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.
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| 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?
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Bonsoir, Cannes <3 |
