Last day. I will take cab to main train station (15 minutes away??) at 8:00 when my train leaves at 10:00.  The journey is the hardest, leaving, preparing to leave; a part of me wants to settle, to sink, to stop.   I didn’t do what others told me to do, what I might have done, should or could have done.

I arrive at the station early, find my way.  My ticket is open and the man at the information both tells me one is leaving from track number 8 (or 9).  I make it, find my way into a compartment.  It is done.

I take pictures of windows and doorways that at that moment resonate: the aging wood frame, the double doors, the peeling plaster over brick, the intricate designs, the crosses the window forms.  To my eye, it looks interesting, unique, worth capturing.  But with a tap of the screen something else appears.  There is always something that I did not see.  The composition is off, or something in the background that gets in the way.  What I saw is gone.

Downstairs I hear singing “Happy Birthday to you, happy birthday to you. . . ”  This is the day you were born.  You are alive.  This tiny being coming into itself.

Today at the Danube River –we stop on a break from our long ride, to dip our feet in water; I want to feel the cool water on my toes, to say –I did this, right here, right now.  Little girls play, and I wish I could direct the scene: Get out of the way!–let me capture this –please let me capture this moment.  One little girl leads the other, takes her by the hand.  They have plastic cones that they fill up with water, venturing out into the river to fill the cones and then cart them back to the beach where they pour the water in a larger bucket –over and over and over again they do this.  They are three.  The leader sheds her clothes and there she is: her cute little bottom trotting out to the river and back again and back again.  A beautiful child in time.  I want to zoom in, to try to stop this moment, to hold it here and now.   I resist the urge –in what world is it okay for a stranger to take a picture of a little girl running naked into the river?  I have missed it, missed what was here all along.

The suspension of time overrides everything.

You cannot escape the stage.

This is who you are.

When there is an uphill, there will be a down.

a gift will appear.

I think: I wish I didn’t have to leave, wish these people did not have to go, wish I could stay: slightly high, feeling a good kind of stoned, everything perfect, everything I need right here.  Sitting at a picnic table with people I don’t know, but know.   Drinking smoked beer in Cesky Krumlov; or flying down a bike path in Wachau, Austria, pumping fast, wind in my hair, sun beating down–high high high: Look at this place!  The group is behind me; to my left, the Danube, hills, clouds, sky.

This morning once again I am lost, going in circles.  I keep going back to this metaphor, repeating the same path again and again asking wait –why am I here –wasn’t I walking in the other direction?  The streets of Vienna are as difficult as Prague to navigate. . .too many plazas for my phone to direct me.  I did better years ago modeling in Paris, navigating the subways, portfolio hitting against my hip in the heavy satchel, carting everything.   At least underground everything was color-coded and you could be pretty certain that if you stayed on the train you would wind up at the end of the line.  The Plan de Paris par Arrondissement was perfect; all the roads, boulevards, tiny alleys, every possible way you could turn was identified for you to find your way.  Here, now, I’m lost.

My phone tells me it is 20 minutes away to the tour meet-place, so I leave the hostel 6:45.  I don’t want to miss this trip and the online guide says they will not wait.  First I meander, confident I know where I am going.  Soon enough I am turned around passing the same monument, circling.  I start to run after a girl tells me –take a left at this big boulevard and then make a left.  Make sure you cross the street she says –each side is labeled differently; on some streets there are no labels at all.

Tomorrow, I will take a taxi to the main train station, checking my destinations twice.  I like to plan, to be certain, to try to accommodate for every possible thing that could go wrong.  How will I know where to go?  Will I be there when the train doors open?  Or will I just miss it, struggling with my bag, my backpack, all my accumulated junk?

Tomorrow, I head to Krakow.  A travel day.  It gives me time to regroup, to think, to have time to read and write.  Annie is still with me –although today she has stayed tucked away.  I am still determined to read this book, not to leave it behind.  Emma said –you will be starved for something to read –but I am not.  Maybe I should have left the laptop at home, the temptations at night to distract, to post, to see.  Why is validation important?  In the end you are alone.

Departure from Hostel Postel was less hectic.  My life in order when my belongings aren’t strewn around the room.  Shuttle bus from there to Vienna.  Drained.  It takes me a day to find myself, the google maps whispering in my ear sending me in circles.  I talk into the phone with a British accent pretending there is someone on the line other than a mechanical voice telling me the wrong way to go.  I approach the hotel from the other direction.  I find my way to he plaza and watch the people.  I see people walking by eating ice cream, and I wander, trying to find it.  The street opens up to another plaza circling around.  I’m content, watching the people, licking my strawberry cone, tired.

At the museum, I am wowed by Egon Shiele, Gustav’s protege.  I stand in front of two huge paintings and try to take a picture.  A man reading the story of the artist’s life, stands in my way, oblivious, taking up space in that way that only men can do; he refuses to move although I am practically at his elbow.  He stands, oblivious, alone.  Do you want something he asks.  Just tell me what you want.  It is not difficult, American girl.  Aware all along, pretending.  I want to use my loudest outside voice and say, Fuck you, buddy, I am an ugly American.  Instead, I feel rude for bothering him, slink away.  Pictures of art, snapped with Smart phones are overrated anyway, like postcards of towns, or Las Vegas with its “Paris,” and “Venice,” all make believe, people walking around smoking, searching for something, someone they want to be.

I scour the museum shop looking for interesting art cards.  Another city of contrasts, the old and the new.  New construction, sprawling concrete, people.  Sometimes it’s better to just hide in the fog of I-don’t-know-what-you’re-saying; I’m new and raw and just beginning.

The Aussie lady on the bus in her 60’s who never told me her name although we talked all the way from Cesky Krumlov says to me: “We all have to go through the stages.”  It resonates.

The church bell chimes and it is 7:00 a.m.  The sun promises.  The flower boxes bloom yellow and white and gold.  It is cold in my room.  Silent still.  The others here are all asleep, late, tucked away in their dorms.  I wanted my own space, couldn’t share.  I’ve shared my whole life with Sue and Bob and Mary Beth, Dave, Andy. . .the list goes on: all eleven of us demanding something around the old kitchen table that jutted from the wall, all of us gathered around while my father stood at the helm stern and impatient ready to dole out whatever it was that might be enough.

I fell asleep last night watching Auschwitz, the Final Solution.  I am going there and feel I should be prepared.  I tell Sam in a text and he replies: have fun.  I assume his tone is sarcastic or dry or something;  he is hard to read, always.  He won’t/can’t go; these are his people.  Back home in Saint Louis, he still dons the attire, studies the Torah, tells me –again in a text –that his rabbi is from that region in Prague where the Jews are buried twelve deep, one on top of the other.  I send him a picture of the gravestones, haphazard, the little rocks on top keeping the souls down. (Later back at home it will be months before I see him, Hebrew prayer book, bought in the Jewish cemetery, in Prague, long forgotten.)

I awake in a panic, what did I miss?

The order of things is turned around, the days feel like months, and long and long: what day is it?  what date?  I think of the potential problems looming at home: the disgruntled honors’ parent “I will have a sit-down with you” her e-mail hisses.  I hear nothing from my principal who took the command: I will handle it, go, go.  It was all-consuming; I imagine the worst.  Who is this person and why?

Still, I try to be ordered, to line things up, to label the separate sacks (ordered online specifically for travel) with masking tape: pants, tops, pj’s and undies, bras I haven’t worn since getting on the plane back in Chicago, but I have them, I am ready, for what I don’t know.  I am ready, lotions and toothbrush at hand, phone and converter; strange money tucked away in my belt hidden under clothes.  Still, always something popping into my mind, unwanted panic, where is it, where is it, where have I gone?

Everywhere there are horror stories, warnings about what not to do just when you share that that is your route, the path you were planning on taking: a sleeper car on the way to Vienna arriving at dawn.  Don’t do it, don’t do it.  You will be robbed. One girl talks of a whole train that was gassed, passengers awakening the next morning hung over and groggy, where are we, what happened.  No one knows, but I don’t believe it.

I try to arrive, early morning, light just beginning to rise, the city or town drunk with sleep shaking themselves awake to stare at the view.  How do they make their lives?  In the mornings, the cobblestones are empty, the shops shuttered; the tourists with their selfie sticks, smiling fake smiles on the edge of a wall, reminding me of my childhood photos grinning forced at the command: Say cheese.  How many family photos –all of us lined up in our matching outfits, painstakingly sewn by hand, still somehow managing to look less than.  I watch the Japanese, others, everyone constant, camera at ready; what if I turn the corner and miss something: there it is and gone.

Wander the town at nighttime, bridges lit like picture postcards.  We trek up to the castle sharing stories; we all converge.  Tall skinny Alesandro from Columbia climbs the stone wall leading to the Castle.  Come down, Alesandro, come down.  He stands arms outstretched, happy grin, wide open to anything, ecstatic with joy at the toy-land, make-believe view, lights aglow.  On one side–nothing, a fall, gone forever.  On the other, the stone pathway.  He does a little jig with his feet. How does it feel to be standing on a precipice?  We’re in awe; stupid Alesandro, come down, come down.  I imagine the alternative: falling, falling, surprised to the other side.  There.

Later he and Caitlin are gone, disappearing to another place, carry-on or backpack ready to roll.  J’lyne at the hostel washes all the clothes for 100 Czech koruna.  Every place a different money–colored paper, stuffed in belts.  The goodbyes are awkward, clumsy hugs, reminding my of Aunt Betty at family picnics, where we dance around each other. To pull a stranger close or no; these people who have seen you in whatever serves for your pajamas, brushing your teeth at the tiny sink in the hallway, hearing you in the side-by-side w.c., separated by a thin wall.

Today the goodbye will be mine.  Already new people to say goodbye to.  Sherry and Christy who look Asian from Melbourne; at the kitchen table they talk of bungee jumping from someplace in Macao, jumping out of planes landing where worlds converge.  Most around the table are young, my daughter’s age; I am more comfortable now, less strange.  In Berlin, hiding in the prison-box of a room, painted orange, listening to the chatter down below.  In Prague, a classy hotel although booked as a hostel.  Over the breakfast spread, I scoured maps trying to locate something.  At night shirtless boys hung out of windows drinking beer.  Walking streets that were impossible to follow, names disappearing or reappearing without warning, the city a maze where it takes me an hour and a half for a 20-minute stroll.  I join a tour, six solo travelers, a mix: a gay businessman; the 37-year-old national guardswoman who looks ready to fight, hair a buzz, tight pink tank and sneakers; the Indian man who orders salad at the typical Czech restaurant while others dip bread in a gravy a color I have never seen; me.

I rise early, meander my way around town, circuitous as always, trying not to panic and just let go: who cares where I am, where I end up.  I’ll make my way back in time to catch the bus which will take me from here to there.

It feels awkward –after being buzzed and drunk to return to the hostel with strangers.  The two water closets are side by side, a tiny sink in between.  Two showers share one room separated by a thin curtain.  I feel exposed, imagine all my flaws raw, seen by others as I see me.

Natasha (or was it Caitlyn?) tells stories of former prison cells turned hostels, common toilets with no doors.  I can’t tell if her stories are real or embellished.  An hour passes and the rain pours down.  I will walk anyway, trying not to worry about where I am going or what I should bring.

By the end of the trip maybe I will relax.  Throw everything in the bag that I want to take and be done with it.  Don’t look back.  Things languish in the suitcase –the exercise bands Christy lent me, a heavy cotton sweater that stifles.   On the train, I pat myself down: where are my sunglasses, I just had them; my chargers, my phone, my money.  I check the belt under my clothes, unseen and secure.  I do the same thing at home: did I turn off the coffee pot? (Once driving home from work during my prep hour –just to be sure.)  What am I forgetting?  It’s all out of control, spinning.

Walking the curvy cobblestones with Natasha in a small town in the Czech Republic, we look for a gallery I saw that morning, lost on the walk at 7:00 a.m., getting up early to shower and walk alone.  I pass the gallery twice and peer in; interesting colorful cards make a kaleidoscope of the window.  I vow to make my way back again after they open.  It is gone.  Natasha steers us through the winding streets looking, recognizing every marker –the lingerie shop, the crystal, the puppets, the elephant mugs, the pencil holders that look like something else entirely.  Everything transformed.  The shop is gone; instead we make our way to the same restaurant where I had dinner the night before smoking weed with Sarteck from India.  I order the same thing I did the night before, wondering how –if I hate change so much, did I end up here?

They say no matter where you go in this town, you wind up back in the same place.  I walk, curving my way around with the meandering river.  Men with their shirts off drinking beer take paddle floats down the lazy river, lazy themselves.  The sun beats down.

Later, back at the hostel, the sky opens.