Today, I sat in a piazza in the southern Italian town of Lecce for about two hours, reading my book at the steps of a church where I could here the singing of a choir inside. I beg you to look up Lecce on a map and perhaps you can see how I find myself asking, “How did I get here?”—A place I never could have expected or imagined to be in my entire life, considering that the existence of this city was only made known to me about 10 hours ago. I’m awaiting a call from Sasha who is driving with Guissepe and company from who knows where to pick me up and take me to their Italian home, which resides in another city that I’m not even sure I’m pronouncing correctly, but I keep telling everyone, “I’m going to Ginosa.”
On the steps of this church, at a break between chapters, I had a thought about a scene from one of my favorite movies, Almost Famous. I recalled in my head, the scene near the end, when Opie arrives back to his home in San Diego and stares at his bed for a moment of glaring reverence just before he collapses into its familiar embrace. I feel a bit like Opie these days. Except that instead of gallivanting with rock stars, I’m gadding about with countries. Countries, I suppose, are a bit like rock stars. And everyday there’s, a famous city, cathedral, or monument at my disposal to observe and interview.
But today, in this not-so-famous town, that scene beckoned a thought to me, of my own bed in San Diego, an amusing additional likeness to the film. I thought, for the first time since I’ve been on the road, what it would be like to collapse into my own blessed, friendly sheets… but that’s many, many days from now, and perhaps I’ll be wondering again, “How did I get (back) here?” Am I homesick? No. I just like imagining my future self, at a moment of recollection, on events that I have not yet experienced. “Little did she know,” I’ll think to myself, perhaps re-reading this. For how could I know what is to come? Since to get to that bed, and that thought, I have a ways to go.
