Thoughts From Hours Past

It's been a while. It's been a few days, actually. I keep waiting to round a corner, to be rocked back by the force of the blow. So much for the bear who went over the mountain; I feel more like the guppies who swam across the pond. And I mean by pond ocean.

I remember the last time. On a dreary, gray morning in October of 2013, an idealistic girl freezing in California skin in the wind at the very edge of Long Warf. She Looked out over the harbor, shivering in her heaviest coat California. She turned on her heels, and the weight slammed into her: a freight train to the chest. A city, suddenly hers, bathed in soft light and dawn rising up to the autumn skies. Pale yellows and pinks peaked past the sullen blue shadows in the cracks between the skyline. Suddenly, instantly, the world was hers. In a single moment, she found home: stuffed between the heroic history and throbbing pulse of the T, pressed against the walls of the I-93 tunnel, in the spaces between the notes sung in the T stations.

It took a month for Boston, and I have 25 days for Cagliari.

Maybe I'm looking too hard. Maybe I Have not been looking. I'm afraid, truly afraid That I will not find a home here. I'm afraid I'll miss something. In the precious first days, it's critical to meet and befriend your companions, to find people to eat dinner with, to explore in the safety of packs. When is it okay to venture out alone? To leave the well-lit square, with its cafes and named American men selling phone cases, and take a left turn down a back alley and find somewhere new? I feel so American, so different, like an elephant in a circus Midwest: ogled at by the crowds. I should try harder to pick up English, but I hide behind the safety of my classmates - now friends.

You see, I'm starting to loathe trips to La Piazza Yenne. They know us, they Recognize our flip-flops and too short skirts and loud, guttural voices. It's getting claustrophobic in here. Get me out. North to the safety of the dorm, south to the Mediterranean port and the cruise ships: that leaves the east and west. Time to hang the left or to the right peak. Time to find the Moment When Cagliari's heartbeat and breath shallow syncs with my pants, and I find home.

Be brave.