Wednesday, September 2, 2009

we didn't start the fire.

In cold and rainy Geneva somehow I am more hot than in Rome. I woke up this morning at dawn before my alarm sounded and felt like the hotel's cat Ingram had scratched down my throat but there are times in life when you just need to keep going and surly this was one of them. I strung the carry on over my shoulder and wheeled the jam packed black roller over cobble stone. Rushing between moto's and smart cars the damn thing fell over at least four times. The last of which i actually smacked the homeless man who tyred to help me under conditions of me giving him euros in exchange. I actually smacked his hand. Arriving at the train station I cheers Roma with my final cappuccino that soothes me for only a moment. Then the lugging continues from here to there, then back , the again all the while my cough slams all my muscles into a pounding headache. i just have to mention that my body temperature right now must be through the roof, now I don't have a thermometer but I know a thing or two about constant chills while sweating,but i digress. Some how by means im not sure of still, Heidi is actually in the Alps. I suppose some kind of divine Cosmo's that make things particularly challenging for me said "hey lets see how she holds up in the rain". Oh and i don't mean a Sunday afternoon drizzle.... a drenching, all out attack of down pour making me resemble I assume a soggy, tired puppy. "keep going" perseverance tells me through stern clenched teeth. I leave the train from the airport behind me, the train that i arrived on by by pure chance and enter the shit ton (that really is the best word to describe it) of bus stops all headed in every which direction. I walk around what feels like a hopeless search, and then i see it, number 27, its pulling away and cuts a turn. I sprint, now with my record of injury's one would think running, in the rain with about 60 lbs of luggage would be by demise but some how i make it. Call it chance, fate or just luck but a bus is stuck in front of it blocking all intersections from moving . I knock on the door feverishly and give my best smile, a smiling soggy puppy and the bus driver grunting in french lets me on, my big break. "final leg" optimism chimes in my head. " You've made it this far". Dragging my luggage up the dirt road I can see through rain soaked eyes le cenacle, my home for the next three months. that quarter of a mile walk was a cheesy Sylvester Stalone movie where at the very end of x he collapses at y but finished with dignity or whatever. the soundtrack to Jurassic park chimes in as i carry my bag up the marble steps. Yet somehow completely soaked , sicker than when i started and beaten to the bone, i close my door behind me, dig out my ipod, and dance to billy Joel's we didn't start the fire, like it was going out of style. Well, dancing to billy Joel has totally gone out of style but that didn't matter much at all to me at that point. At the heathrow airport just over a week ago today, I was at this very same breaking point where you can cry or laugh, collapse or dance, give up or keep going. In London i cut a rug and laughed out loud alone in a bathroom, I actually did that. I've been told that I have a knack for making other people feel better, I never thought that the same silly crap I pull on others would work on myself, but hey it did and sure enough the rain eventually stopped

4 comments:

  1. welcome to the alps heidi! feel better, find some vitamin c!

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  2. laughter and tears. this is why your writing is so good. you have a beautiful mind, sis. take care of yourself. all my love!

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  3. Very, very nice. Try not to mind dads spelling he is a bit stretched at the moment, with work starting back, etc. YOU made it! Wahooo! Remind me again when work starts for you? Hopefully I am remembering correctly and you have the weekend off.

    It's posts like this that remind me how related we are! Yesterday was a bit trying for my new and entangled relationship with Pittsburgh. Akin to something along the lines of the city telling me my feet stink, that it doesn't like my cooking, etc etc. So, being the strong/strange minded individual I am, I came home and cabbage patched my way through three renditions of Electric Avenue. (Eddy Grant, Ziggy Marley, and some jam band from Witchconsin).

    Love u!

    :)

    Workin' so hard like a soldier
    Can't afford a thing on TV
    Deep in my heart I'm a warrior
    Can't get food for them kid, good God

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  4. hahaha!
    where do you two get this idea, "dancing it out..."?
    :P

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