On being a solo traveler; or I can’t cancel dinner with me again

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Living in New York, I’ve learned the art of feeling completely alone while surrounded by millions of people. All the eye contact you can make or smiles you can give doesn’t espouse the transient nature of human encounters. In one day they all add up to a few seconds, minutes maybe, or if very lucky a casual conversation.

If I was hiking a trail or traversing the countryside via my bicycle, I’d expect this lack of human contact, and it would be welcomed as a necessary part of such adventures. But on this current tour I am drawing direct lines from one major city to another. There are numerous listicals of things to do for each place I’ve been, and tourism is imperative to these urban economies. There are swarms of people, tourists and locals alike surrounding me at every moment. Even now over breakfast in the grandiose dining area of my hostel there are 5 other people eating near by.

The man directly to my right wears a white collared shirt and a v-neck sweater. He looks too clean to be staying in a hostel or perhaps he has refined his ability to exist on the go better than me. I believe he is the one who slept two beds beneath me, the bunk beds stacked 3 high (yet I can still stand on my bed without touching the ceiling!). He snores and moves a lot in his sleep but I can’t fault him for that. He eats the cornflakes that are part of the free breakfast and I am waiting for him to pull out a laminated map. I imagine he is meeting a woman from last night for lunch so he has the morning to explore at his leisure.

There are 3 young men sitting behind me who sit hunched over ham, bread, and cheese, too hung over for much discussion. They all wear hooded sweatshirts pulled up around their faces and big warm coats, though to me it feels like spring. They probably went to Barrio Alto, starting at the famous cocktail bar and moving on to the neon clubs with 1 euro shots. There was also a pub crawl last night according to a poster on the stairwell, but I don’t believe anyone ever attends.

There is another man who reads his iPad, much older than all of us judging by the white of his scruffy, traveler’s beard. I peg him as a web designer or some profession to do with aesthetic proclivity. I would not cross his path if I was on that long hiking trail, I assume, but then again we both are here on our computers, eating the free hostel breakfast alone. I predict he’ll wander over to the main shopping area that is all a buzz on the weekends. He’ll buy a few gifts for people from well known stores before writing a few emails, to get a head start on his London counterparts, before treating himself to a seafood dinner at one of  the restaurants recommended by the too-beautiful hostel bartender, the one with the man ponytail.

I won’t make the effort to talk to them, and to be frank it is because they are men and I am sick of men. Traveling alone, I do not have a wing woman or girl power advocate by my side. I’ve found myself checking over my shoulder, quickening my steps, keeping a stone face when cat called, and making quicker-than-normal exits at bars. In NYC, perhaps because I feel so at home, I feel in control and command of my body and my self in my surroundings. Here, in strange worlds and alone, I find myself skeptical of the compliments and attention I receive. I’d rather not have it.

Before I left, my mother told me she was worried because I am overly trusting. I have been told I make friends easily and to my dear mom this meant that I would end up on the evening news. Her words have stayed with me as I traverse, two guard rails on either side of me as I walk a cautious line. I am proud of my womanhood, but I am not naive.

Instead of making gaggles of friends to follow on social media and promise couches in our respective homes for future journeys, I’ve picked up a few special people at random. Like finding a quarter on the side walk, I was in the right place at the right time. Jen at the pub, Lena taking a selfie, George in a smokey bar, Julien over vegetarian rice paper rolls, Susan in front of the coliseum, Francesca over NYC style brunch. Quality over quantity, that’s what I’m going with. And when the quantity is too sparse to overcome inevitable loneliness, I simply talk to myself until I feel better.

I think my friend Jessie back home was right: I’ll look back on this experience with such fondness, and be proud of myself for doing it alone. All the ups and downs and dark mental corners I find are part of me and the inevitable complexity of being a human being. It’s painful and lonely at times, but I hold on to the idea – while playing “the ground is lava” by myself in a park because why not – that it is the road to a deep understanding and more importantly cherishing of the self.

Tonight, I think I’ll put on some lipstick, find a wine bar, and take myself out on a date. And at the very least, I’ll go home with someone I’m starting to love more and more.

What to do in an artist’s studio in Hackney Wick

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You fiddle with the locks for 8 minutes before you pause and take a breath, exasperated. You wonder if anyone will walk by and question that you should be doing what your doing. It is 10:30 pm and though dark alleys with graffiti walls are familiar to you, there’s always that girl in the horror flick who the audience knows will be offed before she does.

You finally figure out that her key needs to be horizontal and turned at the same time you press enter on the coded key pad. You wonder why the security is so high for a warehouse building. You’d prefer not to look behind you as you close the first door quickly after entering. There’s a long hallway in front of you and you remember her directions not to go down it. If you did, is that the part in the horror film where you’d be offed?

The lights come on as you walk forward and it makes your heart jump. The bag on your back and the one on your arm are screaming at you. Your spirit animal is definitely not a turtle. You think about the boy who’s spirit animal is a snail and wonder if you should have slept with him and if he wanted to. You think about how many other people are in this warehouse of artist’s studios and if any of the are having sex right now. Like the scene in Amelie, your favorite film, obviously.

You walk to the left and up the stairs and through two fire doors until you come to number 13. You’ve already  used the blue and the green key so there is only one left and it has to be it. There is no handle on the door and you don’t feel it moving so you dip your shoulder into it and push hard. The door gives way and you have to catch yourself with the house on your back before being squashed beneath its weight and never making it to Oz.

She had warned you there are only lamps and your phone has died so you fumble in the dark to find a switch. You’re startled by your reflection in the floor to ceiling mirror. Your eyes are so black and your jaw looks square. There’s nothing nice to say right then so you turn away.

There is a desk with a computer, scattered papers, a mug of gone-cold tea and artistic tools from paint brushes to film canisters. There are piles of clothes in seemingly intentionally placed piles around the floor. You remember she conducts film shoots here and wonder if she’d ever like to photograph you. Maybe you and her together.

You throw your bag down as if it was your childhood house and you’ve just come from school, exasperated by a full day of nuns acting as teachers with little patience for elaborate story-telling. There is a full bed on the floor guarded on three sides by giant foam panels. She’s constructed a light blocking cage to sleep inside. You think about her here by herself, her lithe arms piecing her fortress together. She’s drawn an image of two cartoon transvestites on the inside of one wall. Think maybe you love her because she’s as unexplainable as your sister.

You look in the fridge because she told you you could and find something she’s made from who knows how long ago. You dip a spoon into it and feel the addictive rush of doing something your not suppose to when no one is looking. Remember that quote by someone about character then brush it aside. Cold lentils and potatoes and you wonder if she’ll be upset if you eat it all. You wonder if he made it with her, this him that belonged to the voice from the bedroom on the second floor. He had made her tea and soup and stroked her forehead when she was ill that day. You wonder how many times they have slept together in the middle of the afternoon on a school day because they are unattached to conformity and regular schedules. You picture him tall and dark to match her lightness. You keep eating her cold stew.

There are spices in old jam jars labeled with scribbles on scotch tape next to small bags of organic beans. You notice there are more chopsticks than utensils and wonder if she enjoys eating with them or if it is a way to keep thin.

You get naked and stare at the canal and smile when you think of someone sleeping in the tug boat below looking up to see you there in the window, backlit by her lamps. You think about living there by yourself, imagining making coffee in the morning, enough space to do yoga by yourself and later give a class to your friends. You would put a desk by these big back windows that face the sun so that you could write there. Maybe. You put on your music and dance around naked until you shiver from the cold despite starting to sweat.

You look at the time, it is almost midnight. Maybe you should go out and explore. Maybe you should put clothes on first. Maybe you’ll meet that bearded guy drinking British ale in the cafe who is as aimless as you. You can pass the time by talking about anything other than the temporal and keep drinking until you feel a bit dizzy and wonder if you’ll find your way home. Maybe he’ll invite you for scrambled eggs and smoked salmon on toast. You’ll eat it on the floor of his studio at 2 am and tell stories about how your parents met and whether or not you believe in things like marriage and universal healthcare. Maybe he’ll tell you he has money saved and wants to travel. Then he’ll unfold a large map he keeps by his bed. He’ll tell you to close your eyes and pick.You let your finger land (restricting it to Europe to be pragmatic) and when you you giggle he opens his laptop to buy two tickets. You’ll go together to the tip of your index finger. Maybe that’s when he’ll kiss you and his beard will tickle your chin. For a moment, maybe, a montage of bearded men you’ve kissed will run through your mind. You’ll kiss him harder to forget all that and the taste of scrambled eggs will make you happy in for a reason you know too well. Maybe this will be the start of it all and it’s so close, now.

You decide not to go out mainly because you don’t feel sexy enough after all of the legumes. You put on a t-shirt and underwear as to not be rude and sleep naked in her bed. Also it’s cold, but that is secondary. You wind your way back down the stairs, getting lost in one of the divergent hallways and mentally kick yourself for not putting on pants. You find the bathroom eventually and wonder if this is the part of the movie where you get offed in the fluorescent bathroom. Someone has left a few tissues for toilet paper. Whisper a silent prayer and feel like the universe is on your side after all.

Go to sleep wondering if you’re a failure for not going out or not having an artist’s studio in the up and coming part of London, and make a plan to focus on one thing for a while and see where it takes you. Start to recite a mantra in your head until you fall asleep. When you wake up, this will all be over and there will light flooding into the white studio through the back windows. It will take you a bit longer to see it because of the wall she has put up there to darken the room and obstruct the light. When you wake up, the first thing you’ll think of is her, and you’ll wonder whether she would put pants on to make herself tea.

The nicest people on the planet

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“You see there, theres been many a bloke who’s offed himself from up there.”

After two hours with him I was starting to be able to understand Tim the first time around. He had a heavy Welsh accent, having been born and bred in Swansea to take on his family shop in the center of town. He was pointing to a large protruding rock in the sea, what the vikings deemed Worm’s Head. From where we stood on the edge of the cliff it was rough waters bordered by lush greens as far as we could see. The beaches down below stretched for miles, and during the summer were said to be swarming with European vacationers flocking to see the second most beautiful place in the world.

I could see dots of white on the Worm’s Head and wondered how those sheep so aptly roamed around without falling off. I’d write to a friend later that I found them much more competent than humans. I certainly would have toppled off.

Tim and Cheryl told me about the walks they’d taken around the coast, explaining the path that runs the length of Wales. One can camp out along various points and cover the entire country. I’d like to do that one day, I said over and over again.
I couldn’t help think about him as I saw the green blurs of his hometown, the places I’d heard about in his myth, as distant and magical as the dragons on his flag. The only country with a dragon on it, I remembered.
We went for coffee and then to the marina for an Italian style dinner. We were the only three in the restaurant and I was tired and hung over, aware of my recent acne breakout and the dreading of my hair. But there was so much love shared over shark (“it’s delicious here!”) and garlic bread that I let go of all of it for a moment in favor of hearing their travel plans and answering questions about New York, my family, and feelings about American healthcare.

After dinner I wrapped my arm around Cheryl’s waist and we walked home. So familiar she felt as our hips kept sync, I felt like she was my aunt who had once cooed over my chubby baby ankles. How do some people touch your heart so deeply, so suddenly? It’s a spell to fall under and never be released, I hope. We made peppermint tea when we got home and watched Youtube videos of the Welsh national anthem and the tourism video for Nantucket, the latter I had told them to see during one of their upcoming travels.
I felt myself in a cradle and wondered what it would mean to cancel the next leg of my trip and stay a while there, drinking Tim’s fresh beetroot and peach juices and buying fresh flowers for Cheryl. It hit me that I missed my family, and I’m not quite ready to mother myself completely.

In Swansea I slept as if Cheryl had rocked me to sleep, perhaps tickled my back and read me a story about happily ever afters because I dreamt of the Welsh dragons and that once fairy tale love. I woke up thinking I had been whisked away and there was nothing left to do but keep falling.

Wales is known for its wet cold and wind and I woke to the sounds of wind blowing over the sea of two-story flats and small trees. Not much to uproot nor blow over, but I wondered about all the little cars and if they would tumble like I imagined one or two dopey sheep had before. I found a yoga studio where I met Rachel, Tim’s niece, who had never before met an American. I wonder what she thought, but I think we hit it off. We stopped at the market on the way home and I bought a bouquet and a grapefruit and she told me of her oldest son’s recent Rugby injury. I told her to come to New York and visit. She smiled and looked down in the way that tells the thought had crossed her mind many times before meeting me, but was growing further away, the way a baby seems to become a little human overnight. The idea was a memory one can’t go back to. I gave her a hug and promised to see her if I was in Wales again. What a strange feeling, not knowing if you’ll ever see this person again. Moments strung together like pearls. You wear them for a while but then one day you put them in a drawer because they’ve gone and tangled themselves together and you can’t be bothered.

Tim made us breakfast of poached eggs, baked beans, and toast. He couldn’t share the grapefruit as he’s diabetic and I realized after I had eaten it that it might have been rude of me to enjoy what he couldn’t. But there is so much of that going on during a self-powered European trip, it was a drop in a bucket almost full.

When he drove me to the station he told me how recently more people have moved into the neighborhood. He wouldn’t mind, but they refuse to integrate. Instead casting judgement on the Welsh, he said. It was the first time I’d heard the intensity come out in his voice. I’m sure the twinkle in his eye wouldn’t have been there just then, and I didn’t want to see him without it, as I was leaving so soon.
When we said good-bye I started to tear up. Less than 24 hours in Swansea with him and Cheryl and I didn’t want to get on the bus. Be careful, keep your head down. He shifted his eyes and the father in him looked worried. He turned to leave and then thought better of it and gave me a kiss on the cheek.  Let us know when you arrive in Cardiff. Then he turned to leave to head to work at the shop that had been in his family for over 85 years.

Before I had gone to bed the night before, Cheryl knocked on my door to say goodnight. She hugged me, the best hugger I’ve ever met, the way I’d like to hug every person I love. I feel like I’ve known you forever, she said.

Me too, though thinking about it, and knowing me, if I had had the chance I would have eaten two grapefruits. I think that’s what traveling alone does to you sometimes.

The start of something

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The last time she was in Italy there were funeral flowers in her hotel room. Meant to be a welcoming gift by the romantic entrepreneur with whom she’d slept back in New York, the arrangement of white roses and calla lilies brought the grandeur and formality that comes with death. She had told him she would be coming through Rome partly in good form but also because with him, she’d learned, the world was wide open. She hadn’t dreamed that a weekend stay at the most expensive hotel in Rome would follow.  Yet, when she checked in two concierges each made a point to step out from behind the desk and shake her hand. “Anything you need at all, miss. We are here for you as family.”

There are certain truths that as a young woman were obvious to her but that somewhere between sending the email and googling the hotel room she chose to ignore. A man does not get a women 20 years his junior a hotel room just to be nice. Well, she let that thought move quickly out of her mind as simply as it had presented itself. Like the passing of roadkill, a momentary sadness gives way to the open road ahead. Don’t think about it and it can not possibly be a problem.

He told her to meet him beforehand at the roof top bar of her hotel before they went to dinner. She chose to wear the first outfit she tried on, a smugness that so compliments a wanted woman. She felt the weight of something illicit as she applied a heavy lipstick. Like a diamond necklace, exquisite to witness yet impossible to wear without a strain of the neck and a struggle to stand straight. It was a glittering imprisonment; he kept her inside his hotel at the top of the castle where champagne and oysters were set out on the grand piano. Amore, they play this song for you, he said each time the tune changed. And this one. This one is for a woman, this woman, he’d rub her thigh and she’d take a drink. Looking out the one story window onto the ancient empire, the thought of him on top of her crossed her mind. She ran her tongue over her teeth, removing the dried bits before taking another sip.

On being on Regina’s couch

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Our first couch surfing experiences

I wasn’t sure if she would serve me a cup of tea or a bowl of stewed eyeballs and pickled fingers.

I rang the doorbell to her one bedroom flat around 8 pm on a Sunday. I heard her come down the stairs slowly, one thud at a time as her hazy silhouette grew larger through the frosted glass. Her form took up the space of the window and I saw the outline of wiry hair.  Locks twisted and unchained, she opened the door a few inches. Her nose appeared first followed by one eyeball. I smiled, I had seen this in creepy movies before. I knew what was going to happen and it was almost comical. She’d either become my best friend and we’d talk about knitting or she’d cut me up and feed me to her house cat.

When she saw me she shut the door again, undid the final chain and opened it wide. She smiled at me and her eyes squinted until they became only horizontal lines with crinkles around the edges. Like little stick bugs digging their little legs into her still smooth skin. Her gray hair cut just above her shoulders was secured on one side by a large felt flower barrette. She had a crocheted blanket wrapped around her waist, a purple cardigan and a faded yellow turtle neck.

I got to the top of the middle of the stairs and realized she might want me to take off my shoes. She told me to put them at the bottom of the steps, and so I stepped  backward down the stairs as it was too small for me to turn around with my home on my back. Another minute or two of awkwardness ensued as I bent down to untie my shoes without releasing the bag and fell forward, by arms catching the brunt of the weight before my face smacked the floor. Off to a good start.

Her house smelled of long worn carpet and once wet wool. Brewed tea had steeped into the walls coloring them a worn in brown. Tiny framed watercolors of landscapes lined the walls. On the drawers beside the entrance to the living room there were two heart shaped frames with smiling children looking back. Both had matching grins and emblemed navy sweaters, and maybe I was tired but my first thought was that they were two spoiled children up to no good.

The couch had a  white blanket covering it in that way older people do when they don’t want to be bothered getting rid of the stain sofa when they can throw a cover on it much more easier. We were quiet then for a while. She paid no attention to me laughing to herself as she read from a binder, magic spells perhaps. It was my first time and I felt as if I took up the entire room.

I asked her questions about her life and learned she was a practicing Buddhist , estranged from her father and had one sister, the mother of the mischievous smiles in the hallway, living in the north of England. She had recently taken up painting and had a preference for Downton Abbey. There were essential oils lining her sink and inspirational quotes hung like limp flowers around her home. You could follow their trail from above the dusty television in her kitchen to the mantel of the fireplace in the living room collecting discarded bits of paper and wood, more than ready to escape in smoke.

I stayed two nights with Regina on a Thai beach bed, which is essentially a mat made for enjoying tropical seasides. I was up before her both mornings, leaving little notes as if she was my caretaker and I needed to let her know I was thinking of her. It all seemed to be going well and eventless until it wasn’t anymore.

She asked me to dinner the send night and having made plans at a local pub with a new friend, I apologetically declined. That night when I got home she had locked both locks though she had only given me only the key for the bottom. She waited 30 minutes to answer the door, having said she was on the phone when I first rang and couldn’t hang up right then. She wasn’t sure it was me even, because I seemed to not be coming back due to the late hour. Her brow was more furrowed than normal and her eyes sunk in. I could tell I had offended her without her saying it. This is it, I thought, this is where she kills me in my sleep.

What are your plans for tomorrow? She asked me. I was suppose to be staying with her the following night as well, leaving for London early Wednesday morning. Because, she continued, I’d like a night to myself. So you’ll find another place to stay. The corners of her mouth smiled in a way that was not unkind but rather matter-of-factly. She was kicking me out.

The next day I asked a friend to shower at her place, not wanting to be at Reginas’s longer than I had to before departing to London. When I returned to her house she made me a cup of tea and asked about my plans. I began packing as she sat on her sofa using an exacto-knife to cut out shapes in the paintings she had made.

While I shoved my stuff into my bag she informed me that she was sending them to homeless shelters as a random act of kindness.

Before leaving I went into her room and left the flowers I had bought from the market on her bed in the way one leaves them near the casket at a funeral. She’d find them later and I hoped she’d put them in a vase and maybe paint a picture of them. The pinks and magentas bleeding into the greens giving it a soft and far away feeling. Making the real into the imagined.

I kissed her on the cheek before thinking about it. It was a hard kiss and I had just drank water so it must have left a wetness on her cheek. When was the last time you’ve been kissed? I wanted to ask.

I’m going to go make dinner now, and see about a friend. A flash of a smile before she closed the door and again became a shadow in the glass. I could still make out the tip of her flower barrette as she stood there for I don’t know how long.

On meeting a girl crush

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From beneath the thin borrowed blanket, reading the story about a betrayed woman’s quick mental decline, she felt weighted enough not to stir when the she heard the soft click of the door. She was using her e-reader with the backlit screen, and for a moment she turned it down and pretended to be sleeping.

But, she was a stranger in this girl’s apartment, after all. At some point she would need to see her and say hello, greet her and assume the humble position of one who has accepted a huge favor. Something like looking at her shoe laces a lot and shifting weight from foot to foot. She got out of bed and turned on the light, opening the door into the little hallway.
Sara was taking off her coat and scarf, unwrapping a smile from beneath the gray woven fabric. She was beautiful in the way that she looked completely aware of herself. With cropped hair and no makeup to hide a smooth complexion, she would show up as she was to greet whatever happened, fully confident and aware. There was something of a movie star about her. She would play the love-interest who sat directly in opposition to the main character whose life was in disarray. She would come in with her neat receipt piles and stock of toilet paper – she would never be caught unprepared – and shed wisdom and guidance on the girl who just couldn’t fathom what her life meant.
She was carrying a pizza and offered her some. Though it was almost midnight her host seemed to be as alive as ever. She wondered if this was how she always was.

The Madonna in Milano

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“What defines art?”

One of those glorious 2 am questions that energizes the body as the mind starts to churn.Rion, my Milan host who I know from Brooklyn, posed the question as we walked back with his girlfriend Francesca to their Milan apartment. It was the second time that night we three had walked down their block with the intention of going home. The first was abandoned after we passed 3 strangers who’s eyes betrayed what they were doing, and we wanted to be a part of it.

I used one of the three words in Italian I knew to say hello and ask how they were. The leader of the pack, Mike, looked confused and watched my lips with half closed lids as I repeated in English. He asked where I was from and then what I did. Rion started talking to his friends as we stood in a skewed mid-sidewalk circle. Mike had an LA Clippers hat on and the other two wore hoodies and matching sneakers with the velcro strap undone.  I told him I was a writer and drew a fake cursive word, with extra flourish, in the air.  Me same! he said and his eyes opened wider.

Yes, I felt it. An instantaneous connection. A bond over words. I suspected he was a poet, perhaps a spoken word artist. I started to think of my friends back in New York who are involved in the slam poetry scene and with whom I’d want to connect him with if it turns out his stuff was good. He seemed like he would do well in a battle. Impassioned Italian man spittin’ verses, driving the words home with dramatic arm movements and inflection that demands ears.

I asked if he wrote fiction or journalism or poetry, but the language proved a problem. He asked Francesca in Italian if we wanted to walk to the little park between the church and the McDonald’s for a drink and a smoke. His friends looked bored by the idea of 3 new additions and split off to go buy beer.

As we were walking Mike turned to me and said he wanted to show me his writing. That if I came to the park tomorrow during the day, we could create something together. Imagine! A beautiful afternoon in Milan spent sipping a spritz while creating a bilingual piece, maybe one that we could practice and perform! I thought of Mike and I in Rion’s living room with a few of their friends gathered to hear us share our art. I didn’t think he was attractive or all that exciting, but I was in love with the thought of it all and smiled a little brighter. We agreed in a few words: tomorrow, some park he named, creation time.

Francesca was walking behind us, and I paused to take step with her, not wanting her to feel left out. Isn’t it cool, I said, he’s a writer too! What are the chances of meeting another writer so randomly?

Mike turned around, I’ll show you good and bad, he said and pointed towards a wall.

I think he mean’s street writer, like what’s the word in English?

Graffiti, Rion said, he’s a graffiti artist.

Heart sunk. Supposed connection severed. He had thought I meant I was a graffiti artist from New York City. No, definitely not as cool nor as elusive as that.

He stopped in front of a gate of a closed shop, where someone had painted a mural of a mom and a child holding hands. It was vey well done in my opinion and must have taken the artist a long time to do it with spray paint.

He hates it, Francesca translated. Not art, Mike said. He says the artists are, what’s the word-

Selling out? Rion was standing closest to the gate, nose an inch away, looking at the strokes and lines.

He says the companies pay the artists to paint these and this is all they do. They cover the art that is already there.

We turned a corner down a quieter street. Mike stopped again and pointed at the wall. Artist tags ran up and down it, some more easily read than others. Most were composed of single swooping strokes. A few of them were scribbled symbols. This is real, said Mike.

This is great, Rion said, stepping back to take in the length of the wall. Are you on here? Mike shook his head. He made a waving motion with his hand and said in Italian that it was covered up by another artist. He’d come back and cover someone else’s and leave his name. So it went.

I was trying to figure out if Rion was serious or just being friendly to the guys who had just smoked us up. I had seen and been involved in works of art that Rion created, and considered him a talented artist with a unique perspective. I had posed topless for him for an art piece and it was the first time I hadn’t felt shame being exposed. He had a way about him like that, I thought. I was always ready to hear his opinion and I had assumed that he would have denounced the wall as what it was: vandalism charading as art. He touched the wall and traced a name with his finger.

Can we go see the lady? I want to show Erin. Mike didn’t seem to understand but started to follow as Rion turned and with his daddy long leg strides led the way down the main street. 2 am on a Saturday night in Milan looks a lot like 2 am in NYC. Except in Milan you can drink on the street. People, younger than our party, were strewn about on benches, outside of late night eateries, laughing and talking loudly. It was one big playground and I wondered who were the king and queen and what the rules were. There were a lot of short skirts and bright lips, dark hair with darker-lined eyes and leather, leather, leather. I wondered if they could smell the American on us.

After another 5 minutes, the effects having worn off and given way to that shrill November bone-cold, we paused in a walkway behind the chain railing that divided it from the street. Across the skinny road was a large black door with an oval arch that seemed characteristic of the area. On the door, someone had painted the image of a face reminiscent of the angels I had seen in the church frescos. Cherubim cheeks and round features, soft and inviting. Except, there was hell in the divine. Something empty and eery stared back at us. Black relief spaces fore the eyes and mouth. If I put my hand through her eyes, it might go all the way through. I wondered what eyes like that had seen, what they held as they took in the street. She couldn’t tell us, she was forbidden.

The artist had used feathered strokes, intentionally asking the eyes to swoop upward towards the top of the arch. Begin staring into the black mouth, where searing nothingness gaped. Continue up to crater eyes, sunk deep into the door yet even blacker still. Find the tip of the forehead where her hair has been parted and wind-blown. She’s stunning, Rion whispered, my favorite piece. It’s like we’re at a museum, he said as he stepped over the low chain rail.
He took out the YES stickers in his pocket. The same campaign he had started in Brooklyn, decorating everything from curbs to traffic signs, going so far as to make large scale prints to wheat paste on building facades, he was continuing internationally. Fearless in his disregard for propriety, his artistry flowed out two middle fingers stuck up to the world. Any moment there could be a confrontation. I could feel it just below our breathing: how much we all wished for the polizia to join us hand guns un-holstered, coming from down the block at a sprint as they shouted in Italian. Even Rion knew it was the thrill of the act rather than the result. For the artist and the audience there is knowledge of the illicit whenever they see what shouldn’t be there. It’s not what it is but how it got there that excites the imagination. Someone got away with something they shouldn’t have done, and in that way we share a secret we’ve been holding all alone.

How we wanted him to be confronted, and cuffed. Once they found out he was American they’d take extra pleasure in a jab to the ribs, eyes flashing a well-groomed distrust and disliking. A little adventure that night, that’s what we all craved. You could smell the desire, hot and damp like sex in a bar bathroom. It stretched along the alleyways and wrapped itself around street lights and cigarette butts.

About 8 stickers later Rion rejoined his audience on the other side of the railing to view his work. In the black hole of the Madonna’s mouth he had made a tongue out of YES’s. The screeching night-people walked back and forth down the street as we stood and looked at defamation called art. The act having been committed, there was a sadness to the scene. Had the Madonna said yes or had someone spoken for her, I wondered. I thought of my mother. Physically altered by his hands, the sticking and the smoothing and he hadn’t even been caught. No one had said anything. We didn’t even get a show out of it and now the world saw there Madonna, sticking out her tongue in fevered defiance.

He’d made her go mad for the world to see.

Things I learn the hard way

/ erinroseward / Leave a comment

Learning the hard way at someone else’s expense

There is only so far you can push someone’s buttons. Particularly someone who has been so kind to you, has gone out of their way to accommodate you. For example, after a long day at work and a previously communicated need to leave the city as early as possible to avoid an extra hour of road raged traffic, one does not wish to sit in the car for an hour waiting for a lost traveler. That person seems less and less deserving of your familial love, as you try repeatedly to call them, only to get their voicemail, them not having the foresight to bring a cell phone charger nor to have written down your number. You hit the steering wheel, which is uncharacteristic of you — to give in to fits of rage no matter how small. Your mind starts to think about the worst case scenario: your kind-of-sister foreign guest, who is sleeping in your spare room and eating your groceries, who you picked up and will drop off at asinine times at two different airports that are logistically very out of your way, trapped in a van and blindfolded, or perhaps a made-limp body already on its way to the SOMETHING river. What will you tell people? You …lost her? Of course, she’s American. It can’t possibly be her fault.

There’s only so much you can take when she calls you from a Best Western somewhere that requires another 10 minutes of winding and weaving through traffic to get to. She sounds almost happy as you calmly try to explain to her that you just want to go home and you haven’t eaten all day. You don’t tell her that work was really tough, that you tried to leave extra early to have more time together with her and your girlfriend, that it is starting to rain and the traffic and your nerves are compiling quickly. You don’t re-emphasize that you had explicitly told her where to go, and she had gotten lost. Well, isn’t that precious. That’s why when you see her sitting on the curb with an awkward smile and shopping bags — had a lovely day exploring the city did she! — before saying hello you walk out into the street and punch her in the face.

At least that is what I would have done if you were me and I were you and you were the one who had so royally effed up.

I don’t know if I like you today

/ erinroseward / Leave a comment

There’s something delicious about traveling alone, except when you don’t like yourself. It’s a passing feeling mostly, but I find it creeping on suddenly. It becomes relentless and there is nothing about your reflection or your internal landscape that you feel could pass as lovely. It4’s at those times when I find myself thinking that every passing person can see right through me, but I do not know what it is their gaze passes through. Sometimes I think they are staring extra hard because whatever makes me up is so thick and so dense that it’s hard to make out. They are disgusted because not only am I not transparent as normal, but they can’t figure out what the hell that gross brownish pus stuff is. Like hardened lard, or something. It’s an interesting place to find myself in because there is no one around that is familiar enough to distract me. Often times I can’t speak the language so my tongue is further restricted. Maybe this is where I learn to become my own best friend again. I hope so, because when you’re alone and you don’t like who is with you, it’s very easy to wonder what the point is, and make plans to drastically change.

But then, there is also something stubborn and immovably self-confident lurking beneath the surface that allows you on some level to know this to will pass, and maybe for now staring out the train window and focusing on small pretty things is a good idea.

At the Union March in Rome

/ erinroseward / Leave a comment

I stumbled upon a protest in the  middle of Rome, after making the decision to get lost in the center of Rome. Rachel lives in Monti, the Williamsburg of Rome for associations sake. I ran to the Coliseum, and it being a Saturday found the crowd overwhelming. Turning left I wound along with the traffic a bit higher. A woman sat on the sidewalk giving out pieces of sandwich to her five children. I imagine they were hers, and when I went running by they all stooped to look at me. One of the girls, standing closest to me, had wide gray eyes like a cartoon of a child. Her hair was stuck to her face. I felt her looking right through me, seeing my American idiosyncrasies swimming inside of me. I am exactly what she saw, whatever it was.

Protests here are causes for celebrations. Like a birthday or holiday party, you can be sure to see all of your friends. It is an excuse for an early pre-game, a meet-up at which you can have a march and a shout in costume and face paint, perhaps don an emblematic banner as a cape, and join in a just cause. The particular march I attended circumvented the better part of the city and was in support of unions and their benefits for workers. The colors are red and yellow and it seems all ages showed up for the event. I felt like a party crasher, but wonder if I would have been invited if I had only asked.