Every year during spring break, cameras break, passports are stolen, cell phones get pick-pocketed, and someone ends up in the lurch, scrambling to replace their documents and electronics. Or so we were warned, repeatedly, before we all departed Florence for our various international destinations. This year, the tally came to three stolen cell phones, two broken cameras, and, fortunately, zero missing passports. Unfortunately for me, one of those cameras was mine. On the bright side, it didn’t quit working until the last day. On the downside, I was now out a camera as well as a phone, since my Iphone had already been pick-pocketed in Madrid.
Once I got over the frustration that having my camera break provoked, I was surprised to realize that I was only borderline pissed at this mini-crisis, rather than bright red and steaming with the caricaturized force of my anger. Too dramatic? Maybe a little. In all seriousness, though, between my camera and my pick-pocketed phone, I got a good sense of how it would’ve been to travel in, say, the sixties or seventies, when there were pay phones but no cells, and nobody had heard of digital cameras.
It’s interesting how you never really realize how much you rely on your tech-stuff until it’s gone. I suppose that’s a somewhat trite statement, but take my phone, for instance. For me, at least, my phone was more than just a way to contact people—it was also my alarm clock, music player, secondary camera, kindle, tip calculator, instant internet access, etc, etc, etc. Spending the first few weeks without it was both frustrating and freeing, but what surprised me most was that I didn’t miss the instant contact with people and the internet as much as I missed not having a music player. And a portable book reader. But mostly a music player.
I don’t know why I got hung up on the lack of music, but it seems to me like there’s just something about music that is just so vital to feeling connected, whether that connection is to a person, a place, or even just an experience. Missing my music, I was more homesick than I had been yet (although if I’m being completely honest, my nostalgia and sadness was vague and fleeting, enough so that I feel like I’m exaggerating by even calling it “homesickness”). I’d never noticed before how often I pulled out my headphones for bus rides to and from Florence, or even short walks around Fiesole or the villa. To be sure, I didn’t much appreciate being shown how dependent I was on my headphones to act as a shield, at least at first. But in the few short weeks before I bought a tiny Shuffle as a replacement, the jittery feeling of needing something with me was replaced by an extreme awareness of where I was. Rather than being an anxious awareness, though, it was more like what I felt during the “honeymoon” period when I first flew overseas and everything was bright and shiny and new, even in the frigid rain of January. I was conscious of the history and culture around me, but I didn’t feel the compulsion to document every aspect of it.
It made me sad when I realized I didn’t usually feel that shiny awe and expectancy at being in a foreign country, and I was definitely happy to regain it. But at the same time I also became aware of the fact that I had transcended (if I can use the word “transcended” without seeming egotistical and academic) my status of ‘tourist’ and actually, perhaps, become a not-so-transient resident.
And that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?
