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I finished Kerouac’s On the Road again on the plane to Rome. I say “again,” but the first time I read it I was in sixth grade (at the latest) and didn’t really get it. I definitely didn’t get the “IT” Dean (Neal Cassidy) gets:

‘“Here’s a guy [with a saxophone] and everybody’s there, right? Up to him to put down what’s on everybody’s mind. He starts the first chorus, then lines up his ideas, people, yeah, yeah…all the sudden in the middle of the chorus he gets it…time stops…He’s filling empty space with the substance of our lives, confessions of his bellybottom strain, remembrance of ideas, rehashes of old blowing…everybody knows it’s not the tune that counts but IT—“’

Soon after, Sal gets IT, and the two guys talk in the feverish, sweat-producing manner of Cassidy himself, when the words themselves don’t matter so much. Maybe IT, or the search for IT, makes people do things. Not take-off-on-a-bloody-rampage type things, but writing type things or I’m-taking-off-next-quarter-and-roaming-Europe type things. IT (and a trapped restlessness like this, the kind I can’t run off anymore) called for Kerouac and Cassidy from all around the United States, up and down the road. It’s what made ‘em want to dig new places, find new kicks. Those crazy cats (and you see their influence) stopped just short of going on to Italy. They had to leave some adventures for us—you know—for me and everyone, anyone. Maybe that’s why I’m on this train right now. Maybe I’ll find IT.

I’ll be in Florence later tonight, staying with a friend. I’ve already eaten too much pizza and substituted water for wine, officially. Also, I picked up smoking cigarettes (When in Rome…literally). Not to condone smoking or send another assault to smokers out into society (bummer, guys, how openly and actively you’re scorned), but I felt European-cool and suicidal when I bought my first pack. Mixed feelings. Hold down California coast life for me.

Live every day,

C