'Take life as if it were an orange'

One piece at a time.

Last summer, I found myself in a situation that seemed full of insurmountables. I was about to board a train from Florence to Treviso in Italy, with a train change and connection in Mestre. I was travelling by myself with two pieces of hard-case luggage with wheels, one weighing about 21 kilos (with two small jugs of holy water from Lourdes inside), the other piece, about 10 kilos. Not quite a gargantuan load, really, except that I was travelling by myself on the last leg of a two-week trip. I am also the type that Filipinos would describe as lampa. On an uninterrupted ride, two pieces of luggage wouldn’t be so daunting. But switching trains in stations that had no porters or trolleys wasn’t just a challenge  it was going to be a circus act. Like balancing myself on beam in Cirque du Soleil.

Getting inside the train alone seemed like hurdling a waist-high beam. I knew I couldn’t do it by myself. (When travelling alone, two pieces of hard-case luggage with wheels are harder to manage. It is better to have one hard-case with wheels and the other, a duffel bag or tote you can sling over one shoulder, no matter how heavy.) Fortunately, Gianluca Foa, the commercial director of Santa Maria Novella, gallantly escorted me to my seat and helped deposit my bigger suitcase in a vacant space inside the train. I kept my carry-on near me.

Gianluca saw the fear in my eyes. A tall and stocky Italian, he found my suitcases quite a load himself. So he knew why I feared the road ahead  getting off the crowded train at rush hour, switching platforms and getting on a new train with two pieces of luggage and a shoulder bag in tow. If it took me a minute longer to disembark, the train’s automatic doors would shut close and I was going to be trapped on the train till the next stop. Worse, my phone’s battery was ebbing and my charger was deep inside my suitcase. Even if I managed to fish it out, I needed an adaptor. (Always bring adaptors in your hand luggage when travelling in Europe  I often relied on the hotels’ adaptors and didn’t foresee emergencies in train stations and airports where I might be needing them.) So if I missed my connection, I was virtually cut off from all of humanity that gave a damn about my whereabouts. I knew I could probably go to the Red Cross if I were stranded…

Gianluca probably saw all the what if’s playing on my mind like a movie on fast-forward. The immediate future (actually, the next two hours) seemed such a burden for a 5-ft.-3-in., 120-lb damsel in distress like me used to the conveniences and luxuries (read: porters) of a Third World country (what an irony, but true).

“Take life like it were an orange,” Gianluca advised me. I was now reduced to a certified promdi despite my Pucci. “Take things one at a time. Piece by piece. Don’t bite into life like it were an apple; don’t take it in one big bite.” That piece of advice calmed me down like an orange-flavored sedative.

I focused on the first leg of the trip. The first piece.

Shortly before my first stop, I hauled my big suitcase to my side and positioned it on the aisle beside my seat. Then I put the smaller piece on top of it. An old lady scolded me in Italian for doing so, because the suitcase occupied about one half of the aisle. But I was desperate to reach the train door when it opened and I ignored her nasty nothings (because I didn’t understand her, anyway).

Then from behind, I heard a woman say in English to her husband. “I am going on ahead so I can help her (referring to me) with her carry-on and then you can help her with the bigger suitcase.”

I turned around and saw an American couple who might as well have had halos on their heads instead of hats. They helped me out of the train and into the platform, about two feet down, about a step or two away. One piece of life’s orange  chewed without difficulty.

On the platform where I got off my train in Mestre, I was told my connecting train was two platforms away. There were no alleys to connect the platforms. “You have to go down,” a uniformed employee told me.

“Are there escalators or elevators?”

She shook her head. “Only the stairs.” The train to Treviso was about to arrive in 10 minutes, and trains in Europe are always on time. How do I get to it without becoming the next Von Ryan? How do I manage this next piece of my orange?

I suddenly spotted a swarthy man loitering on the platform. He looked like an immigrant in Italy and he asked me if I needed help. I knew he was an unofficial “porter” for hire. I couldn’t tell if he was trustworthy but we Filipinos have a term for those who do risky things in desperate times: kapit sa patalim. I knew he could run off with my luggage. But unless I wanted to miss my train and sleep on the platform with a dead phone and a battered ego, I took the risk and said, “Okay.”

The man carried my luggage effortlessly down many steps (the equivalent of about two flights of stairs) and up again to my assigned platform, to the door of my connecting train.

Second piece of my orange out of the way. I was now more confident about the future.

Inside the jampacked train that was going to take me to Treviso, I found that there was no more space for my suitcase, that big, black, hard-case monster (The most important lesson I never learn: Travel light!). I left it near the door of the cabin assigned to me. Bahala na, if anybody dares steal it. I walked down the aisle looking for an empty seat, and finding none, walked further down. Somebody patted my arm. Oh my God, did I annoy anybody again this time? But when I turned around, that person was already on his feet, offering me his seat with a smile.

“Thank you,” I sighed. When I settled in my seat, I turned around to check on my luggage. The man smiled with all the brightness of the Miami sun (where he later told me he was from) and reassured me, “Don’t worry, I will keep an eye on your luggage, too.” He was traveling with a male friend and the latter’s parents.

When we reached my final train stop, this angel on a train, despite being on his feet for about 45 minutes, not only brought down my luggage to the platform. He carried it down another two flights of stairs, then up again to the train station’s main lobby.

“Will you be alright now?” he asked.

“Yes,” I answered as I clasped his hand in gratitude. “And I wouldn’t have gotten this far without you and your friend. Thank you, thank you.” Then he disappeared just as suddenly as he had appeared in my life.

Fourth piece of orange down. At the Treviso station, Luciana Olivotto of Acca Kappa was supposed to meet me. We had not met and did not know how the other looked. And my phone had gone dead.

About 10 minutes had passed. Maybe it was time to call the Red Cross... Then a smartly-dressed lady walks into the train station’s lobby and our eyes meet.

“Joanne?”

“Luciana?” I heaved a big sigh of relief.

“Your train was early… and I kept calling you to tell you that I was on the way but I couldn’t reach you,” she began.

I smiled from ear to ear. I was home free. My long journey was over. It was a day when I was prepared to meet demons  but was pampered by angels instead.

And I was looking forward to a glass of soothing orange juice to cap a long and exciting day. After all, I had just peeled a big orange  from Florence to Treviso.

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