it is 5 am in berlin. i am half-awake, relishing the stillness of a big city that only comes with the approaching morning. misty and hopeful and hushed. i am wearing a vintage nightie i bought at the flea market. i am under christian's square little german comforter. it is covered in some faux red silk that is now coated in pills, in the way only a boy could make something so smooth turn nubby. christian is in poland. it is saturday. i return to the states in just 48 hours. no, 54 hours. but i will leave for the airport 3 hours early, because i always have to be early. too early. so my travels begin in 51 hours.

these are the facts. when i have a hard time writing, i like to start with what is true. what is immediate and obvious. that way i don't get tangled up in the spiral of my thoughts. i am having a hard time writing. so i am going over the bookkeeping. my first post contained the bookkeeping. it is appropriate then that my last should as well.

this is my last post.

i am in berlin.

berlin smells like bread and trains and newspaper. not any one of them individually, but all of them together. i didn't realize it, until i came back and the scent was so familiar and i felt at home. i am at home here.

berlin is one of 9 cities i've been visited. 9 cities and 2 islands. in 6 countries. i read 11 books on my journeys. i rode 12 trains, 5 ferries, 2 busses, and 4 planes. i visited 9 museums. i stayed in 4 flats, one hostel, two houses, 5 hotels, one villa, and one bungalow. i met innumerable people and 3 of them, i will love forever. i have been gone 12 weeks minus a day, or 83 days. i have cried maybe 120 times, which is an estimation but a fairly good one. i am 1 person. my name is beth.

i want to say something beautiful. i want to say something profound. i would like to think that the last 12 weeks have been a process of distillation. that i've filtered out the extraneous elements, refined myself and from that can extract some small kernel of something pure, something clear and singular. like i could carry home some tiny revelation in my pocket as a souvenir from europe.

i have started writing 3 times, become overwhelmed by my own expectations of myself, and gotten tangled up in my thoughts. i do not have something profound or beautiful to say. instead, i will say something simple.

this is the best decision i ever made.

i do not regret one moment of anything that has happened, anything i've chosen.

i left and now i'm coming home.

home has a different meaning for me now. it is broader. it is also smaller. it is me. i make my home. i am at home with myself.

i am imperfect and loving and smart and irrational and funny and erratic and kind. i am not the best. i am beth. i am figuring out life. i can make as many lists with numbers as i please and it will never be entirely figured. i am happy about this. it is a process. it is a going.

i have seen some of the world and my eyes are new and with time they will become dirty again, but for now i am fresh and everything is possible.

everything is possible.

many people have asked me if i'll continue to write when i get home, if i would, please. i cannot imagine that i won't. this is my last post in europe. this is not the end of my journey. it is a caesura. a pause mid-line. a semi-colon. a comma. a something. this moment is some sort of punctuation, which indeed divides one part from the rest, but which is by no means an ending. i will not be in germany, but i'll be going.

wherever i go, i'll be going.

i think i am having trouble writing, because i feel like i'm acting like some sort of prom queen, giving a speech at the end of her arbitrary win. i spent the summer in europe. congratulations.

and yet, it was important for me. it was maybe the most important thing for me.

121 times. i am crying now.

what is true. it is morning. my hands are cold. i am 25 years old. my underwear is finally clean and drying on the knobs of christian's dresser. my left foot is asleep. i miss baking. i have a pink suitcase. i am tired. i am in berlin and in some hours i will be not in berlin. i'll be in california.

what is true is my name is beth and this summer i went to europe and realized i can take care of myself. what is true is i feel calm in a way i never have before. what is true is i am incredibly loved. what is true is that i love myself.

i love myself.

it is immediate and obvious.

it is the truth.

it is clear and distilled and pure.

it is quite the souvenir.

just think.

one week from today i'll be home. this has gone by stupidly fast. it has been interminably slow. it has been beautiful and awful and lovely and rending.

but today is not a week from today. today is today and i am in ustica. another day, another island. it is even tinier than favignana. we arrived, got a hotel, and had lunch at a little spot overlooking the water that doesn't have a menu, but will just tell you what is fresh that day. we ate shrimp that were still wearing their little brittle coats and ripped them apart with our fingers. we drank wine and were sticky. when asked where a good beach was, the waitress replied that we should simply get on the bus and tell the driver we wanted to get off at a nice beach.

the bus arrived. the bus. there is one little orange bus that goes down one road around the perimeter of the island. it has 9 seats. we told the bus driver we wanted to get off at a nice beach and he replied okay as if this were a totally normal request. i suppose it is a normal request. i laughed at the thought of requesting the same thing in san francisco. i am not in san francisco. i am in ustica. and in ustica there is a little orange bus and it will take you to the best beach.

kate and i were soon joined by a group of little kids. they overpopulated the bus. the girls sat on one side and the boys on the other. the girls sat and whispered the way children do-- not in whispers, but in strained speech, which is actually more like yelling over your tongue, as if its arch might somehow quiet the words. they liked my shoes and wondered over my tattoo, as kate translated. once they realized she spoke italian, they attempted more effective whispers and yelled more quietly. i felt my age. i felt like maybe they were making fun of me and felt little and insecure. i felt like maybe we could be friends, that they and their backpacks which nearly hung to the ground could come playing at the beach with us.

when we left, they said arrivederci and i felt summery. like i had just escaped school in june and was going to the beach for the first time. the bus driver nodded and left us at a little rocky beach where only 3 other people were. the beaches here are smaller but maybe more beautiful than in favignana. they are darker and more jagged. the waves are a little rough. the water is clear and warm. the rocks are mossy. they are the antithesis of all the dirty, cold beaches i have ever visited. they are postcards. that is all i can think when i see them.

we swam. i screamed. i am more comfortable, but still always scream in the water. i scream when i cannot touch the bottom and when the ocean floor is slippery and when the rocks look like animals, even though i know they're not. i scream when i see my own limbs flailing through the water. today i screamed when i saw a jellyfish and then scrambled to escape, only to run directly into him. he was pink. i felt the sting on my arm and cried to kate. i felt the sting as i swam and my arm felt electric and i wondered if someone would pee on me. an italian man, named massimo, who we'd talked to earlier, motioned at me as i exited the water. kate was still swimming in from some distant point, and he ushered me to his car, where he had some sort of cream he rubbed on the pink welts rising on my arm. it was less painful and i felt wonderfully exotic with my jellyfish sting tended to by the native ustican, who kept flipping his long wet hair into the sun. he is a diver and ready for these sorts of things. we tried to talk, but my few phrases are fairly inoperative for conversation other than greetings and he spoke no english. i said grazie mille and was happy. later i asked kate how he knew what i had needed, that i'd be stung. she said she thought it might be that i was screaming louder than usual and motioning at my arm frantically. i think she was right.

our little orange bus never returned and we walked for a little over an hour along the coast to return to the city center, eating grapes that hang over the sides of walls and imagining how we'd survive off of the land if we never made it back. our clothes gradually disappeared until we were walking in bikini tops with our dresses swaddled around our butts like diapers to keep our thighs from rubbing in the heat. we laughed and we laughed and we laughed and the infrequent drivers that swept by looked at us with curiosity and confusion.

the men in general watch us with wild eyes. they are overt and unabashed. two young women alone are an anomaly to all of italy. our dresses are short and we walk unafraid and they stare like they are watching tv. like we will not look back and, if we should, that it would not matter. that we are spectacles and meant to be observed. we feel special somehow. and slightly animal. on the ferry today, one of the crew rushed us onto the bow of the ship, muttering something in italian kate did not understand, and he gesticulated wildly to show us the pod of dolphins racing against the front of the enormous boat. they were leaping and playing. we took pictures and squealed with the sort of joy the man maybe had wanted and we perpetuated their vision of us as confused and elated tourists.

i am fine with this impression as i am a confused and elated tourist. i take pictures of my food and save restaurant cards and constantly look at maps and watch everything with stunned eyes. ustica is perfect because it is tiny and i feel like i can contain it, but it also feels majestic and secretive, despite being compact.

i wonder what people do in such small towns. i know, i suppose, but i still wonder at it. the few tiny shops and restaurants. the faces we see repeatedly even in less than 24 hours here. the calmness of this life. they farm tuna. they sweep floors. they grow grapes. they go to the sea. they eat. they talk. they do as everyone does. and yet it confuses me. i am so used to distraction and mania. i am used to stimulation and activity and business. being still is eerie. it is strange.

it is strange to sit with a beautiful girl on an island in southern italy and eat too much and be watched and get sunburned and laugh. i suppose by strange, i mean perfect.

i cannot fathom being anywhere other than here. and yet, soon i will be. tomorrow i will be in palermo and wednesday i'll be in berlin and monday i will be back in san francisco. i have slowed down. i have stopped seeing museums and buildings and walking around endlessly. i have started having 3 hour lunches and getting drunk in the middle of the day and lying on rocky beaches and talking forever. and i still just feel like me. and so it seems i will everywhere i go.

i can barely anticipate the insanity of what i will write a week from now. maybe i will not write at all. maybe i will just fall away. maybe not. maybe i have learned to try to stop controlling things. i can plan and have foresight but i cannot control. i am in control-- of myself, but not of everything. i am on an island lying next to a gorgeous woman and it is the end of 3 months in europe and i am different and the same and it goes and it goes and it goes. i am happy.

sicilia.

sicily is another world. it is beautiful and slow and hot. we are at kate's aunt's house in the country. the floors are tiled and the doors are always open. everyone lolls around in sandals and minimal clothing, walking down country paths to the pool, playing with dogs and smoking cigarettes and drinking wine in the middle of the day. every bottle of wine is made by someone's girlfriend's cousin. and it never stops coming. her uncle speaks no english but repeatedly asks me vino bianca? and i nod and my glass fills up again and again and again, blurring the afternoon into the evening, when we eat and drink more. lunch is at 2 and dinner is at 9. everyone eats together. her aunt and uncle and kate and i and any number of their 4 children and their wives/ girlfriends/ boyfriends. the table is set with a tablecloth and colorful ceramic plates and full sets of silverware and carafes of wine and we eat until we cannot eat anymore. first pasta and then meat or homegrown eggplant and fresh baguettes with vinegar and then fruit and slightly sweet pastries and espressos and her aunt always asking if you would like some more?

they speak in italian and i watch their hands and listen for words i can understand. sometimes kate translates. sometimes we blather to each other in english. sometimes i float away from the conversations entirely, happily secluded in my little world of english. i have learned to count to ten, to say hello, goodnight, nice to meet you! great idea! how are you? come here, i love you, i need a drink, my name is beth, where is the toilet? and what the fuck do you want?

we spent sunday on a houseboat, monday at the beach, and on tuesday we took the ferry to favignana, a little island of the northwest coast of sicily. it is unbelievably beautiful. crystal clear water and rocky beaches and weathered little buildings and crazy cobblestone roads and laundry hanging from every window. just a cluster of stores and restaurants and markets that sell only alcohol, cheese, every shape of pasta, and tuna cans over a foot in diameter. the houses open right into the streets and their shuttered doors are often open, allowing glimpses of the old couples within, sweeping floors and watching tv in the afternoon. we rented bikes and went from beach to beach, climbing down cliffs to perch on rocks by the water, breezing around in thin cotton dresses, getting sunburned, drinking wine all day, eating the freshest pasta and cheeses and breads. we stayed in a sweet little bungalow on a camping site that had a kitchen and a living room and an enormous porch with sun chairs. we played cards and were drunk and pink and carefree and laughed so much my stomach hurt for days.

the second day we awoke to the most violent storm i've ever witnessed. we sat on the porch and watched the rain, which eventually left us without electricity or running water. we took our bikes out anyway and rode into the city center, drowning in the puddles and the wet flimsy cotton of our dresses. it was decided whiskey would keep us warm and so we were drunk in the middle of the day, then napped off the cold and alcohol. later we met our neighbors, paulina from mexico and jonas from germany. they are married and live in italy. we talked across our porches for hours about the oddities and excitements of traveling, about jobs and passions and family, about wine and weather and home. and then we went out to dinner together. a strange little collection of people, eating pasta late late at night on an island street, laughing and sharing stories. we had gelato and went out for drinks later and had such a time. kate and i laughed and were weird and i looked at her and loved everything about her. the fact that she can speak another language with such ease. that she makes plates of cheese and fruit for me to eat on the bed. that she understands my needs and worries and my heart. that she is funny and thoughtful and smart and insanely beautiful. that she can answer my questions about animals and the ocean. that she commends me on overcoming my fear of the water and swimming where i cannot touch the ground. that i can be near her for so many days without a minute apart and not ever feel like being without her.

she just patted my knee and told me she loved me.

it feels good to be loved.

the third day it was sunny again and there was more of biking and beaches and drinking and laughing. we ate grapes and watched a boat sink. we swam topless in a private little cove while the sun set. we made pasta and ate on our porch and collected stray kittens and made a home.

i feel blissful and relaxed and amazing.

i am home in just over a week. today i will not muse upon how it will be, how i will feel, how i feel about myself now. i am in sicily and there is wine to be had and figs to pluck from trees and my kate to love. i will be home soon enough and there will be plenty of time for thinking then.

and so it goes.

(written yesterday. now i am in sicily with kate. almost unbearably happy)

i have just finished reading east of eden. i spent the entire day reading. i woke up at ten and started reading. i read in a cafe in rome, eating the greasiest piece of cold pizza that stained the few pages i consumed along with my food. i read on the train to civitavecchia, while a baby screamed frantically in the background and my tiny legs struggled for room in the crammed cabin. i read in the heat of the small, lovely city-- the sunlight and the thin white pages blinding my eyes to anything other than the words in front of me. i read in the port, as the sun gave way to heavy clouds and hysterical, sideways rain. i read as i ate pasta in the cafeteria of the ferry, sharing my table with a crepe-skinned old man in an orange shirt. i read in the lounge, surrounded by circles of men throwing cards to the middle of sandpapery tables, while a comical man played the keyboard and warbled strange italian words into a microphone. i read and then there was nothing more to read and my eyes exploded with tears.

i ran out to the deck, feeling ridiculous and stood in the corner, sobbing. somewhere in my reading, it became dark and i gasped when i finally looked around me and saw nothing but black. no stars. no moon. no horizon. just black. i peered over the edge of the boat, which is nearly as tall as i am, and saw only the frothy water curling out from the sides of the ferry. it looked to me like clouds in fast forward-- twisting and changing rapidly and then disappearing. i felt terrified and lonely. i missed the characters of the book and wanted them back. i wanted to have not been so greedy, to have not read so fast.

i wanted to know what i would sound like, if someone were to write about me. if i would be beautiful. if i would be loved. what my failings and what my ugliness would be, and would i recognize them printed before me. and would a girl on a summer journey miss me if she consumed me too quickly. would she cry. would she write about me.

i feel strange and incapable of touching what it is i've just experienced. reading these words. which i needed. which were perfect. which came at just the right time, as everything seems to do lately.

i am still weeping a little. but quietly now. and now instead of looking at me with wanting eyes, the groups of grey-haired italian men look at me with fear, because i am vulnerable and strange and not so afraid to show it. their eyes return to their cards and their heads do not turn to follow me. their heads which did not really follow me but my boobs which are always exposed. and thomas says he cannot understand why no one asks me on a date, but maybe it is that i seem confident and maybe my chest is saying it too overtly.

and i say that i don't feel confident. or i never have really, until now. but maybe i'm not and maybe i never will be. but maybe i am.

i just want to be good. i want to be good and i want to love and i want to be loved. it is simple and stupid and i hope that it is true. i want to love and i want the people around me to feel loved. maybe it is silly to say, but i'm emotional and feel strong in my weakness. many weeks ago, at the jewish museum in berlin. during my first weekend alone in berlin. i came to the paper pomegranate tree. there was a note saying that pomegranates hold special meaning for jews. maybe if i remembered why, i would not be still so young and silly. maybe then i would actually know something, but i don't. i just remember that they had little paper pomegranates and you could write a wish and hang it from the tree. and i walked around that tree, reading people's wishes. wishes for personal things and for world peace and for love and for things i couldn't read in chinese characters and in spanish and italian. and things i couldn't read in bad handwriting and things i could almost read in german. and i took mine to a little table and with my favorite black pen, which i've somehow managed not to lose this entire trip, i wrote that those i love might love themselves. because it was all i could think of and what i really meant. and i walked up the spiraling stairs within the tree to the middle and hung my pomegranate wish and left it there.

i know you are not supposed to tell wishes, but i don't think it's in wishing that things happen. it's in the doing. i try to do that. i try to do that for myself as well. that is what this has been about. and i couldn't love myself until i let me love myself. i try to live that way. for everyone. to show them they are beautiful. you can't make a person do or believe anything they don't want to. maybe it is foolish. it feels foolish now that i've said it.

we just waste so much time. telling ourselves we are not good enough or don't have enough or should do more. i hear it from many people i love. and while i'm not blind, while i can admit fault most readily in myself and also in others, i am loved by the most beautiful people in the world. i believe this to be so. while i have gotten to know myself quite well on this trip, i've also gotten to know the people i love. i have seen what sticks, what is not based on convenience, what is true, what is real. i feel incredibly loved and incredibly capable of love in return.

i am rambling and frantic. i am just too full. i am filled up with words and with love and with hope.

here is my favorite passage:

"don't you see?" he cried. "the american standard translation orders men to triumph over sin, and you can call sin ignorance. the king james translation makes a promise in 'thou shalt,' meaning that men will surely triumph over sin. but the hebrew word, the word timshel-- 'thou mayest'-- that gives a choice. it might be the most important word in the world. that says the way is open. that throws it right back on man. for if 'thou mayest'-- it is also true that 'thou mayest not.' don't you see?... why, that makes a man great, that gives him stature with the gods, for in his weakness and his filth and his murder of his brother he still has the great choice. he can choose his course and fight it through and win... i have a new love for that glittering instrument, the human soul. it is a lovely and unique thing in the universe. it is always attacked and never destroyed-- because 'thou mayest.'"

a choice! a choice, for good, for love, for triumph.

how strange that this is all my own life, my choice, my creation. i know it and yet every time i say it to myself it is foreign and amazing.

i feel dizzy and wild.

i want to be good. i choose good. i want to love and be loved. that is all. i don't know what else to say. i have read so many words, written so many words, and now they are all drained out of me and i'm just quiet and still weeping.

on the way to sicily. in the middle of a black sky and a black ocean.

my name is beth.

time is starting to unravel.

i cannot hold on. i am tired of holding onto things. the moments are falling around me. i watch them drop. i am a part of them. i am not. i am somewhere outside of time and sense and normalcy.

i feel good. i feel solitary and strong.

i am in rome. thomas decided to come along. we took a 16 hour train ride from paris to get here. i loved every minute of it. crammed into a tiny car with four italian women and an english girl. sleeping in bunks with maybe two a half feet above me to move. lolling along with the movement of the stuffy, old train. at dinner we chatted with a man named richard from kentucky. his words escaped frantically through his thick southern accent, his forehead beaded with sweat, his enormous hands clutching a bottle of red wine to keep it from spilling over with the jerky movements of the car. he wanted to say everything. we talked about baseball and hiking. we talked about paris and amsterdam and prague. we talked about travel, fantasy football, pastries, hotels. he did not care what was said as long as something was being said. i did not feel like he liked or disliked us. we were simply there. something to witness in the scenery of his trip. the train rumbled along and i watched the sun turn into a burning poppy on the horizon, only to be swallowed suddenly by the mountains, leaving us in the dark grumbling of the train. i felt both ecstatic and totally removed. richard made me happy. he was traveling 45 days alone and having "the fucking time of his life."

the fucking time of his life.

now i am in rome and it has been some days and i am having the fucking time of my life. rome is weathered and ancient and crammed. it is narrow sidewalks, where you have to watch each step so as to not trip on some uneven cobblestone. it is wooden shutters and endless rows of dirty scooters and people thronging in every direction and it is heat and it is noise and it is beauty. we have walked for hours. we visited the trevi fountain, the roman forum, the pantheon, the villa borghese, the spanish steps, the colosseum. we stuffed ourselves with pasta and pizza and wine and tiramisu and pastries. we rented a surrey and biked around the park and waved at people and were ridiculous. we laid by fountains and read. tonight we have reservations at some restaurant, where we will have 6 course meals. i will wear my blue dress that thomas likes. the italian men read my arm and look at him and then at us and in those moments i am thomas' wife again. i am his wife when we check into the hotel and at dinner when the server loves me and wants to be loved by a girl who will write those words on her arm. he asks me to write them down so he can remember them.

tomorrow i take a ferry to sicily. when i arrive, i will see kate striano, and if i think about it too much, i feel like throwing up out of excitement.

and so the minutes keep going. filled with food and sights and love.

i rarely feel anxious anymore. i feel anticipation and i feel expectant and i feel hope. i sometimes feel unsure. i feel still. i feel alone. i feel happy. i feel full. i feel sad. i feel alive. they are all feelings i've had before, but suddenly in a context that makes sense. like everything came unscrambled and i can finally see how it fits.

i look back at the beginning of this blog-- the words i wrote then, the feelings i remember so strongly, how lost i felt when i imagined myself in any other context than the one to which i was accustomed. i never left divisadero street and now i have been so many places. enough places to know i will never see everything or know everything or have everything and that is okay. i look back and i feel a million miles away from that girl and i also feel just like her. i think i've realized the best part was not in forgetting myself or escaping myself or leaving myself somewhere, but instead going to meet that self. i suppose i had to travel across the world to be able to see what i had and was all along, but i feel good about what i've found. i am beth. i have said that so many many times. i am beth! i feel like i need a button. it's an assertion. i am pleased with it. i am beth and i am happy and sad, smart and foolish, thoughtful and careless, loving and needy, calm and frenetic, and many many other contradictions, but i am complete. i am whole. i am a whole person. i always was. i will be forever.

i am a silly girl.

i am at a desk in rome, wrapped in a towel, fresh out of the shower. i smell like lavender. i am soft. i am smiling. i am crying. i am waiting for thomas and for dinner and for nothing at all really, because i'm here and this is what i need.

i am crying because i'm happy and i always knew i could be, but never really imagined it would happen. that i could make it happen myself. that i have the capacity to do whatever it is that needs to be done. that i'm a whole person. a whole person. it feels like my birthday. this is the first day of my life. i am complete.

only as recently as yesterday did i really start to consider that i will eventually return to the states. eventually being, more specifically, in three weeks. i have been so entrenched in this constant discovery and change and newness that i can barely fathom anything else. of course i frequently imagine the moments of my return, but that has only extended so far as those initial hugs and shrieks and cocktails in familiar places. i haven't really considered the reality of the moments beyond those, when i am simply jobless, homeless, and poor.

honestly though, those are not the elements which worry me. while it might be nice and simple to return to an apartment and a job, i don't want to resume the life i had in san francisco. i want san francisco and i want some of the people, but i don't want that life. though it will be work, i am glad i have to make choices upon my return. choose my home, choose my job, choose my direction. i left because i wanted something else, because i needed something else.

now i have something else. i am something else. i am the same but i am different.

i am worried about reconnecting with people. i have no doubt that i still love and cherish my friends. none. and yet, my experiences abroad have all been alone. they have not been contingent upon or involved with any person i knew when i left. i think maybe that is the feeling i keep describing. the far away feeling. i am not far away, i am just more capable as an individual and i'm not sure how to incorporate that into my old relationships. because so many of them were grounded on my being needy and obsessive and wanting. that is, of course, not gone entirely, but the parts that are gone, i do not want back. yet i'm not sure how to restructure my relationships. how do i love without being needy. how can i be close without being inside. how can i trust without being dependent. i suppose it is not something i can plan for, but rather just something that is, that happens. or that does not happen and then i will examine it and decide what needs to be done.

i am worried also about reacclimating to every day life. i am here and i am there and, while i often long for routine and consistency and just something that feels normal, i'm also afraid of it. i am actually fairly good at handling crises, and in a way, this trip has been one extended crisis. one moment after the next of reckoning and decision-making and struggle and change and triumph and sometimes failure. regardless of outcome, most moments have felt big. important. and it is when life stretches like that, that i am suddenly good at seeing. it is laid out before me. and even troubles seem lovely because they too were moments of change and growth. 

but then what about the everyday. what happens when i go to the same job every day and return to the same bed. what happens when i'm ungoing. when i am not constantly entering new landscapes and cultures and relationships. when i am just a girl on a street, having a life. (i think we both struggle with the mundane...) what about beth then. my hope is that i will still be able to cultivate wonder. and growth. it seems to me that any person would grow on a trip like this. you would have to be blind not to at least realize how much world there is and how little you are, if not to internalize it and craft it into something that promotes change. but what about the everyday. what about the everyday. can i take these eyes, which i've polished with hours of watching and crying, and maintain some level of awe. anyone can revel in the new and exciting, but can i revel in the routine. can i still learn about myself. can i retain what i have learned. i think it takes a stronger person, a smarter person, to be able to appreciate and learn from things that are not so overtly beautiful and new. am i that strong. am i that smart.

i suppose only time will tell.

and i say i am worried, but i'm not really. i rarely feel worried like i did before. i feel anxious about some things, but it doesn't feel consuming or insurmountable. these are things i consider, things i muse upon, things which frequently enter my mind, but i have a handle on them. they do not overcome me.

i have received some excellent advice, which is to think about my return not as an ungoing, but just a continuation of the going. i have fallen in love with many places and people in my travels, but maybe most i have fallen in love with the ones i already knew. i am looking forward to visiting san francisco with my new and different eyes. to seeing it, seeing it like i have seen things here-- ready to absorb and experience and try. i am looking forward to finding a new job and meeting new people and trying new restaurants or maybe even going to the old ones but ordering something new. maybe it will not be on such a grand a scale as going to a new country every few days, but i know i will see it differently. i already do.

so it is sunday and i am in london and tomorrow will head to rome. today i am going to the tate modern museum and then to the globe to see troilus and cressida and then out for drinks with my new group of 19 year old friends. in a few weeks i will be back in san francisco and maybe instead i'll go to the moma and to the curran and out with kate and dana. but i will be going. because i have these eyes and these legs and they are mine, wherever i go. and only i decide how i live and what i get from life.

i can do this.

i can come back and be okay. i have learned to be okay in almost every setting, except the one that's most familiar. i believe i can learn that too. i trust that.

as soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.

i never thought i would be here, but i think it's true. i trust myself.

then i guess i must also believe, i will know how to live. everywhere, anywhere, i go. wherever i take myself.

i will know how to live.

i am in love. i am so in love.

it is the afternoon in london. rebecca and i just came back from babysitting two little ones, named aurora and robin. we went to the playground in kew gardens and i played with all the babies and laughed and had such a time, bundled in a pink scarf and tights in the cold, london air. i am in an english house with english stairs. rebecca's sister is playing their grand piano. i can hear lawnmowers and birds outside. the sounds of a home. i have my own bed and freshly cleaned laundry and a shower filled with girly products. every few minutes someone asks me if i would like some tea or a glass of wine or a snack.

when i arrived, rebecca's mom came rushing down the stairs and hugged me. the house smelled of freshly baked bread. we had pasta for dinner, drank too much wine, and sat for hours. family dinner. we lounged on the enormous couch and watched jane austen movies by the fireplace. we ran up the stairs like little girls, clutching our glasses of wine, flopping on rebecca's bed to gush over boys and shoes and text messages. her dad gave us money for lunch the next day. we walked in the rain and went shopping and had afternoon tea in a little house with floral curtains and tiny china teacups. i have known rebecca my whole life.

last night i met a gaggle of her girlfriends over drinks. they are blonde and happy and loud and i loved them. they are all 19, and when rebecca mentioned i am 25, they screamed-- literally, screamed-- with horror and then the quietest one, named claire, exclaimed "but that's almost 30!" 

i was amused and realized that i am older, though not necessarily wiser. i have just had longer to experience things. they are all leaving for university in a few weeks, and as they discussed how excited and scared they are, i flashed back for a moment to my own experience of leaving for college, some 7 years ago. of standing on the sidewalk the night before i left, clutching sara holms in my arms and crying so hard because i was terrified and could not envision my life any other way. because i knew it was inevitable and necessary, but also so painful. and at the time, it seemed like the most significant moment in the scope of all moments. i look back on it now and it is mostly buried within layers memories. stuck somewhere inside, like a scrap of paper in a forgotten book. 

i find it comforting. that even the most agonizing times in life will eventually seem softer, that the sharp, cutting feelings will someday blur and just become shadows, that, though i don't lose experiences, i am able to tuck them away with time. because there are always new moments. and new troubles. and new joys. i see rebecca with all her hope and her anxiety at the prospect of this new step; i recall my own moments like those and am so aware of their significance, yet am so far from them now. because we just keep going. 

we go. we go and we go. 

in the small spaces i can remember this, i feel so incredibly unfettered. i feel fluid and happy. i feel like i can enjoy life without becoming too entrenched in any one experience or thing. everything is important, but nothing is singularly important. nothing decides me, except me. i am going. walking.

i am also tangled up in my ideas. i can't quite sort them out. 

london has been very still. we've done a lot, but i've been sick and little bit slow. i feel far away from everything. i keep saying that and i'm not quite sure what it means yet. once i do, surely all this time will become clearer. i'll understand these foreign feelings. i feel close to the people i love. i feel near. but i don't feel inside of anyone anymore. i don't feel like any one person might rescue or change me. i don't feel like i am permanently bound to anything but myself. it scares me when i think about it, or i feel like i should be scared, and then i'm not. i just feel suspended. i feel close. i feel far. i feel self-contained.

it's making it hard to write. to write here at least. i started this blog because i was afraid of being away from people. i did it less so people could follow my journey should they wish to, and more because i needed to know that i was being heard somewhere in the world. somehow. but now it just feels okay inside of me. it feels like the words can filter back through me and i won't explode.  it is not so much happiness as it is just being okay. 

okay with whatever is. 

and whatever is not.

i will be okay.

i am okay.

to close this nonsensical collection of words, some words my puzzle piece spoke to me early on in my journey, which i didn't fully believe, until they were true:

you have so much opportunity to discover everything you need to within yourself over there. you have the opportunity like never before. sometimes the greatest gift we are afforded is being thrust into a situation we are not sure how to survive, and then looking back on it, not knowing how we couldn't.

the train to london.

i feel safe on the trains. they know where they are going. their paths are laid out.  they are strong and fast. 

being in europe has made me realize how important it is that i feel safe. it is not something i've ever really considered, maybe because i've always had it. security. safety. comfort.

i am alone now. but i am safe. i feel safe. except this time, i made it myself, instead of having it given to me. i created my own safe. i know where i'm going. i can take care of myself.

thomas and i had the best night last night. we went out for crepes at a bustling little restaurant named creperie josselin. the tables were crammed and tiny. we sat in a little wooden booth that was perfectly-sized for me and made thomas look like a giant. there were sweet lamps covered in white lace and paintings that looked like the came from your grandma's garage and colorful plates hanging from the walls. it was loud and lively and warm. we had sparkling wine and salad and crepes stuffed with cheese and tomatoes and walnuts. we had coffee and talked about love, which is what we seem to always talk about. he asked me what kind of man i'd marry if i could choose. and i was startled by the question. i don't think i've ever really thought about it. i've never made a list. i'm always surprised by the people i love. how different they are. i never thought of it as a choice, it has always just arrived. thomas says ben wants him to marry me. because i'm nice to him. i was glad, for a moment, that some boy might like me to be nice to him instead of being elusive to make him want me. we toasted to our negative three year anniversary.

one of the servers came over after our meal and asked something in french. i stared dumbly at him and said i don't speak french. he tried in english and we couldn't understand each other. eventually he said "do you like alcohol?" which i responded to with a resounding yes and he clapped his hands and brought over some of the strongest apple liquer i have ever tasted. i loved him. the alcohol was grainy and burned but made me feel warm and like finding someone to love was possible. so i sipped from the miniature glass in the miniature booth in the miniature creperie and felt so happy.

then we went bowling. bowling in paris. the man at the door said to thomas, i just need to see your wife's bag. and we laughed because apparently we were married early than anticipated. i felt light and silly.we put on red velcro shoes and bowled. i had an incredible time. as in most things i do, i was erratic-- occasionally bowling strikes, counterbalanced by my frequent gutter balls. i amaze myself. operating at such drastic poles in life. 

i am finding that balance.

or trying.

in the meantime, i am having fun. i appreciate that. we bowled and played table hockey and sat on the steps outside and talked. we brushed our teeth together. we said goodnight. 

this morning i said goodbye to my thomas. thomas who helps everyone on the train with their bags, who helps little old ladies with pink bows on their suitcases down the stairs, who makes the plans, who will not let me pay, who pulls me back when i wander blindly into the street, who makes me feel safe. goodbye thomas. thanks thomas.

this morning i received my second stamp in my passport. i was elated. previously i was horrified to learn that since i've just been traveling within the eu, i wouldn't get a stamp with each new country i visited. today, france stamped my passport. the man was enthusiastic and friendly. he asked me if i'd ever been to london. he asked where else i was going. 

he asked where i was from. 

i was confused for a minute. i didn't know what to say. where am i from. from santa barbara. from the losters. from my mama. from san francisco. from broderick street. from fly. from berlin. from rue de montparnasse, paris. where am i from. which are the parts that stay with me. what is my origin. where will i return. what is my destination. what is important. what defines me. stupidly, i asked what he meant. he asked, where do you live. and i realized i don't live anywhere. i don't have a home. it didn't feel sad. it felt free. i have many homes. i have my home in berlin, which is not a specific place, but a small collection of people and the experiences i had there. the schools i attended. the friends i made. the cafes and bars i lived in. i have my home in san francisco, which is an area and a group of people and a street and the way i walked to work and the stories that unfolded there and the knowing, the familiarity. i have my home in santa barbara, which is my family and serena road and the jacaranda trees and our dining room table with its two removable leaves that always seem to be in use now, as the family grows. and i have my home here, which is wherever i am right now, somewhere under the water, between paris and london, which is just me and my backpack of  thoroughly dirty clothes and my passport which is filling with stamps and my heart which is enormous and young and learning.

but i did not say all that. i just said, san francisco, maybe just because that's what my return ticket said. and he told me to have a great time and seemed genuinely excited for me. and i felt excited for me. for my going.

that encounter was immediately followed by one with the uk immigration officer, who, true to the rumors, was incredibly rude and suspicious, but who also gave me a stamp. and i will take them all. the pleasant, friendly stamps and the awkward, aggressive stamps, because they are all a part of this journey and thus a part of me. i am just taking it all as it comes.

so now it is now and i am traveling back in time to london, which will gift me an hour and a meeting with my sweet rebecca. i am excited for her arms, which are at the same height as mine, and her lovely accent and her enthusiasm and her wisdom. i am excited for another city and another way of life and another chance to see myself and potentially another home. another place to make it more difficult to answer, where are you from. which makes me glad. i am from all over the world. because this is where i discovered little bits about myself. where i met beth. in berlin. in prague. in amsterdam. in paris. 

on the train to london.

hello.

(from yesterday evening)

just think. eight weeks ago today, i arrived in berlin. today i am in paris. a few days ago i was in amsterdam. in a day and a half, i'll be in london. i am buzzing.

i've done so much i don't know where to start. i've gathered so many little stories and experiences in my mind, i am not sure which to choose or share. i feel far away from home, from everyone, from my writing. i feel like i've wandered down so many narrow, cluttered streets that i am now buried somewhere in the middle, at the center of a maze, somewhere far away from anyone or anything i know.

i will start with what is present. i am sitting in my hotel room. we are on the 22nd floor. if you press your face to the window, you can see the eiffel tower. my cheek prints are all over the glass. i have just taken a bath in the enormous tub and am wearing my fluffy hotel robe and slippers. i used thomas' razor and my legs have never been so smooth. i feel new.

i am eating some of my favorite cookies, le petit ecolier. i remember these cookies from piano lessons with mrs. reisig. she would give us two at the end of each lesson and i would bite the shortbread systematically from the outside, then the ridge of chocolate within it, and then the rest. i savored those cookies. two cookies on the way home from montecito in a volvo station wagon. i was not good at piano. now i am in paris and the cookies are french and they taste different. they taste the same. i am always amazed at how different and the same things are everywhere. it is in the comparison that i learn things.

i can maybe not give my perspective on paris yet, as i am still here, and it seems to be in the train leaving each city that my vision of it becomes crystalline. 

amsterdam was unbelievable. i am convinced that each place i visit is my favorite place in the world. amsterdam was colorful and frenetic and wild. it is crowded streets, flooded with bikes-- people piled two and three to a bike, riding on handle bars and baskets, girls in tiny dresses and metallic leggings whipping by you, couples holding hands while they ride, kissing and laughing, oblivious to the world around them. it is tall narrow buildings that lean in toward the streets, making it feel like the city is perpetually collapsing, miles of windows seemingly devoid of curtains or shutters,  the steepest, most angular stairs i have ever climbed, endless cafes and bars and restaurants, webs of canals wearing boats of every kind at their skirts, cats lounging in stores and restaurant windows, prostitutes dancing sadly in bikinis behind glass doors, and weed. weed everywhere. 

it was rainy and cold while we were there and i spent most of the time in thomas' armpit, under his orange rain jacket, flitting through the feverish town. we walked, shopped, drank, ate, talked-- all to excess. the city seems to welcome excess, to encourage it.  we had massages, went to the movies, drank wine by the river, floated. i loved amsterdam. it was dreamy and surreal. it was so much in such a short time that i barely know what to say. it was overwhelming, i had no expectations of it, which made it even better. it just arrived, with all its color and fervor, and enveloped me.

now i am in paris and it is sprawling and antique and precious. we have gone climbed the eiffel tower, visited champs-elysees, had coffee on islands, eaten crepes and croque monsieur and baguettes and cheese. we have gone to centre pompidou and seen the modern art. we have sat on sloping cobblestone courtyards and listened to boys strum guitars and shake tambourines. we have gone shopping and read books in the sun.

in another day, i begin my solo sojourn. i start looking at the rest of my trip in blocks, the days i have in each city, and suddenly i realize how little time i have left in europe. how quickly it has gone by. how agonizing it's sometimes been. how perfect. how glad i am i chose this.

i'm having a hard time writing this. i think it's probably obvious. it is forced. i felt like i needed to say hello. say, i'm not gone. 

but i am gone. gone, beyond even just being physically absent. i am off somewhere, in some tiny dreamy world. it is made of me and my perpetually warm skin and my wonder and miles upon miles of narrow, interwoven streets. i am walking down them, quiet and in awe. i have never felt so quiet. so solitary. so self-contained.

today at the museum there was a painting of a naked woman. and she was outlined in green. i stared at that green line. followed it around the curves of her body. fascinated by how unlike skin it was, but how it seemed to fit. to frame her perfectly.

that is how i feel. like i have been traced in green. and the color is holding me in. i am circumscribed by something slightly foreign and unexpected and it is beautiful as it seals me in. i am outlined. i am alone. i am naked and amazed. i am beth.

everywhere i go,  i am just beth. it seems so obvious, but has taken time to learn. i am beth and i think i am pretty happy about that. about just beth.