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Showing posts from August, 2010

panic in Rome

It was two years ago, July, summer. I was sitting on the grass at Villa Borghese, cross legged with a book in my lap. The heat was stultifying and I was wearing as little clothing as I could realistically get away with in public. My hair was stuck to my neck and I was sipping from a waterbottle while reading through a "Guide to Europe" book. I had a year stretching ahead of me and only a few weeks of it were solid, looming out of the emptiness like words floating in a vast universe... volunteering in July, La Tomatina in August, London for Christmas, New York for February, home sometime around April. The rest was....what? I had to determinedly avert my thoughts from a sense of panic. I remember thinking at the time that I felt like I was standing on top of a very, very high diving board, blindfolded, with only my faith to tell me that there was water in the pool below. I dithered for a bit, then took a breath, opened a page of the book, liked the sound of a town called "