The Lonely Traveler

From a day in May 2012:

A few years back I attended a reading cum musical performance at Zanbroz Variety Store, Fargo, ND. My former professor and now colleague didn’t feel like reading from his new book of poetry, 31 Mornings in December, so he had local jazz trio play and read each of his very small poems. I was back in Fargo after studying a year-long master’s degree in Bath, England. Of course, as any good student does, I had Thom sign my copy. He did so graciously with that Italian American smile of his that says swagger, charm and joy all at once. He paused for a moment, and flipped through the book. He wrote a number along with his name and the mandatory best wishes, which is something more like “tight lines” for him. The corresponded with this: “These raindrops:/Lonely travelers in winter.”

Today Thom is probably scaling the cliffs of Moher, having a Guinness in Dublin with James Joyce or kissing the Blarney Stone to obtain the gift of gab, while I sit in a Cosi Café in Center City Philadelphia mourning the loss of a man who hasn’t exactly left me yet. Lonely traveler, indeed.

I should be on the day and a half bus ride back to Fargo to meet my new (and first) nephew. I should be writing the essays I know must be written for my current graduate program in Chicago. I should be gearing up for my study trip to Prague dreaming of the day someone will pay me to go on these trips, but I am sitting here paralyzed with – something. I want to feel something good from this. I want to believe that I didn’t make a terrible choice in a man. That I didn’t spend six months too long believing he might be good again. Believing he might be who he says he is, rather than the person he acts like. I came to the city center to do something on my own and most importantly to get out of his apartment. I couldn’t sit there alone, dreading his arrival home and wondering what he didn’t want me. Why he would rather flirt with twenty year olds. Or worse, how many of which he was flirting with right then rather than having a nice chat with me while I was hanging at his apartment.

I aimed for Starbucks but Cosi was in my sights off the train and I like their food better. I have never felt more alone, and thus I embark on my lot in life: the lonely traveler; intelligent but unsophisticated; fascinated but unadventurous; a sob, sob mess over failed attempts at relationships and blasé about butterflies. I will write to you from cafes around the world or from your own front porch. I will provide travel advice and travel stories. I crave experience and a paycheck. Most of all, I want women to know they can do things on their own. So, here it is: Lonely Traveler.