huzun

Traveling alone results in hyper-reflection.

It’s appropriate that there are so many words to describe being alone: solitude, isolation, loneliness, separated, abandoned, unattached, aloof, independent. They range from encompassing the cool and sweet feeling of being calm, at peace, sole, to the deep depressive detached singular, to the left behind, to righteous ascetic contemplation. Each one of these holds tinges and tints of the others.

I think visiting a foreign place alone allows you to truly create a relationship with that place. Being around others doesn’t leave time for that quiet observation that is necessary to fall in love with a city.

there was a man who wrote a whole novel this way...

a try at a lipogram...

walking in morning hours, sunlight drips across a girl's mouth. Sighing arms, hands, skin, hair arch up in a light full-body yawn. A morning or mourning bird vibrating a song along the window. Curtains swing to walls, and rays pour into a soft room and onto a fuzzy black throw hiding a twisting body. A moan of...'wait' but a clock rings, an alarm bursts, and droopy pupils grow big, and an iris bursts into brown. Aghast at a quick ticking and passing hour, a body thrusts its limbs off of cushions and balancing across on floor, sounds of slapping skip across old wood boards towards a bathroom.

saying goodnight to a bird, a piano man, and an accordian

She and the heron sat there for awhile staring at each other. He was cold, his head tucked into his chest-white feathers, trying to keep warm on the city banks of the river of Nantes. What he was doing there she had no idea, but she was glad to have his company. It was cold, her eyes, blurred by the wind, made the lights of the streets one with the wet pavement and the water with the neon lights. It was refreshing, being on the bridge but outside of the traffic and the giggles of passer-bys. She waved goodbye to the bird and they watched each other as she walked up the bank, as crowds trudged through the thin layer of snow - unaware of both of them - and that was great. She climbed a wall and tried to get her hands as dirty as possible. She looked back to see if he was still there - he was, she felt sorry he was so cold. From the top of the bricks she bid a pleasant sleep to the men who were making up their beds under the bridge and headed towards the cathedral, her different shadows from the different lights making her dizzy. And a piano and an accordion were playing in the middle of the night. the sound grew louder and there they were right in the square in the shadow of the steeples of the cathedral - two of the towns resident street musicians who appear with their instruments on crowded shopping streets for centimes. But now they just played for themselves and they played beautifully and in their denim shirts and caps and gruffy beards and their shiny accordian and old yamaha, they were otherworldly.

Parties, Paris, Piss, and Pasta Carbonara

Clock struck midnight as she finished her hamburger-somewhere else in the world it struck 6:00 and men in spandex and steel started hurdling towards each other at a rapid rate. She collected the leftovers off the plates of friends and pulled cushions and folding chairs to surround the small television in her ancient tiny apartment. And they watched the steelers and the boss through the eyes of funny french commentators who were soaked in American flags and outrageous USA paraphenalia. They explained the rules of the game and the dramatic life of Bruce Springsteen in the glittering Obamanized far away world. People left. She curled up in her roomate, Sam's bed, as her sister was dozing in her own. It smelled like cheese, like him, a fromagerie who wears hats and smokes rolled cigarettes and loves old French rap and painting in black and white. Several hours later she rose in the dark, made up the sheets, fought with her sis to wake up, showered, ate some museli. Then scarves, many layers, chapeaus, and into the cold, past the darkened grand cathedral with the poor beginning to congregate to shyly ask for money, down the cobblestone alleys that made the luggage thunder and echo between shifting and decaying buildings, around the small chateau with the half frozen moat, towards the glowing sncf train station where they waited with businessmen and bag ladies to catch the next train to paris. Two lovely warm rocking hours through the frozen French countryside - farms covered in snow, small gardens, one sheet of frost. They were eased into sleep and startled awake when a voice announced in garbled french "Gare Montparnasse, Paris...arrete terminal." Struggling with the suitcases they manuevered their way around old raincoated men with small dogs and young backpackers until down below they reached the metro. Piss, a violin player, a big eyed woman displaying her infant in hopes of euro or two from the rushing crowd. Two lines later they arrived at Rue du Saint Antoinne. Trudging through slush and drizzle they reached the place where her sister would part - preparing for her semester of Sorbonne study in Paris. Bug hugs goodbye but no tears - she walked back along the rue - stopping to warm up in the small church of Saint Antoinne that housed beautiful musty works of art and quiet sleeping men, to the closest station, back through piss and violins, five minutes of sprinting to catch the train to Nantes as she pushed through parting lovers. She took her seat in second class exchanging a few words with the bald man with kind eyes sitting next to her by the window. A slow chugging ahead began and they were out back into the winter scene of mud and snow, leaving the grays of Paris behind. And she dozed. As they approached her town her sleeping neighbor let out a giant fart - waking himself up. Trying to contain her giggling, she wrapped her scarf around her head and made faces at the little boy a few seats in front who was restless and misbehaving. A small stroll home through the night and she returned to find Sam chopping onions for dinner. Together they made pasta carbonara- bacon, onions, fresh cream from that day, and sweet cheese. Muching at the table they watched Franz Ferdinand perform on a French talk show. A hot steaming shower, a milkshake leftover from the early early morning, emails, reading some Hemmingway (a great distraction from the French literature when one was missing home). Listening to the neighbors next door argue about the recent nationwide strike she was lulled to sleep by agitated french words. And she hated that now time moved so fast.

A small twisted scrap of burned red white and blue

She just watched an American flag burn. She’s holding a melted twisted strip of stars and stripes that she rescued from the ground.

It was a Saturday walk with a friend to catch up about vacation, the holidays, families, and life in general. As they turned a corner window shopping they heard the ever present roar of crowds echoing the shouts of a megaphone. France – forever full of protests and people practicing their right to expression. They wandered closer to find a barrage of flags and signs demanding support and justice in Gaza. Gaza Gaza nous sommes tous avec toi! Paix! Israel Assasine..Israel Terrorists – the signs blazoned against the shadows of buildings and the sun setting and the cars honking at the blocked streets. They followed the protestors, sympathetic with the cause of Gaza, not sure if they supported every message that was shouted in French and Arabic, but wanting to be a part of the general outcry of objection against the humanitarian crisis in Palestine. At the center of Nantes they stopped with the mass that was growing more and more irate, moving to the edge to witness what would happen next. As people begin to disperse with their children and friends, several small groups of men gathered together to burn Israeli and American Flags. Using small paper fires to start an inferno, she watched the red and blue melt together to the shouts of triumph. She watched the men hold up the fire as a smoky symbol (of what she wasn’t exactly sure) and then witnessed others spit the fire out.

She is confused. It was the first time she ever saw anything like that up close. She doesn’t know how to feel.

Chaos on the street...but the music plays on

After a long overnight train ride across France and Italy in a car with a beautiful and comedic family from Pisa.
After three days of roaming Rome (pun intended sorry) seeing coliseums and pillars, white statues, eating incredible hot crispy pizza covered in exotic toppings, making friends in a youth hostel, drinking great coffee every time a bathroom break was necessary, walking the Spanish steps, watching nuns scurry across the streets and within the Vatican, waiting two hours in the cold and rain to be elbowed in an irate Italian stampede to meet closed doors that would have lead into the Sistine Chapel, after the best hot chocolate, throwing wishes on coins in fountains, observing caricatures, and a meridian line, another train ride, a leaning tower, a hidden keith haring mural, a Japanese wedding, another train ride, after that, then, they arrived in Florence in time for New Years.


At eleven o’clock on the 31st they left their run-down old one room hostel and took to the streets, passing by the train station, beautiful blackened churches, reaching the town square in time to see the orchestra start to play. Beethoven’s organized structured and majestic strings and woodwinds perfectly juxtaposed against the small explosives that rocked the cobblestone streets of the city – echoing every twenty seconds from a different alleyway.

At ten minutes to midnight they left the music to go to the river where they watched fireworks and their reflections in smoky skies. Three two one – champagne bottles popped on cue, glass was smashed, people shouted and kissed and wished strangers a Buon anno.

Today she walked through Nantes and sprinkled around the seashells she had collected from her visit to the shore. Just to mix the world up a little bit.