The dog walks beside me through the airport. Confident. Knowing. I tell my friend, he can read a room. The slow trot keeps up with the cart piled with suitcases. More than I’d normally carry along with me. Too hard to manage on the train, so this morning it was a taxi, a fixed price, but the distance makes it feel luxurious.
I had a long conversation with the driver. All in Italian. I didn’t feel uncomfortable. When I didn’t know a word, I just said so, or, made it up, or guessed. He was kind and didn’t care and we managed to talk about politics and life and work and the dog and it was gentle and kind in a way that I don’t seem to be able to find often. I was €1 short to get a cart, and he pulled some coins out of his pocket, here, good luck.
The stories I spin when I don’t want to tell the truth, or the truth is too hard, or complicated to fully explain. The feeling I had then, not of returning, but of going for a visit, to spend some time; that feeling holds on to me. It grips me and turns me around in bed at night, even though I’ve slept well, slept alot, it’s not all been merry.
I want the days when, if you were gone for two months, maybe you sent a letter or a postcard once in awhile. Now, it’s a text, it feels no different than going across town, sometimes. But I am the kind of person who makes it feel different because it is. Because I know that where I am is where I should be, and that I don’t have to explain anything to anyone, I don’t have to share pictures or tell them I’m ok. I carry on with my day, and the best days are the ones where I feel truly free because no one writes or comes past.
The dog and I check in at the desk. No questions, just a few bag tags, look at the passport and we stop for a last coffee at the bar, I look at the people next to me, excited, I see the list of departures and wonder if the destination I’m going to will give me what I need, and wonder if Tirana or Athens. If Tunis or London or Berlin or Bangkok or Abu Dhabi. I wonder if those places have something I should check into?
Later, having avoided all of the escalators in the airport, we board and the dog curls into a ball at my feet on the blanket that I bring with me wherever we travel. He reads the room and within a few minutes his eyes are closed and I see the gentle breathing of a being who is fine because I’m there, but also, a dog who doesn’t think in such existential ways. A relief, it must be, to have the ability, I think as I try not to focus too much on what it is I’m doing. Later, when we’re somewhere over the Atlantic and the other passengers are dozing off, I let a few tears come down into the pillow and land on my shirt, and the dog gets up and puts his head on my leg.
Bellissimo