Love in a time of Swine Flu

I sat in the bus station, waiting. A bus was on its way to take me on yet another journey into the unknown. Away from a comfortable place that I have become intimate with; a place with long winters and even longer summer days. Its the place that was my home for seven years, but that I never recognized as home. It is far away from the fast streets of Paris and the Bavarian Alps of my childhood. It is not a European place, nor a Serbian city on the Danube. As I sat waiting for the bus I thought of Bukowski:

when you think about how often
it all goes wrong
You begin to look at the walls
And stay inside
Because the streets are the
Same old movie.

Behind me Wolf Blitzer was discussing the Swine Flu crisis. People are calling for a closing of the border with Mexico. My throat felt tight. My heart rate, slightly elevated. I must be getting sick. They tell us not to get paranoid, not to buy into the fear, that it will be ok. But the news is built on sensationalism and it needs us to be afraid or we will stop listening. I felt dirty, like my hands were caked in layers of infectious grunge. I rubbed my eyes and wondered if my eyes would also now get diseased. Bukowski made his way back into my mind:

It is no wonder that
A wise man will
Climb a 10,000 foot mountain
And sit there waiting
And living off berry bush leaves

I wanted to be in the mountains. I had seen the ocean again for the first time in almost a year and I had missed it. I had also missed her. As the bus pulled up and we all made our way into the confined space they warned us to avoid, I thought about leaving. I thought about being a European in America, an American in Europe. I thought about how much I miss Munich and Paris. But most of all, I thought about her and coming back. Ten days more and Bukowski will be right.

Mountains are hard to climb.
The walls are your friends.
Learn your walls.