Arrivato: Palermo October 2010

It seems the hardest thing sometimes is to start.  This can be true for anything, things you love and things you hate, things you have been doing for a life time and things you are doing for the first time.  This was certainly true for me when I arrived in Sicily.  Starting was moving about, talking, eating, getting phone cards, finding hotel rooms and train station.  All ordinary things but everyone of them required a running start.

I paced in the airport and chattered inside my head, the words feeling like broken plates against a wall, pondered the process of how what and when, which  had suddenly become daunting because the alphabet that I had in common with the Italians was being used in a completely different way.  All the sounds of language were like a rope that was just out of reach to get out of the mud I was stuck in.  It created its own gravity on my tongue and my brain making almost everything having to do with other people really hard.  All I needed to know was "Where is the damn bus. " I looked for a lighted board listing all the local hotels and car rental companies, the buttons to push that gave you a direct line to the front desk of the hotel.  Nothing like this anywhere in Palermo airport.  That was Portland, Maine I was imagining.  New land, new rules, new look, new ideas.  Kaboom went that little bubble. 

There was the project of getting my luggage but the next big project was to get a bus from the airport to the center of Palermo.  I felt like I was holding myself up by the shirt collar.  The part of me that sat on the bench letting three buses leave was dragging her feet letting the shyness hold her down like a bully and the other part of me was saying "Geesum girl, you are here now get going."  The giddy up girl won out in the long run, but there was a pretty long spell of "oh crap" before  I boarded the bus and  uttered my first phrase in Italian to the bus driver bought my ticket and sat down. I felt proud, and understood.   I shuffled to my place on the bus,with a swagger of accomplishment, right up in front.  Settled that I have overcome a small but potentially reoccurring obsticle.  I took a deep and satisfying breath.  My eyes rested on the spine of the bus drivers book.  It was Hunter Thompson in English and he was listening to Tom Waits.  I laughed at myself.  Silly Marianne sweating bullets on the bench repeating the Italian of" does this bus go down town"  under my breath for about 45 minutes all for nothing.

  I realized in that moment to break my life down like an instruction manual, one small detail at a time.  My expectations of what I can accomplish in a day should be less and i should remember that I will be laughing at myself A LOT.  I was going to take a bit to wrestle this dragon.  I need a trick, a box of them maybe or a tool to talk myself down from the ledge of "Oh crap what em I gonna do" to "oh shut up girl.  This is FUUNNNN"  It would go like this.   First you take the bus.  While on the bus enjoy the bus, look at the window and watch the people.  Then get off the bus. Make sure you did not leave anything behind.   Find the Hotel but remember don't think about the hotel until you are off the bus. One little detail at a time.  I probably paid too much for the taxi from the bus to the hotel but frankly the need for sleep was making my brain feel like snowed out screen of  television when the station doesn't quite come in.  Danger Danger!
 
 I forgave myself  the foolishly overpriced taxi ride, found my room, showered, had a quick bite next door and went to bed.  I woke up about 16 hours later rested and excited.  I knew though that I would be wresting with the timidity of being far from what was familiar.  Often I find my way quickly to the joy of it all, the opportunity to understand myself more in relation to the world.  Every moment feels like it is being lived under a microscope.  A luscious close up view, a microbial dish of you in the company of new.