As you can probably tell, I’m not as emotional as I was last night. Amazing what a good night’s sleep can do for you. Although, at the moment, I am pretty exhausted. On top of only getting 4 hours of sleep last night (don’t worry, I’ll get to this), I spent all day today walking around with Sydney and a bunch of other people. First of all, we went to two more museums today. That makes five in the last 48 hours. Realistically, I’ve probably seen more art and sculptures in the last two days than I have in all the rest of my life. Which I suppose is kinda cool. But it’s also really tiring. I mean, there’s just a point where I can’t take it anymore (typically after anything more than an hour). I probably saw close to 200 paintings yesterday and the last 120 all looked exactly the same. Art just isn’t my cup of tea, I suppose.
And neither is shopping. Okay, it’s been pretty great the past few days. I’ve been beating the GT odds pretty soundly these last few days. Yesterday it was 4 girls to me and today it was 6. Why would this be bad? Well as you may have already guessed, it’s because my voice counts for just about nothing. So today after our museum visits, we went to a faraway corner of the city and walked the streets, which had literally been overrun by vendors.
You see, shopping in Florence is very different than it is in the states. The streets were lined on both sides with dozens of little shops that the owners set up and take down every day, each of them specializing in their own little thing. There was a shop selling shirts, a shop selling shiny things for the ladies, a shop selling ties, etc…. you get the idea. But even the actual building shops, the ones that are built into the wall and not set up on the street, are small like that. We’ve only found one ‘supermarket’ since we got here, and it’s about the size of a Walgreens. Maybe.
So I followed Sydney and the others and we walked down the vendor streets for a good hour or so. Of course, nobody bought anything until Sydney bought a scarf at the end of the trip.
Honestly, though, it wasn’t too bad. I just plugged in my Zen (mp3 player for you iPod fanboys) and hung back to make sure nobody got mugged (which is actually a concern, apparently someone in our group actually got pickpocket-ed yesterday night). Anyways, after cruising the vendors, we decided to head for the aforementioned Supermarket to get some supplies for dinner tonight. Shopping there went quickly and smoothly enough, up until this little episode at the end. Let’s see if I can set this up properly.
Everybody but Sydney and I are line. Sydney and I, meanwhile, are observing a collection of fruits nearby. Sydney decides she wants a peach. She reaches into the wrong bin, picks up a fruit, realizes it isn’t a fruit, and puts it back. She goes to the next bin, and picks up a peach. She asks Lindsay, in a nearby line, how to tell if a peach is good. She then picks up about every peach in the bin before settling on a winner. We go and weigh the peach at a nearby machine, and it prints out a label with the barcode for the price with respect to the weight. With the peach in hand, I figure we’ll head for the line. But no. Sydney needs MORE. Her eye spots something, and she makes a beeline for the fruits again. This time she picks up a weird looking fruit which could either be a bloated cherry or a shrunken plum. We do not know. Regardless, she decides she wants to purchase one, and because of the item’s size and low price, I suggest she buys two. My advice is ignored. Sydney weights the cherry/plum and prints off the label. I am now guiding her towards the lines, as everyone else has practically purchased their merchandise. She resists for a moment and points towards the bin of cherry/plums, stating that she wants another. I tell her no, she gets mad, I tell her no again, and we get in line. She tells me not to be so ‘hissy pissy’. I tell her to can it. She doesn’t understand why the fruit fiasco has me exasperated and tries to explain to me that she isn’t insane. But her explanation goes something like this.
“I’m not-“ it’s at the this point that she spots a bouquet of flowers nearby and drops everything to comment on them “oh these are pretty.”
It was a real experience. Wish you guys were here.
Moving on. Let’s talk about yesterday now. As I said in previous entries, I was working on my homework until about 23:00. I was finishing up the last page of my work, looking forward to getting a long night of sleep, when the phone suddenly rings. Curious, I answer it, and the conversation described two posts before occurs. I go upstairs to Sydney’s room, where I find Sydney, Lindsay (Sydney’s roommate, btw) and Carol. We go to another room and meet up with about a dozen other people, all of whom are in our travel group.
The 20-so of us head into the streets, apparently looking for some club. The group is loud and drawing a lot of attention to themselves, as a good chunk of them are at least somewhat intoxicated, so I hang back behind everybody else and try to make sure no one gets mugged/stabbed/raped/lost/left behind. This part was kind of entertaining, in an annoying sort of way. I was embarrassed, of course, by the fact that we were obviously a crowd of Americans walking through the streets in the middle of the night making more noise than the rest of the city put together, but something about it was fun in a very twisted sort of way.
I wasn’t drunk, or drinking, for clarification’s sake. Neither was Sydney. None of the four us were.
We found the club after wandering around for maybe an hour. Keep in mind it’s around 00:15 now. We all go down inside and a bunch of stuff happens in the 30-45 minutes we’re there. I could retell it now, but I wrote it down more artistically last night, so I’m just gonna let the story do it. Then I’ll clarify everything afterwards. Here you go. Warning: Depressing story with some strong language. I want no emo comments.
no one is alone
How well have you lived?
How fully have you loved?
How deeply have you learned to let go?
These are questions I have learned to ask myself. In fact, I just learned them today. Someone taught them to me. But I heard them, and I ignored them. I stored them in the back of my mind with the rest of my useless knowledge and went on to digest the next morsel of information. But I guess that wasn’t the best way to do it.
The smoke is so thick it gets tinted every time the lights flash. I can see the clouds in the small room, like smog over a city, only there’s no sky, just a dirty ceiling, and there are no skyscrapers, just a bunch of people, crammed together like sardines, moving, shouting, jumping, waving, laughing, swaying, smiling. I see them and I frown.
The music is loud, it presses against my eardrums the way a heavy blanket presses down on you in bed. It’s deafening, but not in a way that makes you want to leave. It’s loud, but just quiet enough to make you want to stay. To see if maybe, just maybe, you can get a little bit closer to it, just a little bit nearer, so you can feel it pushing against you even more. Like the bass coming out of the speakers at my side. With each beat, I can feel my sleeve twirl in the force of the sound, like a sheet in the breeze. For a moment, I think about how loud that beat must be, to move my shirt.
There are people all around me. They are happy. I am aware of the fact that I am not.
How well have I lived? Well, I think I’ve lived pretty well. I mean, I’m not a saint, like some of the people I know. And yeah, I know I can be a jerk sometimes. So I’m not perfect. I know that. But still, is anybody? All I can do is keep trying and hope that someday it all adds up, right?
I’m sitting in the corner of the room. Well, not the corner. Let me be more specific. I’m sitting along the wall, on the top step. Yes, there are steps. You know, things like bleachers. Except they’re not metal, and they’re shaped more like giant steps. So I’m calling them steps. Because that’s what they are, steps that you can sit on and just look out over things. Like the steps in my house, the one’s I like to sit on when I look out the window by the kitchen table and admire the weather. But there’s no weather to admire this time around.
How fully have I loved? Maybe I shouldn’t answer that one. Maybe I should take a pass, because I don’t know if I can answer that one right now.
I’m watching the people on the dance floor from my step. Spirits are high, dresses are short, and limbs are long as they reach out and snake around your neck, pulling you in closer. I can taste the cigarette smoke. I can smell the alcohol. I can feel the music and the warmth in her hand as it wraps around the back of my neck. Her skin is smooth and inviting, silken, forbidden. The hair on my neck stands tall at her touch. But it’s not my neck, because I’m on the step, watching.
How do you measure love? Can it be measured? I mean, I think I’ve felt love. Maybe not for myself, but at least for some of the people I know. But I hate people. Intrinsically, I mean. Not personally. Just people in general. I hate them. For a lot of reasons, but that’s not what’s important. If I hate people, can I love the individuals in my life? My friends? My family?
A pair of eyes catches mine and then they’re moving towards me and then they’re right in front of me. It’s a girl I know. She is traveling with me. We had dinner together the other night, actually, and she seemed very nice. She says something, but I’m not sure if I can hear her, because the blanket is still draped over my ear. I lean forward and smile, trying to look like I at least know how to be social, and ask her what she said. She repeats herself, and then suddenly her hand is reaching out and it’s taking mine and I can actually feel the life in her. I stand up, still smiling and even laughing a little bit, and she drags me towards the middle of the room. Towards the center of the flashing lights and swaying people.
I want to love these people. I want to love this girl. I want them to consider me their friend. I want to be out there with them.
The girl lets go of my hand and we’re in the middle of the crowd. I can feel more heat now, from all of them. She turns to look at me and starts to dance, and for a fleeting moment through the smoke and light I am attracted to her. And then the moment passes and I’m laughing and waving my hands at her as I try to tell her she has made a mistake.
You don’t understand, I’m not supposed to be out here.
How deeply have I learned to let go?
She tells me we’re far away from home and that I should have fun. I know she is right. I hear the music. I feel the beat. I taste the smoke and the alcohol and the life in this place, vulgar as it may be. I know what I should do. I should dance. Or something.
But I can’t. I can’t because I’m embarrassed and I feel like I shouldn’t be here.
Fun is what kids like us have, right? We go out late and talk loud and drink and dance and feel alive. Our hearts race and our breath gets faster and we smile at each other and we forget the god-forsaken world all around us and we feel fucking alive.
But not me. Because I haven’t let go.
And I won’t ever be able to. Because I don’t want to drown. I don’t want to drown in life like the rest of them, because I’m afraid of what will happen to me. I will be like them, just another kid. Just another kid trying to feel alive.
Eventually the girl is gone. She’s back in the crowd. Another face. And I am standing in the middle of turbulence. I am the raft caught in the storm. I am the child lost in the mall. I am what I am.
I’m drowning.
the way you are alone
There. As you can see, I was very unhappy about the whole thing. I’m not sure why, exactly. Maybe I was just embarrassed. That girl actually came and pulled me out on the dance floor twice. And I just stood there like an idiot both times. I just…..well, Lindsay said on the way back that I couldn’t ‘let go’ of everything and just enjoy myself, that I wasn’t letting myself have fun. She’s right of course. I’m just not good at letting go in that sense. That’s what the story is about, I suppose.
Anyway, that’s the club story. And that pretty much brings us to the present. The six of us who went shopping are gonna go have a quasi-picnic dinner on a hill that overlooks the city and watch the sunset for a while. I think we might be going out again later. I kinda hope so. More stories! And this time I won’t get all dour, since I’ll be ready for it.
As Mones says, Ciao for now.
Oh, and PS. Sydney is alive. Proof below.
You use a Zen?
ReplyDeletegood for you :D
Dear Peter Sohl...If you need to "let go" (which it sounds like you do)..it's called a long island iced tea..
ReplyDeleteJ Linn you would suggest that
ReplyDeletePeter you don't love me? :(