This is Near Despair

It's been another week since my last post (are we seeing a pattern here?) and this is because I was out of town for a bit. "Where?" you ask. Well, read on, friends! Read on! (reading time: 5 minutes)


The Franciscan-Austrian students were in Rome this past week, making a pilgrimage. Steve, my roommate, met up with them (as did I), and we went to various places around town. On Thursday last, they left Rome for Assisi-- the birthplace and resting spot of St. Francis and St. Clare. As they departed, Steve and I decided to head for this quintessential Italian hilltown as well.

So, I got my train ticket and headed off to the train station that Thursday. Steve was running late in his packing, so he took the subway to the train station. As a result, I never saw him on the train that we were supposedly taking together. Bad Omen #1: I'm alone on this train.

So the train is chugging along and it comes into Assisi in the early evening. The weather is cool, but it is drizzling as well. As I climb off the train, the chill awakens me to the fact that Steve is nowhere to be found. When the train pulls away and I find myself again alone on the platform, I think back to Bad Omen #1 and immediately turn to Bad Omen #2: I'm alone in a foreign place.

So I sit at the outside train platform, watching the drizzle pick up to rain and rain to a feverish downpour. The wind begins to howl and the temperature drops dramatically. I huddle in my coat and hat and wonder: "Where am I staying tonight?" Lightning stikes. Thunder follows.

Normally, "where am I staying tonight" is a question usually answered BEFORE someone leaves on a two-hour train ride-- and, for all intents and purposes, for me it was: I was spending the night with Steve and the Franciscan-Austrian students he had met up with while in Rome. He asked if we could sleep on their hotelroom floor. They said sure.

The problem is: without Steve, I knew not their resting place.

An hour passes and with it, all feeling in my toes. A train passes, then another. I think one had cows on it. All I know is that a little while later, Steve hops off a train. We both have a good laugh-- he because he had gotten off a stop too early (he was on the same train as I was, just a different car). And I was laughing because I had feared I would be homeless for the night.

After our communal chuckle, I turn to him and ask: "So, when will the Franciscan students be here, Steve?"
"I don't know, they are coming in on buses."

Now, I had thought that we were meeting everyone on the train platform. Wrong Assumption #1.

"So, do we know where those buses are arriving at, and where they are staying?"
"Nope. We'll look for them. It'll be alright."

"Allright??!?" my mind spewed within, "Allright??!?! I'M FREAKING COLD!" Bad Omen #3: I'm in a foreign place with no guaranteed housing for the night. And it the rain has now changed to snow. (Thus taking Bad Omen number 4 through 10).

Thinking I had guaranteed housing: Wrong Assumption #2.

Now, the train station in Assisi is 3km from the main city center. Steve and I figure that this is where the Franciscan students are. So, instead of becoming like snowmen in the burgeoning blizzard, we invest in pubic transportation and wait a half-hour for the bus.

Ok, so the bus is supposed to drop us off on the north side of town, by this huge church. Wrong Assumption #3: Italian buses don't always go where they're supposed to.

In fact, to our surprise, the bus stops in a dark section of town and tells everyone (in Italian) to get out. "This can't be our stop, Steve."
"I think he is turning off the bus...."

And the bus driver did. He had turned off the engine and began playing shirades with us two stupido Americanos remaining, saying in broken English: "Outta you... off!"

Now, it's dark, it's snowy, it's windy, it's cold, and Steve and I have just been dropped off in the middle of nowhere. We have no clue where we are at, except for on top of a hill near the city. So, we walk to it. But we find no one. So we away from it. Darkness. So we turn back towards it again. An infinite regress of circling.

After slogging through the snowy streets, feet and hands now frozen, we realize that everything is closed up. It's 7pm at this point-- the time when everything closes down and Italy eats. So we wonder around. And I start thinking: "God, are you really going to make me homeless tonight? I mean, I know that this is St. Francis' hometown, and I know that he was poor and homeless, and I know that this is a pilgrimage and all, and I know that I'm trying to truly embody the spirit of Francis and of Christ-- BUT, ARE YOU TRULY GOING TO MAKE ME HOMELESS????"