home, rested

The Duomo, Florence, May 2015

Was it really three weeks? Some things feel different - the tightness in my chest has eased, I'm a much nicer person at work. Some things haven't - the never-ending parade of deadlines, the adrenaline/panic of delivering a good piece/project, annoying people. Is it worth it, being the girl who's "only good at her job"? No, but what then?

Italy was a balm for the soul. They call Rome the Eternal City but you could say the same of Florence, Venice and Ravenna, where it often felt like time stood still. Not just because the buildings are ancient, but because there's an unhurried elegance about these places, places that wear the patina of time well and have no overwhelming desire to impress - they did that oh, about 673 years ago (usually more). We didn't stay anywhere for long, true, but I never felt rushed. Italy invites you to linger in its golden light. 

Paris, in comparison, felt much much faster. But still incomparably beautiful, even when it's rainy, grey and blustery. Bookstores, galleries, antique stores on the Left Bank. The lushness of the Luxembourg Gardens. Skateboarders, all grace and ferocity on the banks of the Seine. PASTRY. Every crossing of the Seine feels like magic.  

There are cracks. Large, gaping faults actually, all getting bigger. I see the homeless, the beggars, the drabness of the urban outskirts, the mind-numbing sameness of chain stores (Sandro, Maje et al have taken over Paris!). You meet all sorts in big cities, magnets for people fleeing something else. I chatted with a Bangladeshi man working in a famous gelato shop in Rome who has lived there for 11 years and taught himself Italian, who once worked in Singapore and Brunei in oil refineries and taught himself Bahasa Malayu. I never found out exactly how he got there but I wondered. Looking at the dozens of Bangladeshis and Chinese hawking selfie sticks outside tourist attractions everywhere, I found myself thinking: are they the lucky ones? They could be dead, in a mass grave, at the bottom of the ocean. It was impossible to look away after that. I found myself wishing I had stopped to talk to them, taken their pictures, told their stories.

We look back selectively, and view everything in the best possible light. I enjoy this process. What's the harm with imbuing our experiences with a bit of magic? Who wants to dwell at length on the bad pizza, the banal coffee, the missed buses and aching feet? Every tale from road needs unreal "What have I done to deserve this" moments. On this trip, I kept finding money on the street. No, really. I found a 5 euro bill, the first time in front of the ticketing machine in the Ravenna train station. I went after the man who went before me but he said it wasn't his, adding: "But you are very kind." I asked around a little more but everyone shook their heads, smiling, and someone said: "It's yours now."

(Maybe, unknown to me, it fell out of my wallet and I turned it into a fantasy. Who cares. My friend and I decided to keep the bill unspent as a lucky charm.)

The second time, I was stepping into a corner shop to buy some mints, and there it was, a bright, crisp 5 euro bill, lying on the pavement. Not a single person was about me this time. I picked it up, and gave it to the first homeless person I saw.

In the Paris subway, I found a 2 euro coin by a seat in the station. I left it with other loose change in a tip jar.

I still have the first 5 euro bill, which we forgot to give away.

Oh, that ache in your chest when you come back to a home that's suddenly strange to you, knowing that the cities you left behind have already moved on without you.

But your mum calls and your friends text and the emails ping and you dive back in.

You've missed everyone, you realise. Also, so much laundry to do.

But you're leaving the door ajar.