Prague Summer Abroad: Archives

The questions: What do I expect? What do I hope for? What do I want? What makes any of these questions different?

To answer the last, little distinguishes one from the other, but in the subtlety is importance, and this kind of understanding is something I hope to sharpen and hone. I suppose that dovetails nicely into the most obvious expectations I have: to read a lot, write a lot, and learn a lot. I’ve had this journal for (roughly) a year and it is not full. Sure, it has not been the only journal my pen has touched, but that is still generally inexcusable for someone schooled to be a writer. I expect to be writing in one of my new journals by the time I am traveling at the very latest. With me are books, I forget how many exactly. I will read them all cover to cover (except perhaps for the Kafka Diaries, but we shall see). I will learn a lot from everyone—teachers and students—but far and away learn the most from Europe itself. I hope, and expect, to learn how to make quick friends. I’ve been getting better at it since being in the city, but this experience will be near impossible to get through without this skill. I expect to begin treating my journal like a lover. I will spend great hours with my iPod, though not too many, and not when I am actually somewhere, only between places, as I hope to hear a country, learn its voices and noises. I hope to share the music on my iPod, because, well, I’ve always loved sharing music. I expect to hear new music. I expect to truly gain perspective on my relationships, namely with my best friends/other friends. I will begin to understand how one can at once be thoroughly unimportant and truly essential. In this regard, I refer to this notion in a worldly, maybe even cosmic sense, though I am aware it trickles down past that. I assume I’ll drink much great beer. I hope not to blackout. I will not live behind a camera lens, but I look forward to expressing myself through that medium once again. I expect to learn basic phrases for each country I am in, but especially in Prague. I assume I will offend, both accidentally and intentionally. I will learn toasts in all languages, but focus on Irish ones. I will worry about my grandparents, but only in the night and in between the lines on the page. I expect honesty. I expect many games of Sincerity, which entails many lies being told. I will definitely smile. I doubt I will cry. I will miss home less than I expect to, and I already think I’ll miss it very little. I will play guitar, hopefully in each country. I will forget things I would rather remember, though I hope it’s not too much. I will not get enough sleep and truly be glad for it. I will lose something, and then learn it doesn’t matter. I will be richer, better, fuller by the end of this in a way that I cannot begin to guess, but am looking forward to with such great hope.

Flips, twists, dips and always swaying, always descending. One page of my printed draft that I was not able to stomp on and hold in place, tumbled in the wind off the balcony. All I could do was watch as it seemed to be descending endlessly. I know that is cliché.

As it was in the air, I had time to check the other pages, learn which one I was watching drift away. It was the last page of the story. The page with the probing questions and jotted half-answers. On the back was the stanza for a poem I started here in Prague, the first poem I’ve tried to write in at least a year. This particular stanza had been eluding me, each stab at it deflecting off the ribs instead of cutting straight through. But I had found the stanza earlier that day in a windowsill and scratched it down hastily before it blew out the window and away.

For a moment—maybe more than a moment, now that I think about it, but it’s hard to be sure, time was acting strangely as I watched the page fall—I wanted some way to reach out and snatch it, bring it back to me so that I could hold on to it. But as it continued down that desire diminished, then disappeared. Watching the paper flip and hang and flutter was beautiful. I know that is cliché.

Plus, I realized it may land on the hotel’s deck, or maybe more accurately, hotel’s basement’s roof, but such a statement sounds ridiculous, even as I write it. If it landed there I could ask Janna, the receptionist, to retrieve it for me. Then I could have my draft and the notes back, the fleeting last stanza.

As it got lower, my eyes seeing the courtyard in a new light and at different angles and levels, the page began to tease me. Would it fall in someone’s yard, or stay within the confines of the hotel’s walls? At this juncture there was certainly no fear. No, not quite. Nor would I say there was even a sense of worry. Now it was simple curiosity speckled with wonder.

In watching it fall away, I knew I was gaining something I had been hoping to find. Losing something doesn’t matter. You can hold on to what’s important within yourself. So when the page of paper landed in the grass among the brush in the yard next door, I smiled knowing that it is down there and I am up here and we are still together. (I feel like that may be a lyric to a song I hardly remember.)

The page landed on its face, the stanza staring up, and remained in the yard for a few days. I would look down at it out on the balcony smoking a cigarette, enjoying the air and sun and sky, and smile.

I like to imagine the Czech family finally finding it in their yard, confused how it got there, not understanding what’s on it. I like to imagine that the page means nothing. It allows me some lightness, to feel released and a little more free. Like that page of paper, I’m most comfortable tumbling in the air with the wind, most at home, wherever I happen to be.

I don’t believe that I have ever met people like this. I don’t mean the people themselves, though they are unique and wonderful. I am referring to how we have met each other and gotten to know each other. Share so many meals, so many walks, so many nights together—both out and about or just in a room, on a balcony—and you have to know them. A few people were familiar with each other, but I don’t know if anyone knew another person all that well before this experience. Maybe I only say that because after this experience, after learning about people so intimately, the way that we used to know another person in this group seems trivial. Maybe I’m more so just speaking for myself and projecting myself into others. Whatever. Deal with it. Focus, Matt. What are you saying? I’m saying that we had to actively look for common ground. We are all writers and we share some interests, but that does not mean conversation and understanding will fall into our laps. I think we’ve all put some effort into connecting with each other. At dinners, one can be sure that a set of questions will be asked of the entire table. A question that comes from pure curiosity, pure desire to connect, to learn more about each other. To understand something new about you and you and you and you and you and me. And you can expect genuine, thoughtful answers. “If you had to be of another race/ethnicity/heritage across time, what would it be?” Renee would be ancient Egyptian. “What is your greatest fear?” For Kody, it’s spiders. “How many stories have you written that you can look at and say ‘Yes, I am proud of that. That is good.’?” Taylor and I, in our drunkenness at the start of this trip, gave ourselves “Three to five.” Personally, I’m not sure my number is that high, anymore. “When do you know that this is a girl that is worth a relationship?” We’ve traveled together. There may be no greater, quicker, truer way of seeing someone for what they are than when traveling with them. We quote each other more than we quote ourselves. We’ve made movies together. We’ve written together. Spent nights scattered across room 53 bent over each other’s manuscripts. Been caught in the rain. I know these people like I would never know them had we met and stayed in Chicago. I know these guys in ways I probably don’t know some of my closest friends. And you know what, that may be one of the best things to come out of this trip. I love you. I won’t miss you. I’ll be seeing you all.