On the Road Again

Paris, on a cold morning in late March. The first day on a two month journey that will take me all over the United States before returning me to this city at the end of May, older (certainly), wiser (maybe), and warmer (hopefully).

Just over 24 hours ago I sat in a train station in south-west France, watching the rain sweep down across the tracks, the first grey light of dawn breaking in a leaden sky. My first stop on an uncertain adventure.

I hate leaving home. And this time was no different. Depressed, cold, butterflies in conflict in my tummy, I saw the lights of the approaching train and thought: It begins. And I knew that once on the road nothing else would matter. The tour would be my life. Home could wait.

The words of an old Paul Simon song from the sixties popped up unexpectedly in my head:

I'm sitting in the railway station.
Got a ticket to my destination.
On a tour of one-night stands my suitcase and (a book) in hand.
And ev'ry stop is neatly planned for a poet and a one-man band.
Homeward bound,
I wish I was,
Homeward bound.

But four hours on the train revising the manuscript of the fifth Enzo book, and a reunion with old friends at the Salon du Livre in Paris soon banished the blues.

I’m on the road again.