Walking early this morning, the air felt like Parisian winter air: damp, cold, fresh. The skies were gray, like the winter skies of Paris. For a moment my eyes watered at the desire to be there at that very instant. But that could have been the cold air making them water and making my nose run.
For years Tom and I left SFO the Tuesday after Thanksgiving and went to Europe: France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Portugal, Austria, Czech Republic, Sicily. One two week trip to Manhattan, another to Montreal, another to Istanbul. Two weeks of nothing to do but walk and eat and drink local wine, revel in the fact that there wasn't much English being spoken, read books, sleep in and enjoy the cold weather. Today would be the day we would return home, usually around December 15th or so. Is it any wonder that my body jumps at the thought of Paris weather? Jumps at the idea of getting on a plane and arriving in a foreign land?
That moment this morning opened a door in my memory bank, one that has been shut pretty tight lately. Not going anywhere, longing for a change of scenery, don't want to start thinking of all the beautiful places I would rather be. But I thought of the dinner we had in Sicily, a small trattoria that was almost empty at the early hour we walked in. The only occupied table had about 8 men, all in dark plain suits, all very Italian (or Sicilian to be precise) and all seriously talking and seriously eating. It didn't take a genius to figure out they were linked in ways Americans are not. Tom and didn't want to say the word "Brotherhood" or "Mafia" out loud but it was clear this was a business meeting of the most intense kind.
Another memory: we took a train from Vienna to Venice, a very long train ride. People on the train were coughing and it wasn't a surprise that by the time we got to Venice we were feeling terrible. Sore throats, chills, aches. The first three nights we were in Venice we were both very sick. Fevers, spirit people haunting our dreams, no appetites. The pharmacist gave us good drugs, they helped and the last two days we were able to actually enjoy the city.
So many more images popped into my head all day long: walking across wooden planks from ferry boat to ferry boat in Istanbul, waiting for the ferry to take us down the Black Sea; driving through a blinding snow storm in southern Italy, traffic down to one lane, the front window freezing up so the windshield wipers barely worked and my eyes burning from the snow blindness; watching old men play petanque in the Tuileries in Paris and watching little kids push small sailboats with a stick across the ponds in French parks.
Travel will happen again. I just hope I am not too old to hop on that plane and take that trip.
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