I'm going, you know.
I'm going to Europe, to Italy and England, to Bari and London, to the extra room at Zia Tonia's house in Palo del Colle and to a comfortable double at the Hotel Russell. The Hotel Russell is expecting me; Zia Tonia is not.
I'll be there in nine days.
I'm a bit frightened, if you want to know the truth. It'll take 24 hours to get from my front door to my aunt's, a style of travelling that is distinctly not my own. The whole ordeal is fraught with details that are too boring to go into, though I�m attempting to accompany it with a perfectly balanced dance of chemically forced sleep timed exactly to end at all plane landings so that I can be entirely alert and able to speak the language of whatever country I�m in, without issue.
I am so screwed.
Also, since it�s been 8 years since last we saw each other, I�d like to look nice when my cousin Mare-Serenitatis, the only one who knows I�m coming, picks me up at the airport. You know, after 24 hours of travelling. No can say I don�t have lofty goals.
I�m afraid that, despite myriad assurances that I�m welcome there every day of the year, I will be imposing on busy times, and busy people, forcing them to hide their inconvenienced faces from me. I�m afraid that I will make a fool of myself with my hodgepodge of elementary Italian and 40-year old dialect. I�m afraid I will offend an ancient someone by forgetting to call on them, even though there are so many Thems, and only five days to enjoy it all.
I am nervous and excited and, for the very first time, I�m a little afraid of flying.
I asked my mother last week, when an ambulance passed us on a road, �Do you live with more fear now?� Yes, she said, to which I added, �It�s not because we think something is going to happen, but because we know it can.� She nodded, and then we stayed silent for a while.
So now I�m getting on three planes in 24 hours, and then two planes in 12 hours, and then one plane to come home and honestly, I�m not just courting disaster, am I?
ANYWAY.
I�m going to Italy. I shouldn�t fuss; I�m going to Italy! Do you even realize how much family I have over there? Do you? Can you even comprehend how much they�re going to feed me?
It�s all very charming, because then I have to go to London, where they recoil in horror at the Mediterranean figure, and I have to pretty myself up to impress all the lovely boys that London has to offer, and my boss and, you know, gay men and honestly! How much pressure is one person supposed to handle? I have a Christmas party to go to! I have to sparkle!
Mostly, though, I can�t wait to see London again, without the veil of confusion and pain and, you know, gin, with which I saw it last time I was there. I want to take pictures again, and get that old thrill from feeling cobblestones under me feet.
I want to do London again but, this time, with feeling.
My God, poppets! I�m going to Europe next week!
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