Approximately a year ago, I was wandering the sometimes broad and much too sunlit and at other times twisty, tenebrous and narrow streets and paths of Siracusa in Sicily with Marisa. It was a city in which one could find a Jesus in practically every other alcove.
By means of almost universal contrast, I am in the exceedingly American city of Orlando at the moment, albeit sitting on Jeremy’s sofa and thus not exposed to the elements in the dreaded exterior, within which one could waste away in any number of seconds. I don’t write about the decimating plague that has wiped most of the population from the east cost of the states, but of the stifling heat that staunches any impetus for creativity.
Unfortunately, I’ll arrive to Praha in June during the mere beginning of its hot season. Oh, I’ll suffer! However, I’ll also exist in a sort of hazy bliss for the first few weeks. It will be the sensation of being back at home. Praha always yields that sensation. Logroño did, as well, for years, but I think it was more because of the specific people who lived in Logroño rather than the place itself. If I’m ever there again, I’ll have to make note of the suffusion of sensation (or lack thereof).
In any case, by means of almost universal contrast, I’m in the exceedingly American city of Orlando where any number of stereotypes one picks up about various “types” of American humans comes to life like a surreal comedy skit as one strolls the streets and parks.
The only similarity that Orlando has to Siracusa, or, more specifically, the only coinciding event has been the consuming of pistachio ice cream. I sucked down two huge scoops of the stuff a few nights ago and I felt bloated and vomitous afterwards. The bloat did not even wane after purging myself multiple times into the open sewers that run alongside practically every roadway in the city. That being said, it was pistachio ice cream, which is the only worthy ice cream, and was therefore tasty. Was it as good as the pistachio ice cream I consumed in Siracusa that did not leave me feeling bloated and vomitous at all? I don’t believe so, but memories of a year prior are not an accurate phenomena.
Marisa and I hung out at the corner of a huge Piazza that I refuse to specify. In that corner was an excellent, small establishment that provided us with ice cream. Specifically, it provided us with pistachio ice cream. We drifted through the canals meant for human traffic for hours each day, stopping at cafés and a few restaurants, lapping foam from espresso-based beverages. We enjoyed the odd and liberating experience of not understanding or only partially understanding what the yammering locals were saying to the point that we stopped hearing the sounds as speech. They became a portion of the unique harmonic structure that specified the genetics of Siracusa.
Tomorrow I return to Seminole and begin the endgame. In three months, I shall be in Praha once again. The shapes that drift through mist that becomes more dense with each week will solidify into a directed graph of my immediate future, formulated especially for me by Miss Sweet Entropy.
