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.