I am sitting on the train, heading from Milan to Switzerland, and my heart is still full from the night before. Leaving misty Milan behind, I start to see my first bit of blue sky since the afternoon before. I’ve never had that experience before in a city, it was amazing. The air was damp and cold, the kind of cold that sinks into your bones. We were walking around at night, barely able to see past one hundred metres in front of us. Other people simply dark figures walking around, like abandoned shadows. But it was magical. We started the night in the small bar, barely able to fit ten people. Only red lights and bottles crammed around the counter, it filled up quickly. We drank a spritz with Campari, before heading to a restaurant for dinner. I can pick up a few words in Italian, but after that, it sounds like a beautiful chorus of chatter dancing around my ears. Even though I love French, Italian has always been the most beautiful language for me and my mind hasn’t changed after all of these years. I sat and observed the restaurant: simple and small, warm and friendly, but most importantly… very busy. I let my friends decide what I was going to eat that night, and luckily they took the task seriously.
We shared several plates, not all of which I remember the name of. I was not starving, but as soon as I started eating I became hungry for more. Fried cheese, mini pastrami sandwiches, beef tartare. Fresh pockets of pasta, with the lightest and most delicious flavours tucked inside. Diaphragm of beef with roasted vegetables, seasoned, cooked soft and soaking in olive oil. To finish I made a new discovery, of a dish called Catalana but made in the restaurant’s own unique way. A crispy almond biscuit with a soft, coffee flavoured, creamy cheese… and I am sure that my description is not giving justice to the taste. At the end, I think we may have eaten the whole menu. The food at the restaurant was delicious, but even my cream filled cornetto and coffee at a local bakery in Ventimiglia was as delectable. I loved how Italian food was somehow able to pack so much flavour into something that melts into your mouth. Your body relaxes with approval and it’s as if all the cells sit back to simply receive the goodness. I can see how eating in this country is almost a meditation. It connects you with the present moment, because instead of worrying about practical things, you are too busy enjoying the taste of the food and how it feels in your tummy.
I think for this reason, I had always wanted to live in Italy. In fact, I had always wished that I could be Italian. I always thought the women there, or from anywhere around the Mediterranean, looked so beautiful. They seem to have features that I don’t: typically dark eyes, dark hair, sun-kissed skin, sharp features framing their face. A beauty that my softer, rounder and pinker features can’t really imitate. That evening, I was surrounded by beautiful Italian women and I was expecting to feel a out of place. But I couldn’t believe how much the contrary was true. These people made me feel completely at ease, I felt accepted and the conversation seemed to just flow. I often found myself enjoying, sitting back and observing the behaviour of everyone around me. I think that the women I was with that night, taught me something important about myself without realising it. To my eyes, they were so grounded and focused on their life and how they feel. They know that feeling good is important. It seemed to give them a confidence in life that they may not even realise they have. I didn’t see perfect women but I saw women who prioritised themselves. And more importantly, who let others be exactly who they want to be as well.
This reminded me of a time when I would feel so out of practice with knowing whether I felt good or not… that I never truly knew what I wanted in life. But after all these years, through my observations that night, I realised that I had more in common with these women than I thought. I realised that now, I know what I want. And I know what I want, because now I can recognise what feels good to me and what does not. It seems like something so small, perhaps something that comes naturally to many people, but yet I know plenty of men and women who struggle with this… the pressure of forcing yourself to want something, just so you can be accepted, fit in, or not cause any problems. It is a practiced disconnection from oneself that becomes normal, and in the last decade I was trying with great sincerity to practice reconnecting with myself. Wishing that after some time, this would eventually be the new normal for me. I think it’s paid off.. because that night I felt so focused on enjoying the moment, that I didn’t really worry about politeness or friendliness. I didn’t want to give them an image of me, I wanted to give them me. As I existed in that moment in time. And I wanted to give them the right to dislike me, if that was their honest opinion. I think it’s maybe the first time I felt like that in my life. Confident of who I was, and ready to be seen, even if I was a little bit like the odd one out. But something about the experiences of the last decade, and especially the last few months, tells me that everyone feels like the odd one out sometimes. I need not dwell on that feeling. I think I might be bold enough admit, that I’ve come a long way…
My travel trajectory over the last eight years has not been intentional, and I often found myself in a new country by accident or out of pure need. I almost always arrive at a place with little to no expectations, and I think this is the way to stay connected to the essence of travel. After all, travel is essentially movement. Like whisking the ingredients of a Catalana together, it agitates all that is inside you. Creates bubbles of air, chemical reactions, and new tastes and textures to form. Like the journey a bee might make between flowers, by moving you cross pollinate your knowledge with others and give the chance for something beautiful bloom. There is no rhyme or reason to it while you’re in flight or walking the path, but somehow you can look back and realise that it all made sense. That’s the beauty of stories – you can weave them between moments in time that you never thought were connected, and experience the satisfaction of learning something new. I think that’s what’s happened with this night in Milan that passed much too quickly. It has been weaved into my story, and these people have become a part of my heart, even if I may never see many of them again.
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