Yesterday, six months ago, I had just returned from Rome.
Yesterday, six months from now, I will have just returned from Rome.
Tomorrow, I am getting on a plane to fly to California.
The same carry-on bag, different contents.
Leather walking shoes for strolling museums, not this trip.
Hiking boots for mountainsides, needed this time.
Books, however, always books.
Julius Caesar and The Comedy of Errors, to Europe.
The Art of Travel and Italian Language Essentials, to Vasquez Rocks.
Clothes, get packed too, of course.
Hiking pants, thin shirts, and thick socks.
For cobble stones or canyons, neither care about how I dress.
I travel to see the world, to see how other people live.
To Europe, where the cities and aqueducts have lasted thousands of years.
To California, where in just a couple hundred the water and land are close to being used up.
Cleaning out the suitcase.
Tickets and Euro bills, rail passes and 20 and 50 cent coins.
Such small things, laden with so many memories.
Part of me is still in Italy.
Will I find myself there, waiting, at the fountain in Trastevere.
If I explain myself to the ticket agent, that I am not all here, could I get a discount on my flight.
I didn’t expect Rome to touch me so.
I hope to lose and loose myself in Rome again.
I expect to get sunburnt in California.
How do you get ready to see?
Can you ever see everything that is there?
I am still trying to process what I saw.