Two for the Road

I’ve waited until the last minute to get my ticket. Just the thought of buying the ticket to get on an airplane makes me anxious. So two days before my flight, I enter my credit card info and hit ‘book this flight.’ The trip is for ten days – departing Roma, Fiumicino; arriving Istanbul, Ataturk. I pack my bag and early in the morning, I find myself waiting in the town square to catch the bus that will take me to the train to Roma Centrale. It is a beautiful, crisp day and I make all the connections easily. I am even early enough for a quick, hot shot of espresso at the Campobasso stazione, which I taste on my lips all through the 3-½ hour ride across the green, rolling countryside of Molise and Lazio. There aren’t a lot of tourists here – at least not at this time of the year. No one comes to Molise unless you have family here and selfishly, I like it that way. It’s as beautiful as Umbria, the food rivals Toscana’s and farmers still dig up ancient relics, but no one really seems interested in any of it because it isn’t Etruscan or Roman. Italy is so rich with treasures that Molise’s Samnite heritage is ignored by everyone except the petty bureaucrats wrestling for control of this tiny region with a long and rich, but minor, history which is spread out over miles and miles of hills and valleys and isolated mountain towns.

I notice the landscape begins to change as the train nears Rome. There is less green, houses start to crowd together, then walls covered in spray-painted graffiti begin to take over the view. We stop at the station and I bound off as I look for information on my Fiumicino connection. I get my ticket and catch the next trenino to the airport.

I arrive, check in and find my gate as my anxiety mounts. I take a spray of Bach’s Rescue Remedy waiting for it to take effect. A crowd of boisterous Korean travelers arrive. Soon, we board and I am dismayed that the plane looks much smaller than I had imagined and although I had asked for an aisle seat, I find myself jammed against a window. The Koreans surround me and chat loudly and crowd my limited personal space until I am forced to direct my attention to the window and night sky.

It is a quick flight. Even though I do not want to look out the window my eyes are drawn to Istanbul that is spread out below me. The city lights flicker at me like stars and the pattern of the highways look like glyphs that seem to hold a message for me I can’t yet understand. My heart flutters as we begin to descend. If you’d asked me then, I would have said it was because we were landing, but now I know it was because I was falling in love.