Monday, September 23, 2013

Counting on Both Hands


4, 113. Four thousand one hundred and thirteen. That is how many miles are between this dorm room in Cannes and my bedroom in Buffalo. It has only been 23 days since I made the journey, but looking now at all the steps I’ve taken since then, all the antiquity I’ve seen, and all of the faces I’ve met, it is hard to put it into words.

So I’ll put it in more numbers. 552 hours, or almost 2 million seconds combined spent 5 European cities. That’s 69 meals either Italian or French (almost Subway once, thanks to frugality), around 92 trips to a European bathroom, and, if I walked 3 miles a day (which looking at our itinerary in Italy each day, it was probably close to that) that would be completing 3.5 marathons in just over 3 weeks.
In Vatican City; about as photographer as I can be



Who else gets to do that?


I scribbled in my notebook as the plane took off, "I will miss it all, if the word 'all' could encompass the joys and many friendships of an 18-year old heart." I'm still eighteen. Or three. I packed my manatee Melvin, my Winnie the Pooh toy, Disney movies all downloaded on my laptop, and looked at my passport with its stamp of approval to study in France and laughed. Was I really doing this? I don’t think anyone can really be ready to study abroad, but who was I kidding? I make a Spongebob quote on a daily basis and I want to be a Hemingway-esque expatriate?




Streets of Venice, my favorite city that we visited

  
But I told myself, and I tell all my greatest Eddie Vedder self-motivator: just breathe. It is so important in times of stress (like when your mom stops to eat a sandwich at a tourist trap and you miss seeing the inside of the Duomo in Florence), but more so in those moments that you need to capture.

Lantern festival boat ride, Ponte Vecchio in Florence
 When I say capture, I don't mean like a photograph. Pictures are great to have (even though mine are sucky and mostly just my contorted face), but it is not the same as capturing a moment within yourself. Where you take a second of time and you make it an immortal point, a film reel stored away in a safety box that you return to at any point and bask in all the emotions and colors and sounds. It is being a personal Giver. 
And the first step of capturing is that single breath in and out. It's as if you're connecting to the fact that hey, I am human and living and breathing and going about biologically like everyone else. You connect to your mortality. And it helps to capture the moment even more once you realize that that moment is all you can ever have. We can have friends and family and homes and places we love, but what stays within you for your entire life are slits of moments of each day we live. With a breath, you realize that this slit is more significant than the rest. It has to be immortalized. It has to be captured.


  


So. I’m trying to capture over 2 million seconds, 69 meals, 3.5 marathons, and 92 bathroom trips into words and pictures. And all I can say, for now, is that I’m breathing.
And I’m doing damn fine and dandy.


Bonsoir, Cannes <3