Stories Of...Syracusa

​I hate goodbyes. I always feel it in my hands. 
My palms ache and feel weak.

Giovanni just dropped me off at the bus station. We said bye through the window, then he walked off. The bus pulled out, made a turn and drove off shortly after.

I searched for him in the street. Right side left side right side left side, and right as the bus made a bend to go in the opposite direction , I saw him, tiny like an ant, his back to me. Marie had to go to the English academy to teach a class, so we said our goodbyes in the bookshop. I just passed by the academy on the bus and I searched for her too. 

Why do we do that? Try to get a last fleeting glimpse. Marie, as you all know, is a photographer, and today her lecture was about the conception and need for photography. 

Before photographs were paintings. Before that, theater and oral tradition. Why all this? Photography, as she puts it, is man’s attempt to immortalize life and thus avoid the inevitable, death. 
We all want to remember and be remembered. Our legacy to live on. Capture a fleeting ever moving moment and gain some semblance of control. 

I think goodbyes are like that too.
That’s why our senses get heightened. Our hands ache for a handful too much of muscle and body. Our ears listen for the timbre in their voice. Our noses smell all—shampoo, detergent, herb and salt. We share a meal like it’s the last supper.

And when the weight of their muscles and the timbre in their voice escapes us, we helplessly search for our friends on the side streets and, like a photograph, immortalize the inevitable. 


                                                                                                                                              Stories of Syracusa
                                                                                                                               Tuesday, November 16 2021