Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
“Maybe you can go around with some of the other drivers. Maybe you can even get paid if
you have a clipboard in your hand. You can have people sign for the deliveries, make sure
that everything is in order, but you let the other guy do the driving, understand?”
Later that afternoon Piero tells me that he thinks it may all work out. He knows all the
customers, he knows the best ways to get everywhere, he knows how to verify delivery
quantities. There may well be a place for him riding shotgun. A solution he can actually
live with. God bless Furiozzi: a doctor who deals with his patients' medical needs and their
existential situations.
***
I spend my days typing away on my laptop. I begin writing some of the stories about living
here that I have shared with people who have traveled with us through the years. I write
about the language, the Italian political scene, the Madonna, about bureaucracy and cus-
tomer service, about buying a house here, about how we decided to move here, and about
what it's like to live and raise your kids in a Tuscan village. I know there is a literary genre
of prison literature; I wonder if there is some similar tradition of hospital writings. Having
written about everything else, I save the topic of hospitalization for last. Unlike Sterne's
fictitious hero, Tristram Shandy, who kept falling further behind as it took him two years
to narrate each year of his life, I have managed to catch up with myself so that my tale can
continue in real time.
It's been years since I've had the opportunity to spend so much time writing every day.
I have a few dozen albums in my iTunes library on my Mac that I can listen to with my
earphones. It's an essential survival tool; the music drowns out the beeping of monitors, the
snores of roommates, even the sounds in the TV room. There are soundtracks that are per-
fect for writing about the absurdity of customer service and bureaucracy, others for telling
nostalgic tales about living through the decades and moving through the world. And for
those quiet moments when I want to step out and leave just leave it all behind, I'm grate-
ful to have Loreena Mckennitt's magnificent albums to fuel my ascent. For certain of her
songs, like Santiago on her Mask and the Mirror album, I stop, close my eyes and listen
for all I'm worth. It's a song of unflagging praise that rises from the depths until the vi-
olin leaps in to dance like a mad flamingo, to show you what is possible, what heights
can be scaled, even in our time. If you have ears to hear, there's no one who can con-
vince you that God died back in 1882. (You can hear it online at: http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=s1AcESk7JBA ) .
***
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