Floating away (doo doo doo, doo doo)
I kind of suck at planning my travels: I leave it past the last minute. For example: tonight is the last night I have booked at the hostel I’m staying at in Sorrento; I should be planning my next move, or at least figuring out where I’ll go tomorrow. But I’m much too happy just sitting outside at a table at a bar, writing and playing solitaire. I have my bitter rosso and my olives; I got a terrific set of playing cards from the tabbachi and it’s a beautiful day. The sky is blue, and there’s a soft breeze blowing in off the bay. The trees are regaining their green regalia, but the heat of summer hasn’t set in yet. The Italians are never in a rush for anything—“don’t panic.”
You can see why it’s hard to plan for tomorrow: I can’t admit that this today-right-now specious present will ever end. “Specious” because the present “moment” is just a plateau of flow that congeals into an illusion of “now”. I’m at rest in the sea, floating absently in the current: oceanic feeling. Boy, it’s beautiful here.
Across the piazza, there’s a row of flags: Sweden, Norway, Germany, France, Austria, Canada, the EU, Italy, Spain, the USA, and the UK. Behind me there’re two US Americans talking about the flags. He’s quizzing her, since he knows all of them and wants her to guess. He speaks loudly and confidently; she humors him. I wonder how they know one another. I wonder what their relationship is. Siblings? Lovers? Chance travel partners? There’s a pair of French travelers next to me, and in front a table of four Italians, who seem to be from this region. They’re certainly southerners—you can tell by their open speech, not as trained or restrained as the northerners.
I had a fantastic pizza for lunch and read some Raymond Chandler. Next to me an English couple were doting on their toddler. There’re palm trees here, and lilacs in bloom: everywhere the smell of flowers. You see what I mean? It doesn’t seem possible to consider tomorrow, much less le lendemain. I could melt.
Ever listen to Floating Into The Night by Julee Cruise? It’s her first album, with music composed by Angelo Badalamenti and lyrics by David Lynch. Badalamenti’s carefully layered ambiance invokes the feeling of plateau, of floating emptily in space. It’s like the slow tracks from Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space, by Spiritualized (another one of my all-time favorites): the long now of the cycle of the song carries you away. It’s like Philip Tagg said: a chord loop is a place, a state of being with no beginning or end.
Planning ahead while traveling is like planning the next song while this one is playing: it ruins your being there in the moment. My mother’s approach is to plan before the trip: that way she prolongs the fun for weeks or months. But I’m not so practical, and once you’re already there it’s too late to plan in advance. I suppose I’ll look at some point, but this very moment I just can’t. And that’s alright: I have a room for tonight, and I’ll find something for tomorrow. At some point I’ll head out of Sorrento to somewhere further south in Italy; eventually I’d like to head over to Morocco, and from thence perhaps to Senegal. I have to be in Scotland by the 25th of June and Chicago by the 22nd of August. It’s now the 26th of April–that’s plenty of time to float in.
