friendly, and a welcome place to sit and see what I thought about this utterly foreign place. And the whole evening felt tense, as if I were on the eve of understanding what had happened. But of course, I wasn’t.

               I walked to the grocery store for tea. On the way, I saw planter boxes with early spring flowers. Still lace curtains hung in the windows, and everything was made of stone. The old houses radiated cold. My breath hung in the night air, and even though people were all around me, I felt alone. A different alone than I had felt the rest of my trip. This kind of alone felt like love and kindness and understanding and goodness no longer existed in this place. It wasn’t the people, it wasn’t the buildings, it wasn’t anything. It just was.

               Someone had died in this town. But someone had died in every town, everywhere. But a girl—just a girl—had been killed in this town. Someone hated or was scared enough to kill in this town, and that is not everywhere. Maybe I had even walked past the home the two shared. Maybe I walked the route Amanda and Meredith had taken home from school. Something leeched into my bones in Perugia, and I so badly wanted it out.

               It’s easy to take sides. It’s easy to think that Amanda killed and sexually assaulted her roommate, Meredith Kercher. It’s easy to think she didn’t. What’s obvious is that no life involved in that awful happening in Perugia will ever be the same. And Meredith Kercher is dead, will always be dead, no matter who is found guilty. There is no separation here.

I don’t know whether she’s guilty or innocent. Maybe it’s some complex combination of the two. But I still feel for her and I still feel like there’s something strange that has yet to be explained, something that happened in Perugia. When asked what would be the first thing she'd do upon her return home, Amanda Knox said she just wanted to lie down in a green field. And Meredith Kercher's mother cried when the verdict was overturned. 

               When I got back to my hostel, I sat at the table and cried. In the morning, I woke early, took the bus down the hilly street, through the haze, and boarded the train for Florence, on my way far, far away from Perugia. I will not be coming back.

            (These two photos do not belong to me, please take note.) 

Frozen Fjords in Sogndal

Here's a post from March. I spent three days in a I-can't-believe-this-is-real cabin in a wee town in Norway, and it still remains one of my favorite spots.

I am in a haven of frozen fjords and floating snowflakes in Western Norway. Sogndal, near the Sognefjord, had been my home for the past three days, and I have done not much else besides eat, read, write, and sleep.

View from the windows.

I am every writer’s jealousy. I am sitting at a wooden table that oozes Norwegian kitsch and I am looking out of four huge windows onto the frozen fjord that is a few meters from the cabin. The rain that pounded the cabin for two straight days has yielded to its softer cousin, snow, and I’m watching the easy snowflakes rush towards the window, driven by the unabating wind, like fairies. The wind rattles the cabin, and the bare tree on the west side of the cabin chatters to me with every gust. This is like no place I’ve ever been before.

The cabin is six kilometers from town and about 10 meters from the main road, sheltered by rocks that would be a small cliff, save for the tiny foundation on which the cabin stands. The cabin is about 150 square meters and perfect. There is a living room, a kitchen, a bathroom, and two bite-sized bedrooms with only room enough for a built-in bed and walking space.

And then there are the windows. The windows in this place are beautiful. In the summer, they must swing open wide with an easy unfastening of the latch and let in the breeze that comes from the fjord via the mountain tops. They let in the light and a bit of the cold, but they are a safe barrier through which to watch the frozen weather outside and the tiny cluster of houses across the way. This morning, a crab washed up on the island of ice right outside the cabin. It lay on its back, and I assumed it was dead. I left for a hike and when I came back an hour later, it was gone. I hope it slipped away silently back into the not-quite freezing water to go about its crab business.

This is a place where I wish some genius writing would pour out of me. I wish this Norwegian table would inspire my fingers to tap out incredible sentences and wise words. But instead, I sit here, drinking my tea, looking out at the coming snow, and try to write something that works. This is as good as it’s gotten since I’ve been here.

This cabin makes me feel guilty for not writing something spectacular. I have the whole place to myself until about 5 PM, and nothing “good” has flowed from my fingers. It’s frustrating to think about the late nights in college I spent clacking away at my Ikea desk and my running shorts still on, holed up in my loud apartment, writing things that I feel are beyond and above me now. I feel like I’ve taken a few steps back.

I can see that part of the problem may be that I’m expecting too much. It feels like if I were to write something brilliant anywhere, it would be here. That would be perfect. But this is just another reminder that my expectations are what cause me disappointment, not the actual situation. The pieces that I’ve written on this trip that I’ve liked so far have been written in a train station and on a bus. Those don’t strike me as very romantic writing spots.

My station.

And so, I think it’s time to let my cabin go for now. I can let it slip back into the ocean of expectations like my crab friend, and it can go about its cabiny business, sitting along a fjord in a frozen winter, pushing back against the wind.

I bet it’s beautiful here in summer.

Train Rides? I'll Take 25, Please.

This post was from late March and after some tweaking, it's here! 

Trains have a certain romance to them, don’t they? There’s the physical ticket, strong cardstock in your hands, not a flimsy sheet of paper you printed off at home. There’s the noises of the station—lovers kissing goodbye loudly, business women snapping shut their phones as they climb the two steps into the cabins, the “all aboard!” whistle of the conductor. Once aboard, there are the plush seats, the gentle sway of the train like a cradle, and incredible scenery that flashes by. It all feels very 1920s, and I want to don a tweed suit number and matte red lipstick. Instead, I am a frumpy young American wearing the same pants from three days ago with a technical backpack hugging her shoulders.

Blam-o! There's my ticket, from Bergen to Oslo.

As an American, I never fully appreciated train travel until I went abroad. Our train system in the States is pretty deplorable, expensive, and not nearly as well constructed as the rail lines in Europe (though, admittedly, I’ve never been on it…I know, I know). Surely, the grass is always greener, but in this case, it truly is. Mostly, the grass actually exists in Europe. And I can afford it.

I bought a RailPass which granted me 10 days within two months of unlimited rail travel. I thought back to my study abroad days and how much I had enjoyed the train rides and the scenery that breezed by us. On those train rides, my mind wandered through memories and feelings and what to make for dinner. For me, the train allowed me a safe freedom for a few hours to simply ponder.

So I started hopping on trains and flashing my pass. To Lugano, Switzerland; to Paris, France; to Copenhagen, Denmark. I started looking forward to my travel days. They allowed me to take a break from constantly planning, calculating, and figuring out how to get from one place to the next. I was able to let that part of me sleep and recharge, while the thinking part of me took over.

My train rides look like this: I hop on board. I navigate my way to an open seat (or my specific seat if I’ve been forced to make a reservation), and heave my bag into the rung above me. I leave my jacket on because it’s too complicated to take off and hang it. I place my journal on the table in front of me, put my feet on the foot rest below me, and I look out the window. People stream past with large suitcases in tow, some enter my compartment and sit around me. Then there is a whistle, the train hums, and we creep away from the platform. We are on our way, and my mind and I are off to another place.

I learn a surprising amount on my train trips. I ask myself questions, let my mind float to what it thinks is important at the moment, and let my heart lead. Sometimes, the realization is as banal as the fact that I don’t actually like mayonnaise at all, and sometimes it’s as deep as I'm scared to move away from home and my family. Usually, these train rides are very easy on my legs but harder on my emotional heart.

The hardest train ride I’ve had was from Coimbra, Portugal to Hendaye, France. I was tickled to finally be taking an overnight train. It was to be unlike my train from Florence to Austria, in which I had a bed in a berth with two other students. This train to Hendaye I had just a chair that reclined a few inches. The train wasn’t packed, but there were loud people whose voices carried. The heater was on over-kill, and I was sweating out of my long underwear and pants. I woke up every hour or so as the train stopped, bumped and hiccupped along the weaving railway. When we arrived, I felt so fuzzy with lack of sleep and sticky with sweat that I didn’t care I had to make a 27-Euo reservation for the fast Thalys train to Paris. I handed over my Euro in the hopes that I would get some sleep on this comfort train. The romanticized ideas of matte lipstick and kitten heels of the ‘20s slowly began to fray like a flag in the wind.

The best train ride was easily my most recent, from personality-lacking Oslo to beautiful Bergen. The sun ruled the blue sky, and clouds were only a rumor over the tops of mountains. We glided through the mountains and over them, passing by stretches of blue-white snow that curved over the tops of houses like cake fondant. Cross-country skiers flecked the brilliant white expanse, and I felt a sudden desire to ask the conductor to stop the train so I could grab a pair of skis and join the strangers outside. We continued on and curved the hips of ridges and ducked through the throats of the peaks. We’d pass into darkness as we entered a tunnel and then a shocking pop of white would leave me squinting, desperately wanting to see what was out there in the expanse. Small houses cropped up now and then, but the overwhelming feeling was white, white, white.  

Surely, there are times where I abhor train travel. That high-speed, snooty French Thalys train was 30 minutes late, and caused me a bit of a ruckus when I had to meet my couchsurfing host. There are the accordion players and Portuguese rappers that perform for you and you must sit trapped, watching them, and then struggle with what to do when they walk around, their cup in hand for tips. There are the Italian trains that seem to start and stop when they feel like it, and the creepy people sitting around you. I remember when I caught a train from a small town whose name I can’t remember to Porto. The train was quite full, and there was a 35ish man sitting across from me. He had the face of every pedophile, Hannibal Lecter, mass-murderer and cranky civil servant I’ve ever seen. Our knees touched and our eyes met, and I have never felt a colder stare. It still tightens my spine to think about him and what I imagine he’s done. And so, there are the people on the train, too. They come as all sorts, and there is an equally opposite kind person for each bad one,  and I met many of the latter on the trains.

But here’s what I love about trains: I am whisked from where I am and what I have done and am en route to where I will be, who I will become, and what I will do. It’s hard to find fault in that.

So I look forward to my next train ride tomorrow. I am taking a bus to Voss, the train to Drammen, and a final train to the out-of-the-way RyanAir airport in Oslo. I am looking forward to who I will become in Scotland, and I am thankful, endlessly, to the trains for getting me there.

*Update: Turns out that the Voss to Drammen train ride was the most nerve-wracking. It was significantly late to the point where an NSB Railway ticket agent gave me a taxi voucher to get to the airport so I could make my flight. I still love trains. 

Numbers

More than once on this trip, someone I was spending the day with or hiking with would flop down on a rock or in a café chair next to me and say, “I wonder how far we walked.” And I would pull our my pedometer and quip, “Oh, just six miles today.” I’m not a geek for much, but I am a bit of a geek for numbers. 

               Not the kind of numbers that prove the existence of our universe or even the kind of numbers I can use to find the third side of an isosceles triangle. More like the kind of numbers that have no use except to count them, know them, and get some sort of weird satisfaction from them.

               Such is the case for the below. Enjoy! I did.

Days abroad: 84 quick, slow, hard, easy, enlightening, disheveling, spirit-breaking and making days.

Hostels stayed in: 13. Some great, some deplorable.

Couches slept on: 10. Nine great ones, and one on which I learned a few very important lessons.

Countries traveled to: 10 (Italy, Switzerland, Portugal, France, Brussels, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden,

Norway, Scotland).

Chinchillas encountered: Just the one, and all its poo.

Fancy splurge dinners I treated myself to: 8 (the majority of which were in Italy. Excellent choice).

Mountains climbed: 1 ½ . San Moritz in Lugano, Switzerland and halfway up the vicious munro Ben Nevis in Glen Nevis, Scotland.

San Moritz

Places I went because I’d read about them in fiction books: 2. Lugano and Stockholm, both equally lovely and surprising.

Miles walked: 552 cranky, happy, tear-drenched, cold, too hot, sing-songy miles.

Total steps walked: 1,385,153 (average of 16590 per day). Woah.

Train rides taken: 25. Some bumpy, others slow, all interesting in some facet or another.

Debit cards lost: ZERO! This is a vast improvement from my last trip. High-five, Sexy Money Belt.

Beverages tried: Kopparberger berry cider, pear cider, Strongbow, Super Bock beer, Sagres beer, Peroni

beer, Stella Artois beer, Moretti beer, Chimay Reserve, a quadruple, Guinness, Glenlivet 12, Moidart, Deuchar’s IPA, Caledonian’s 80, Belhaven’s Beast, Hebridean Skye Blonde, Sheep Shagger’s Gold, Kelpie, MacEwan’s, Old Hen, Talisker, Ben Nevis Blend, limoncello, limoncello cream, Chianti to Merlot to green Portuguese wine…to name more than a few. J I can’t help that I take copious notes on the small details.

Delightful Sagres beer on top of my host's roof in Faro

Lifelong friends made: while I can’t be certain yet, I would estimate at least five, one of whom I have

already seen again. Win!

Things I did that scared me: probably as many steps I took, and that’s a lot (see above).

Concerts attended: 1. And what a one it was. Ben Folds in Amsterdam, where I rocked it out like a Dutch

woman and then took the no. 13 tram home to Mercatplatz, as if I were a local and I lived there.

Weird foods tried: Lots. Herring sandwich, fries with mayo, haggis (delish), Balmoral chicken, and a variety of “home baked” goods.

Cappucinos consumed: so, so many.

Different types of sadnesses felt: 27

Things I learned about myself: still counting, but it’s a big number, I’m sure.

Gelatos eaten: an embarrassingly astonishing number, and also one I can’t be quite sure of.

Books read: About 15. Lesson learned: sometimes you have to read the James Patterson to get to the Frank McCourt.

Number of dance sessions on top of Arthur’s Seat, listening to Dave Matthews while the sun set over Edinburgh Castle: 2. J

Number of ways I can now say “thank you”: six. Thank you, grazie, danke, obrigado, merci, takk, dak.

Number of crying sessions: Oh-so-many.

Types of happinesses felt: About as many as steps taken.

Number of articles of clothing I threw away upon my return: just three. The saved ones are fabulous reminders of my days spent in their sleeves, legs, and zippers.

Sunsets watched: enough to fill my heart.

Steps taken of which I was proud: Every single one.

Number of times I was grateful, grateful, grateful: Every single moment, in every single city, and with

every single breath (even if I didn’t know it at the time).

Probability that I will go on a similar trip in the future: Oh, just guess.

Number of times I count my lucky stars: Every time I see one.

It's Like This:

I'm sitting in my hostel in my last night in Florence, the last night of my whole trip, and I am feeling something quite strange.

I am not sad to leave this city. It strangely has nothing to do with my initial negative feelings when I first arrived. Instead, it's something quite different: I believe this is called being content. How novel.

I sat on Ponte Trinita with a lovely friend this evening and realized that I have done all this before. I have lived abroad, I have worked my way through another language, I have gone to and fro. It sounds quite snobbish until you think about it terms of practice. Being in Florence, being abroad, is not novel, as bourgeoisie as that sounds. It's not high-brow, but it is the way I have chosen to live my life--partly abroad. I am getting good at this.

And so it makes sense that I could feel contentment on my last night in a beautiful city that has loved me and that I have loved like a secret. This city holds my heart, my past, and knows what I'm after in the coming years. This city is a friend.

Yet it's become a friend that I need a bit of a break from; it, and all its European friends. It's time to go back to life at home, the real home, and start something new. I know I will miss my aimless days abroad. It's like longing for a childhood comfort buried deep in boxes in the basement. It's there and can be dug out when necessary.

But mostly, I think I'm not sorrowful because I know I'll be back at some point, hopefully playing tour guide and translator with someone I love. I want to share this deep city, this labyrinthine experience with someone else. It's like taking another's hand and placing it over my heart and saying, "Feel what I feel."

This trip has been wild. Bewildering, eventful, studded with mild epiphanies and staggering self-realizations. It has been hard. But this is the best gift I could have ever given myself.

Someone dear to me was once said something that has stuck with me for years: it is important to allow ourselves and others the grace to be and the space to become. I think that's what this trip has been about, and I think I finally let myself live in that.

It's late, the hostel is quieting down, and I'll shut down my computer for my last night abroad. I came in calmly, and I'll go out in a rush. Tomorrow's itinerary: wake at 7, check out by 7:45, quick cappucino, friend and I wend our way up the duomo steps to the cuppola, eat a last panino and inhale a quick gelato, and I am off to the airport by 11:30. I wouldn't have it any other way, and for that, I am thankful.

I am thankful.

One Door Closes

Admittedly, I was a little drunk. Nothing too terrible, and certainly nothing the Odeón metro station in Paris hadn’t seen before. I was waiting for the metro to take me back to the 14^th adronissment. I had just taken myself out for a nice(r) dinner in the city center and sat with my journal, my carafe of wine I did not share, and myself, and sat the night away alone. I was not unhappy at all to find myself, at 11:30, in a Parisian metro station.

               I sat in my red seat and looked around. There were many familiar-looking people about. No one that I knew personally, but types of people I felt I did, those that I’d bumped into and held the metro bars with the past few days. There were the tired people just trying to get home without being bothered; there were the people trying to bother the tired people; and then there was one couple who stuck out.

               They were clearly saying goodbye, and loudly. He was in his mid-twenties, and she was slightly younger. He was tall and good-looking, well-dressed in the chic young Parisian way. She was shorter in the typical female fashion, and had on simple slim jeans and ballet flats, and was lovely. They would not have caught my eye had I not witnessed what was going on between them.

               They spoke in French, but I knew he was telling her not to worry, that it would be ok and he would see her soon. He held her by her forearms, as if trying to pass his confidence to her through touch. She turned her head to the side, trying to look at something else besides her lover that was saying goodbye.

               A metro train going the opposite direction slid in on the next track over. I watched as the air tousled her hair, and he brushed it back into place. She did not look at him, and he kept smiling and uttering soothing things to her over the din of the metro.

               I thought about my love that I had left on a winter-dark and early January morning the month before. I thought about what that felt like.

               We stood on the pavement outside the opening and shutting doors of the airport. My love picked me up in an infinite hug and I let my backpack slump over on its side. He squeezed me so hard I felt like I would still feel his shape over the next three months I’d be away. I looked at him, and it felt like I was breaking everything valuable. But he knew I had to go, and I knew that I would come back better. And so we both said nothing about the tears, and I walked in the opening and closing doors after a flurry of quick kisses. I got on a plane, and he drove away.

               And this woman I was watching—she was being insolent. She was being hard and stubborn and as soon as her love left, she was going to regret not holding on to him the way he held on to her.

               He tried to cajole her, giving her an elbow in the ribs every now and then. He tried picking her up, putting her down again, teasing her hair, and settled on touching her face. And finally, she cracked. She smiled, slowly put an arm around his waist, and leaned against him. The minutes were cracking away quickly, and the next metro would be here any minute rushing the love away from his.

               I felt better.

               But I still wasn’t satisfied. I felt like I was witnessing their last few minutes together that they would have for a while, and that she didn’t know what she was in for. Did she understand what it felt like to be apart from someone she loved? Did she know how lonely it felt being in a city like Paris, wandering the Louvre and pacing the Seine without her love’s hand to hold? Did she know what it felt like not sharing the bed with him? Did she know what it felt like to watch other lovers in a café while she drank her café au lait alone? Did she know?

               He detangled himself from her and faced her. He began kissing her—one cheek, the other, her forehead, her eyes, her nose, her ear. He moved quickly, and again she regressed. She did not reciprocate. She only stood there. I could feel the whole metro station watching them, like a burlesque show, but more tasteful in nature. They were standing behind the yellow line as instructed, on stage, and they did not notice.

               I wanted to yell, “Love him! Love him now!” But instead, I sat in my red seat and tried not to blatantly stare.

               I thought about my love back home. He was probably sitting at his desk, working on something brilliant. I thought about the way he runs his hands through his hair when he’s frustrated or overwhelmed or tired. I thought about how I can almost feel his heart break for others when he feels an injustice has been done. I thought about his knee touching mine. I felt all of those things sitting in my subway seat. This stupid girl didn’t know what she had precisely in front of her.

               I thought about how I would make a fantastic leap into his arms when I saw him again and how I would not let go until I felt certain that his shape felt the same as it did three months earlier when we had said goodbye.

               And then the metro came. It pulled up, and I waited until he would inevitably get on the metro and wave goodbye to her, and she would watch as it pulled away from her. I wanted to see their last wave before the doors closed. I wanted to see her understand. But the doors started beeping and I had to step on.

I saw them hug, and then they both stepped on the train a few cars down.

               The doors closed, and I said goodbye.

              

When in Scotland...do it like Burns

I'm no poet. This I learned in college when I wrote a few pieces, read many more, and decided I couldn't be bothered. The truth is, I think I found it too hard and not as rewarding as other styles. So, here I am, a mostly non-fiction writer.

The trouble is, I'm in Scotland, home to many great poets. Notably, Robert Burns (also William McGonagal, world's worst poet. Not an insult, it says so on his memorial in Greyfriar's Kirk, where he's buried). Check him out--he's a romantic like nobody else. We have him to thank for comparisons of love to a "red, red rose." He says, "You're welcome."

Since I arrived in Scotland, I thought I'd take some inspiration from Burns. Not on the romanticism bit, but on the poetry bit. It would give a challenge and a reprieve all at the same time--what a deal! So, below is a poem. Cheers to you, Rabbie Burns and Scotland.

And there will be days of lawnmowers and clean laundry at home

Buzzing along in neighborhood yards, humming in the closet

In houses all along every street

And frenetic parks where I can think about this.

There will be days of well-stocked grocery stores

Overflowing with too many options of many things

And busying myself with getting and spending

And forgetting.

And I’ll think of my days of walking and stopping

When I was as alone as a lighthouse,

Just as bright

With crashes and waves like anything else.

These are the days I’ll want when I’m waking for work

Stopping at the store on the way home

Fruit sacks in hand

And a travel tick in my heart.

I aim to keep this safe in my pocket

A reminder like a velvety stone

So when I get to those days of lawnmowers and clean laundry

I think back to the feathery days of being alone as a lighthouse

Just as bright.

The Writer's Workout

1)      Sit at your desk. Squirm around a little until you find a writerly pose, the one you’ll be sitting in when you begin your Next Big Story.

2)      Turn the computer on. While it boots up, get up and walk around your room. Poke at books you’ve read and embarrassingly ignore those you haven’t. Walk to the window and watch people outside. “They’re not writers—ha!” you think. “There’s no way a self-respecting writer would be anywhere besides her desk at this hour.”

3)      Walk into the kitchen and get a bowl of cereal. Sit at the table (in a newspaper reading pose) for about 10 minutes, until you’re absolutely sure that when you get back to your desk, your computer will be totally ready and give you a high five for sitting down for a day’s work.

4)      Go back to your computer. It’s up and running.

5)      Smash the keyboard with your fingers for about 35 minutes. Dismayed with your lack of good ideas and talent, get up from the desk and lie on the floor.

6)      Bemoan the fact that you’ve been chosen to be a writer and that if you even tried to do anything besides write, you’d be in for a life of discontent and unrealized dreams. Pound the floor three times for effect. Your downstairs neighbors will appreciate this.

7)      Get up.

8)      Sit in your chair. Assume a new writerly pose.

9)      Carefully pick out words on the keyboard. Soon, you will have one good sentence.

10)   You have one good sentence!

11)   In celebration, go and reward yourself by getting the mail in the sunshine. You needed a break anyway, that was hard.

12)   Open your mail on your front stoop. Bill, bill, rejection letter, rejection letter, card from Grandma with five dollars in it. Five dollars!

13)   Go back inside and assume writerly pose again. This One Good Sentence is going to need some company. No time for mail celebration! It’s time to write!

14)   Feverishly tick out words for the next two hours. Make your pinky work extra hard on the “backspace key.” At the end of these two hours, your pinky will be quite sore and your sunny disposition will be deleted just like your shitty partner sentences. Your One Good Sentence may have to get used to the idea of being alone for a while.

15)   Get up and walk around the house. Check to make sure the laundry room is still there, that the garbage bins out back haven’t been stolen, see that it’s still daylight. No, it’s not time for lunch. Dammit.

16)   Sit back down. Take out some paper. Maybe things will flow better on a good ol’ piece of parchment.

17)   They don’t. Throw the paper away in the trash bin. You do. No! You never completely get rid of any piece of writing. It’s all part of the process and you’re a big believer in the process. One day, after you’ve written your Next Big Story, you’ll look at this piece of paper as a building block for all that you’ve accomplished and you’ll be so glad you saved it.

18)   Take the paper out of the trash bin and smooth it out. Hell, tack it up on the wall, see what that does for you.

19)   Stare at your One Good Sentence. Glare at your One Good Sentence. What did it ever do for you? Fuck your One Good Sentence.

20)   Go for a walk. You need some space. The One Good Sentence just thinks it can rule your life? Absolutely not. Walk to the farmers’ market and indignantly buy some seasonal vegetables.

21)   Go back to your One Good Sentence. You were right—it’s a pretty damn good sentence. It may even be a springboard for an ok story. You don’t even bother to put away the seasonal vegetables on the counter. You’ve abandoned them in the doorway, and they can see you at your desk, hunched over in any sort of pose, tapping away quickly at our computer. The light outside fades, no one steals the garbage bins. After a while and 4,000 words, you look up and it’s after five o’clock. Your working day is officially over, but you sit hunched over your computer like someone who loves what she does and someone who wants to get better at it. You don’t get up for the next few hours. When you do, you close your computer, turn off the light, take your vegetables into the kitchen and make dinner. You don’t even bother to check if someone has or has not stolen the garbage bins out back. You’re a writer, not a detective.

22)   Eat dinner.

23)   Be proud of your One Good Sentence and all its friends.

24)   Repeat. 

Unexpected

I am in the Louvre, in Napoleon’s apartment quarters. I am taking photos of his royal-blue chair, an “N” emblazoned in gold thread on the seat back. The light is low, and it’s hard to get a good photo. A stern-looking guard approaches me. Uh oh, I think. Am I not supposed to be taking pictures in here? He says to me in French, “How’d it turn out?” and motions to my camera. I show him the picture on the LCD screen and he frowns. “No, that won’t do.” He leads me much closer to the chair, to a break in the stanchions and anti-tourist rolled rope strung between them. He pushes me gently into the tiny spot where my foot can fit so I can get as close as possible to the chair. Click click click. My shutter is the only sound in the room. I look at my LCD screen, and the result is much better. “Let’s see,” the guard says. “Ah—yes. There, you can actually see the blue the way it should be seen.” He smiles, and walks back to his post.

I am in Oslo, a city I have come to dislike, and I am crying at the reception counter of my hostel. They have no beds tonight. Viklieg, the older gentleman behind the counter, sees and says, “Let me get you a paper.” He walks quickly as if I’m bleeding, and grabs me a napkin. “Don’t cry. You’ll have a place to sleep tonight. At the very least, you can sleep on the couch in the common room. We won’t turn you out on the street. We understand how it is in Oslo.” He smiles at me. I sleep on the couch.

I am in Bergen, checking my email as I sit on my host’s couch. I click on one from Laila, the woman I met at the tourist office a few days before when I first arrived in Oslo. I had asked her general question about Oslo, and then asked her what she knew about getting to the fjords. She claimed that she knew little, but asked for my email in case she heard anything that would be of help to me. I opened the email, and Laila wrote that she had spoken with her parents who live in a town near the fjords, and they would be happy to have me for a few days if I liked. She included her parents’ contact information for me, and left it up to me. “Have fun! –Laila.”

I am in line for the women’s bathroom at the Dublin Pub in Oslo on St. Patrick’s Day; also, Italian Unification Day. I am with a group of Italians on vacation in Oslo, and they are waiting for me back at the table. The bathroom is a typical pub bathroom—messy, and out of toilet paper. A woman emerges from a stall with a stack of unused paper towels. She thrusts them in my hands and says what I can only assume is “That one’s out of toilet paper” in Norwegian, and leaves. Right then, another woman emerges from a stall. She says to me in English, “Jesus, woman. Do you really need all that paper? Think of the environment. Jesus Christ. Goddamn!” and walks out. I don’t have the slightest clue as how to respond to the woman who has already disappeared and left me surprisingly ashamed for something I didn’t do. The woman standing next to me says, “It’s all your fault, isn’t it?” and smiles.

My Italians in Oslo, at our lovely hostel.

There is a steady flow of people scanning their tickets to the entrance of the metro at the Paris Nord station. The woman in front of me scans her tickets and begins to walk through. I pass mine through, too, but her ticket gets rejected. However, she is admitted through because of my ticket. She turns around and tosses a “Merci! Pardon!” over her shoulder and is on her way. I try my ticket again, and it won’t work because it’s already been validated. I have no Euro on me to buy another ticket. I have to get through to catch my train. Dammit. I start to climb over the partition. A man behind me that I had passed hurriedly earlier says, “No, no, no.” He motions for me to let him pass, and I do. Then he grabs my wrist and pulls me close to him and he scans his ticket. He pulls me along with him, and we both pass through the partition. “Merci beau coup,” I say and smile. He smiles back and puts his headphones back in and walks to his train.

I am in Paris and I can’t find a phone that will work so I can call my host. All the pay-phones in Paris have been upgraded to smart-credit card read only. No coins. I am trying to call my host to tell her to meet me later so I can hear Peter Carey, famed Australian novelist, read at famed bookstore, Shakespeare & Company. I try a few hotels, and none of them have lines that go out. I head to the bookstore to see if they know of an internet café and I explain why I’m trying to call. Instead, Marie takes me inside and says, “Read me the number.” I get a hold of my host, and everything is taken care of. I tell Marie thanks, and she hands me a bookmark with her number on the back and says, “Call me in case it doesn’t work out.” I stay for the reading, my host comes, and I wave goodbye to Marie.

Peter Carey at Shakespeare & Co.

I am in the corner of Filo’s kitchen and we are arguing. He is telling me that I am stupid to ask that question—does he swear that nothing will happen if I sleep in his bed tonight? He says, “Do you think that you’ll be safe if you ask that question? If someone wants to take advantage of you, he’ll say anything. ‘Yeah, sure, I swear.’ He’ll say anything and then do what he wants. You’re silly to ask that.” He grabs his beer off the table and takes a drink. “If you need to feel safe tonight, I suggest you take a knife to bed with you.” He tries to hand me a knife. A few hours later, as we’re all getting ready for bed, he comes out of the bathroom. He’s in his tiny Italian boxers. I am not happy. In the morning, I wake early and think about how to get out of there. He turns over next to me, and, thinking I’m still asleep, pulls the cover over my shoulders. He does this twice. He goes back to sleep.

We are in 7-11 in Bergen, on one of the main streets. I am waiting behind my host, Julia, to pay for coffee, which is going to set me back an unbelievable $7. I stop paying attention to what’s in front of me and start thinking about the evening ahead of us. Soon, Julia steps away from the cashier and I step forward, change in my hand. The cashier looks confused. I ask, “How much is it?” She opens her mouth to reply, and Julia grabs my arm and pulls me towards the door. “I already paid for it. Come on.” We walk back over the windy bridge and to her apartment.

I am scanning the reader board every minute for news to see if the train is going to be even later than expected. I am trying to get to the airport in Oslo, and both of my trains of the day have been late, causing a significant problem for me. I’m worried that I won’t be able to get to Edinburgh tonight. It is a terrible feeling, and there’s nothing I can do. I already asked the Norwegian Rail ticket vendor if there was a bus or any other train leaving sooner. He told me there wasn’t, wished me luck, and I wiped away a tear. All of a sudden, I see the vendor walking towards me. He says to me, “Are you the woman who came from Bergen today and is trying to get to the airport?” I say yes. “Come with me, and take your luggage, please.” We are walking underneath the railway and out to the pick-up/drop-off area, by all the taxis. “Is there a problem, sir?” I ask. “Yes, and I am going to fix it, at least, part of it.” He hands me a stamped taxi voucher and tells me to take a cab. I can almost say nothing to this man, except ask him his name. “Paul,” he says and smiles. I pat him on the shoulder and say, “Thank you, Paul, my name is Amanda.” And then I run to the taxi, and we take off for the airport. $400-plus later, I am at the airport, and I catch my flight to Edinburgh.

The Writing Part of Writing

Many of you have inquired as to how the writing is going. To this, I say:

1) Thanks for remembering that a large goal of this trip was to write and

2)  Hard to say.

Sometimes I forget that I’m traveling to write. I find myself twisted in museum queues and passing days wandering canal-flanked lanes in search of stroopwaffel, and my pen writes nary a word.

I haven’t yet found the proper balance of traveling and writing. I think I’m secretly hoping that there’s some mathematical equation that will yield the proper answer.

I doubt it exists.

The blog has been doing a good job of keeping me honest and productive. However, it’s not really the type of writing that I usually do. It’s been turning to that direction, but it’s still a bit, well, superficial. Some posts I’ve actually been quite happy with. Others—less.

And so, the second part of my trip will be traveling, yes, but with more of a focus on the writing. I think this will get me in a good habit so that when I come home, I’m used to writing every day. Even if it’s a shitty first draft (Anne Lamott is a badass, and you should totally read her piece “Shitty First Drafts” if you have ever—even once—written something and immediately deleted it because you thought it was terrible http://www.orcutt.net/othercontent/sfds.pdf).

Here’s to: traveling+writing= !

Henry David Thoreau, You So Wise

I am walking down Gotagand in Stockholm, Sweden, laughing because I’ve just realized that the name of the café I’m headed to translates to “Mugs” in English. Mugs was a café in Ft. Collins, where I went to school, where I drank so-so chai lattes and met with my Italian club. For some reason, I am finding this terribly funny as I walk downhill to the crowded café, my hands swinging lightly by my sides.

I finally feel like the master of my own fate (thanks for your borrowed eloquence, Thoreau). I have finally found the space in my heart where it feels permissible for me to take my trip as my own and to make it exactly what I want. It was pointed out to me that I’ve been acting as if this trip is happening to me, and that’s not a pleasant thought. So, a change of heart has occurred.

After the Filo/CouchSurfing disaster, I felt awful. I seriously contemplated coming home. I’d just had it. I was spending time and money and having a really, truly awful time. I was willing to fork over the $250 to come home. It could be worth it.

But, as I wandered the Glyptotek Museum in Copenhagen, I remembered something. I wanted to be good at traveling alone. I wanted to be the kind of person who could travel alone and enjoy it; someone who could flourish, even. And suddenly, going home early vanished as an option.

Immediately following that realization, this popped into my head: it’s up to me to make this trip mine. So I have a lot of responsibility, and instead of dreading and hating it, I can view it as an opportunity.

“What can I do to make today great?” There are an infinite number of possibilities, and they all revolve around what I want. That is a beautiful place to find one’s self.

And so, this afternoon I arrived in Stockholm. I said the name out loud a few times as I wandered the streets bathed in the queer winter light, making the whole town appear as if it were a sound stage.

“Stockholm. Stockholm.”

I am traveling to places whose names have only been place cards for my imagination. I am seeing the steeples and museums of long-thought-of places, places that I could not begin to understand when I was younger. These places—Stockholm included—are the exotic dreams and mysteries from my childhood, like francanscence and mihr and other worldly things. How can a six-year old comprehend Scandinavia? They can’t. But a 23-year old woman can, and she can do it well.

So I’m trying.

Today, so far, I’ve gone to the grocery store three times, bought the same book twice and returned one because I found it for much less at another store, and battled the twilight blues I always seem to get by eating my dinner in the presence of two nice, gay and fashionable men from Hamburg. This is what I wanted my day to be. And it was and it was mine, the way a warm penny, long forgotten, is mine in my pocket.

My hands tingle inside my gloves, and my head misses my hat that I’ve left on my bed back at the hostel. I see Swedes, beautiful blonde people, pass by me, on their way to dinner, to home, to something else. Music seeps out of cracked doors like steam and warms my pace a little. There is a definite bounce in my step, and my laughter about Café Muggen adds a beautiful note to the pace of the falling evening. I am here.

Stockholm. Stockholm.