In the morning. A little sleepy eyed but my feet easily swayed into walking forward again. To find the train and then the airport. To then fly from the city of Athens onto Italy. Walking from sidewalk to sidewalk. Managing between parked cars and minor constructions along the way. Tiny, thin, hungry kittens darting in and out of their little hiding spaces. Looking for the morning feast. I try and pretend what it would be like….adds a little bounce in my step….ah the life of stray kittens…….but for me….. Just searching for a cold bottle of water. I luckily come upon one of those great hole in the wall grocery stores with fresh delicious produce and children hoping and skipping around and around on the sidewalk out front. With many smiles and curious laughs. You can tell the whole family is here.

I have this feeling. These people they know what exactly it is that they do. This is there job and their life. I mean sometimes more precise then this….sometimes more vague to say the least….but for me…..this is them here as of now doing what they do. Their family and their future. All the more easily with smiles it seems and children playing games….singing songs.

After acquiring my bottle of water and the regret for not buying everything they had. I keep walking with the morning sun to my back distinguishing the outline of each crease and fold and strap holding together the nylon casing of my pack. I pass a large picture window with the lights off from the inside and the door secured with a gate of metal bars passing vertically over the entryway. The dim interior allows me to distinguish the reflection…… something in immense clarity….and my expression….. with the large cumbersome pack following closely behind… the sun dropping down like a translucent vale covering not only the bag but the whole concept of it all in relaxed and perpetual motion . I thought to myself: “where is it that one makes sense from all these feelings of purpose and working and living? What is it that makes me so intent on lugging this bag around and managing to keep some kind of traveling pace? From here to there. Doing this and that….how do you choose and is it best to think of it all at random? Why is it not me managing this tiny grocery in Athens?”

Things sort of came rushing at me in new perspective…..feeling content….feeling both lazily in transit but as potentially fitting no matter what may be the case ahead. And I thought this could maybe be my job for the time. Possibly what I was searching for….watching new cultures and finding new places….trying to identify in ways that i'm use to and ways that I am not…..though being ultimately present throughout. To understand these feelings of continuation and detachment. stillness and attachment......To understand the meaning of home. While being both distant and isolated upon cultures while digging beneath the rubble of my own concepts of home to see the relevance. The potential meaning as something both foreign and nostalgic.

During this instance…… this instance then I considered this: The relevance became overwhelmingly present that purely this act of being here. Being nobody maybe. Or somebody. But just my presence alone. Carrying these things with me that I consider my only possessions for the time being. The tools and necessities to find only partial comfort and wellbeing…. Walking from one place to the next. No will or jadedness to move on or return. That moment. Maybe it could last for longer then it seemed. Maybe not.

though now to be in Florence it is both very different and possibly the same. And to me that moment has managed itself to continue. It feels all too natural to be here. In Athens I had a glance for a moment…..but now it seems to be more vivid and relaxed. I guess I get to lay my pack down for a period of time. Can walk around more easily not wondering what the next place will be like when I leave or hopefuly soon where i will sleep. I’m not sure if its nostalgia or something i've carried with me from Athens and from turkey. From Hungary and the Czech Republic. But somehow the relevance is here. Somehow all those people and places and stories and Speedos make more sense. (And yes… I am still searching for the European chest hair! I tell you it never seizes to amaze me) These all fitting into a conglomerate of things. They all fit into here and into Michigan. And maybe all the other places i’ve been and experienced.

Though somehow it feels much more integral to be merely witnessing. Somehow while this period of travel being much lighter around the feet. Maybe it just takes a little time to break from our old patterns and routines. Like driving from Kalamazoo to Lake Michigan and picking blueberries along the way. Sometimes just a little break can seem much longer when you return. And sometimes the opposite.