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.