I fall in love with people like I fall in love with buildings. Right as I had that thought, I wrote it down in my notebook, which was stained with the coffee I had gotten from the bar car and then immediately spilled. The train was now leaving Bologna, the train I had been on for several hours. Two weeks ago I flew into Milan, took the train to Turin, and have since been making my way through towns and cities in Emilia-Romagna. The trip was supposed to be only half as long, but every new day, I called home, work, and told them I needed a little more time. 

I had not been sleeping much at all. I spent my nights roaming, taking notes and photos that I wasn’t sure I would ever use. I started to drift off as the train was picking up speed, leaving the city into the open countryside. I was hoping to rest, but was distracted by the voices of passengers nearby, two men. On this trip alone, I was prone to eavesdropping, especially on trains. I picked up my drooping head, opened my eyes, and began to listen carefully.

“And I don't believe…I don’t believe that it's the only way. It’s more like, others want me and others need me. But it’s also kind of like a feeling of falling, of hitting an end.”

“Yes, it seems they had their minds…their minds were already made up,” he said to him, holding his hand. “Don’t you agree?”

“Yes. I agree. But I thought…I thought things could change. But I know it’s hard to change people’s minds.”

I sat on the opposite side of the aisle, facing the younger of the two men. He seemed to be American, and the other had a European accent that I couldn’t exactly place. His English was strong, but he spoke timidly. I don’t know why, but it was clear to me that these two men had not known each other long, that they maybe even just met. I wondered why I felt so sure about this; what about their body language expressed time? 

Perhaps, like me, they were stopping from town to town, but I hadn’t seen them before. I was curious why they were going to Ferrara, which was the next and last stop on the line. I was visiting for research on a book I had been working on for several years, which was about the lifespan of cities. How long buildings last, along with the cities that contain them. Preservationists suspect that a typical building of the 19th and 20th centuries, made of stone or woodwork, had a lifespan of around 120 years, before the need of major repairs. Now, the typical apartment complex going up in Manhattan has a lifespan of 60. I wonder what that means, that we can no longer look as far into the future as we once could. Ferrara was a place I had only read about and dreamed of visiting, a Medieval city in Northern Italy that looked like no other city in the country. Built between the 14th and 16th centuries, it was the first city in Italy to have an original, complex urban plan, not one derived from the Romans. Unlike other cities, it was not built around a central square, or to accentuate the beauty of certain monuments or churches. It was built with an emphasis on harmony and balance: “the first modern city.”  

The two men didn’t seem to be working, however. Were they solo travelers, moving through Italy, as I did when I was younger? Leaving my life behind in hopes of finding some direction, some sense of peace. It was those trips that made me realize that there were many ways to live a life. Maybe these two met, fell quickly in love, and were teaching each other something. I thought about how I now found myself 20 years older than I was when I was last in Italy alone, and that I was searching for the same things all over again. 

Either you want to experience life together or not, my friend once told me. Those are the only options.

As I sat staring at my incoherent notes, I could not help but listen closely to them, even writing down some of their dialogue. The older man seemed to be the listener. He would ask the questions to the American in a way that felt real. And by that I mean, it was a matter of great importance that the younger man be known to him. I too, in my life, have been the listener. I remember my mother once told me that in a relationship, the first fight you have when you are dating is usually the same reason you get divorced down the line. And now, as I thought of the person I lived with, the one from whom I was running away, I recalled our first fight being about my silence. But, I had told them, is it such a bad thing that I love to listen to you speak?

“Do you feel at ease sometimes, at least?” the listener asked.

“Sometimes, maybe. Yes, sometimes. I like the feeling of walking in cities. I can do it for hours. That’s what I’ve been doing on this trip. Just picking a city, taking a train there, and walking. There’s probably better things I could be doing…with my time.” He laughed.

“No, I don’t think so. That sounds nice. That sounds perfect to me.” 

A silence. So they were strangers, as I had thought. I wanted so badly to know how they had traversed from anonymity to intimacy. What were their first words, their first glances? 

“And you? When are you at ease?” the listener said, breaking the silence. 

“I feel good about…I feel good about where I am,” the American answered. “And that doesn’t mean that I don’t see the path ahead of me. But maybe, I feel at ease most when I feel I am not expecting anything. Does that make sense?”

“Yes, exactly. I know. I think I still need that. I need to expect less of things.” 

The American started to come up with something to say back, but stopped himself. He then raised the other’s hand to his mouth. He didn’t quite kiss it, but he opened his palm slowly, and rested his lips near his wrist, moving his head slightly from side to side. And the European took deep, steady breaths. 

There are moments that feel like a beginning and moments that feel like an end.  I was getting older, and experiencing more endings. I craved beginnings, like this one. This trip, this book, being so far away from home, I knew deep inside that I was delaying an ending. I was trying to pause something that was a certainty. How long could I stay on these trains, how long could I extend my trip, before there was nothing left to do but go home? Either you want to experience life together or not, my friend once told me. Those are the only options. Are those really the only options? I responded. Yes, they said.  

And then the American spoke again.  

“It’s often very frustrating for me how hard it is to grab on to what I was thinking, and just like, I look back and I…I am totally baffled by how I was.”

“What do you mean? How were you? Who were you?”

“I was…I was someone else. And I don’t need to explain all the details, as they're never going to make sense. They're not going to make sense and it's time for me to stop trying.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I watched their bodies fixed across from each other, while the large window between them cut through the passing landscape. A large field, dotted with the occasional small home or road, was covered in a soft light from the descending sun. On the field, several children were running beside the train, waving and screaming to get our attention. As we passed them, suddenly you could see the buildings of Ferrara. 

Either you want to experience life together or not. That is all.