spending time with other people together in the dark

good morning ~

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My Big Breakspending time with other people together in the dark

today's track is a slowed-down cloud of lap steel, feels very generous to my ears

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On two occasions deep into a quarter of a year living out of army surplus backpacks we found ourselves in an almost pleasant ceasefire holding pattern in Vienna.

The other cities we travelled through presented terrible challenges - stranded at the bottom of a mountain in Albania, nearly running off for good from a trestle bridge in Prague, tossing and turning during unending spectral moans of the wind gusseting the creaking wooden shutters on the island of Santorini, arguing so viciously in a loft in Budapest that I dry heaved for an hour, hands flat against the painted-white floorboards.

But in Austria there was - blessedly - less friction. I've often wondered why in the years since. It was surely one of the more pleasant places we visited - not too terribly hot and not at all overrun with tourists (in Prague the bachelor parties are unending, men dressed as nuns or in matching Hawaiian shirts leaving a noxious cloud in their wake). And it's a beautiful, easy-to-traverse city - delicately rendered statues on every other corner, parks and gardens filled with roses and topiary, the smell of buttery baked goods and lemony schnitzel wafting out from neighborhood bars.

It felt so easy to do pleasant, lovely things there. The hotels we rolled the dice on were cheap, clean, and comfortable, surprisingly so, ivy covered the walls of their courtyards. We'd spend ten euro at the grocery store by the closest metro station and have wonderful meals laid out on the bedspread, fresh rolls still warm from the oven and bright, spicy rocket straight from the bag, hilariously effervescent mineral water, something from Netflix streaming on the room's smart TV. And when we'd allow ourselves to go out for a meal the food was always nourishing and affordable - falafel platters overflowing with purple cabbage, little cafe sandwiches stuffed with cucumber from coffee shops that had been open for a hundred years, and - most delightfully of all - entire demi baguettes stuffed with hot, oozing cheese and griddle-seared sausages, available at all times of day. I worked on songs in Vienna, strumming at the edge of our beds, something that was impossible to do elsewhere.

On many nights and many afternoons we chose simply to get insanely stoned, dribbling a full dropper of a weed tincture into a can of Coca Cola. Our friend drew the THC out from the remnants of his rolling tray by soaking the shake in a bottle of vodka, thought we could use it on our travels. We snuck this wildly potent, forest green liquid around in a bottle marked "facial serum" and never had any problems getting it across borders. On the days we'd partake I found myself vividly aware of everything, so plugged in to the angle of the sun or the sound of tiny European cars passing by that we'd go for hours without speaking (bliss - if there's no speaking, there's no screaming, either).

Amazingly, even the activities lifted right out of Fodors lived up to their hype. Yes, we rode the humongous ferris wheel which overlooks all of the city. Yes, we walked through the enormous cathedral at the center of town, we heard music playing on its organ. Yes, we even caught an afternoon screening of zither-heavy "the Third Man," a film that does such an amazing job of showing what marvels city sewers really are. Yes, we gawked at the various Hundertwasser buildings and felt their uneven floors beneath our tired feet. And yes, we even found the filming locations for a number of iconic scenes from "Before Sunrise." We read somewhere, too, that free outdoor movie screenings were a big part of the summer culture of Vienna, so this became something of an organizing principle and catching Jim Jarmusch's "Dead Man" on a rooftop remains one of my favorite ever cinema experiences (we watched a lot of movies that summer - Conan the Barbarian in Prague was a particularly good one. Some simple escapism - a risk-free way of spending time with other people together in the dark).

I realize now that one thing that made Vienna pleasant was our preoccupation with what they call a sommerspritzer, which is basically just Austrian white wine in a huge glass cut aggressively with bubbly water. Naturally it's delightful, but switching temporarily to a lower octane beverage also seemed to take the edge off of our time together. It wasn't until one particularly harrowing night in the Czech Republic that I finally understood the person I was traveling with might have something of a problem - an argument got out of hand about wanting to stay in for the night and she, desperately, asked me, "don't you get it? I need a couple to fall asleep."

Most amazing to me in hindsight is that we made friends easily, a chain of connections, something that we - probably given how we could hardly stand each other - failed to do in other countries. I first got in touch with an American expat who helped me book a show before karaoke night in a bar basement. Later he gave us an after-hours tour of his brewery, foamy pours straight from the kegs. One perfect afternoon he took us swimming in the Danube and, needing some cash in my pocket, he told me the best place to busk and loaned me an acoustic guitar - I made something like twelve Euro in an hour which, at the time, felt like a blessing from heaven. Then an Italian expat who knew my friends from Torino offered me a show in his tiny atelier - when it came time to play the gig there were so many people in attendance that they spilled out onto the sidewalk with their long drinks, an actual audience at an actual party. We had ceased entirely being kind to each other so the kindness of strangers felt surreal, almost suspicious - I slurped it down, greedily. We were known and held by a small community, however temporarily, and maybe our behavior toward each other changed accordingly.

Things would get so much worse - our fatigue and our irritation would only grow as the long trip continued, even though we kept changing fantastic locations. And our relationship soured irrevocably almost as soon as we touched back down in America. But twice we were granted something of a respite and, safely, gently, we crossed over bridges not at odds.

But what about you? Is it nice to walk around where you are? Are lovely things easy? What are you cutting your Grüner Veltliner with?