It’s Coming Back to Me, Pt. 3 (What Remains)

 Look up here, I’m in heaven.

       I’ve got scars that can’t be seen.

    I’ve got drama can’t be stolen.

Everybody knows me now…

                          —David Bowie, Lazarus, from Blackstar

At every European train station I’ve ever seen, there’s a “subway” or system of tunnels that allow travelers to change platforms. You get off the train, you go down, and whether you’re looking for another platform or the exit, you eventually go up again. In many, many stations, especially the ones in larger cities, escalators are available. In small towns such as those along the Amalfi Coast of Italy, good, old-fashioned stairs do the job. You get used to it. On the day we visited Riomaggiore, the first of the five villages of the Cinque Terre, as I approached the subway stairwell along with several hundred others, I came upon a tiny Italian lady with a large and loaded plastic bag at her feet, clearly imploring a man in front of her to help her down the stairs.

For some things you just don’t need a translator.  From behind, I laid my hand on her shoulder and picked up her bag. Raising her face to see me, she said, “Oohhh grazie. Grazie.” She took my arm.

As we slowly but carefully descended the stairs she expressed her extremely positive first impressions of me—OK, OK, who knows what she said, but whatever it was she said it all the way down the stairs. Once at the bottom, she let loose of my arm and reached for her bag. “Grazie,” she repeated.

Riomaggiore

Using one-fourth of my entire Italian vocabulary, I told her, “Preggo, preggo, but I’ll go with you.” I pointed at myself, then toward her, and then to somewhere up ahead. “I’ll help you. Which platform do you need?” I asked as if speaking slowly and emphasizing certain syllables would suddenly make her understand English.

Like I said, sometimes you just don’t need an interpreter.

“Due (two),” she said.

“Si, due. Si, me too, due!” I told her while pointing at my chest and to the sign above.

Then she said, “Ahh, grazie (something, something)” and we walked arm-in-arm up the steps to platform two. When she reached the next to last step she thanked me again and reached for her bag. Together we placed it on the platform directly in front of her. She turned to me, kissed her fingertips, and waved them toward me. Then she said, “Grazie, arrivederci.” (I smiled to myself when she used the back of her kissing hand to wave me away.) My task was done but not before I got me a “kiss” from a beautiful woman.

Manarola, Cinque Terre

Six weeks ago while having dinner with my cousin’s husband he asked me a question he’d asked me before: what will you take away? I think my Italian kiss is my answer, or better yet, my Italian kiss is an example of my answer. After nine months from home I’ll take with me an old-world charm that is pervasive in Europe. I will most assuredly take away a fond memory of that woman thanking me with a kiss, but I’ll also take the memories of countless strangers willing to help us find our way. I’ll take with me the connections I made with my colleagues, my students, and their parents after nine months at the International School of Amsterdam, and most of all I’ll take the assurance that my life is better—enriched in ways I can’t easily describe.

I’ll take the Christmas markets in Germany and Austria, Rembrandt’s art and that of Michelangelo, Munch and Klimt. I'll take the canals of Amsterdam and Venice, and the spectacular monuments to man’s faith in God from Rothenburg ob der Tauber to Oporto to Vienna to Florence. I’ll take the sight of the David and a tiny peek into the genius of Filippo Brunelleschi. I take with me the ability to say, “I lived in Europe, and I saw these things for myself.” It’s Coming Back to Me is my statement. It tells what Gwaz and I did. It captured what we saw. It reveals how I felt. 

Three days from home while laying face up on a Mediterranean beach (with Bowie playing in my ear buds) it all seemed to come back to me. Nine months of priceless memories—seemingly insignificant moments of extraordinary importance: watching Gwaz remember how to ride a two-wheeler; Tate handing me a chocolate heart of Valentine’s Day and assuring me it wasn’t given “in a weird way”; showing our adopted home to friends from home; the realization that on Christmas day at Vienna’s St. Stephen’s Cathedral we had “mistakenly” attended a high mass with a real-life, rock-star Cardinal presiding; hugging my colleagues for the last time; and yes, the sweet smile of gratitude that came with my Italian kiss.

Look up here, man. I'm in heaven.

                                           --Bowie