Pre-flight

Inevitably, whenever I say that I am going to Italy, I am asked “Where are you going? At first, I found the question off putting—isn’t Italy enough information? But I would answer nevertheless, “Well, I’m going to Venice.” How long are you going for? Ten days. It is the next question that confused me: “And where else are you going?” Isn’t Venice enough, I wondered. I mean, suppose someone said they were coming to the United States. New York? And where else? I’m not going to sight see. So why am I going? To accomplish some personal business. To go far away. To go to Italy. To have a reunion with Renee Lerner, my date for the high school prom in 1965.To talk with her about Peter, Paul and Mary, and Trini Lopez and lemon trees. In a more romantic world, I would appear before her after these many years with a large bouquet of flowers, but she wondered if perhaps I could bring two jars of tahini for her great crop of eggplant. Apparently that is a culinary delight yet unknown to Italy. So, that is what I bring Renee after all these years—two jars of ground up sesame seeds.
If I plan too carefully, then I think I’ll miss too much, really. It was not Michaelangelo’s David which I brought back from Florence; it was his Prigione, which I did not know existed. I’m going to Italy. To accomplish some personal business. I’m taking the James brothers—William and Henry. I’m taking the computer. I’m taking Know My Song Well. And my on-line graduate class. And I’m getting on the plane with Cowboy Mitch with few expectations but few hopes.
I have not traveled like this since I was I my early thirties, almost half a life ago. Then, I learned a great deal from the solitude and the companies. I’m taking the backpack I carried then, and a suitcase I then could not imagine.
Then I traveled with notebooks for journals. Now I am carrying the electronic medium, and I intend to broadcast at least some of the trip. I’ve got a camera this time, and the cables that will allow me to post current photos. It was either Nathaniel Hawthorne or Henry James who kept Italian Journals.
Here begins mine: