Self-Image (charloft)
She came to Greece to find herself.
Under the Tuscan Sun takes place (obviously) in Tuscany. Which is in Italy, not Greece. But Jean had watched the movie with Lorna on one of their movie nights. Jean misses those nights. They would go back and forth between films with Great and Significant Meaning (chosen by Lorna) and films that Make you Cry and Laugh at Once (chosen by Jean). But whatever the movie choice they had popcorn and wine and pointed discussions interrupted by giggling fits and as the weeks alone stretch on it is those simple moments with a friend Jean misses most.
Under the Tuscan Sun takes place in Italy, not Greece, but Jean had watched the movie with Lorna and sometimes she thinks it was just so Lorna would have a visual of Jean on this island. She'd gone to the post office the other day (it might have been a week or two ago, the days and weeks and months all blur) and she had seen the Phoenix seal. She'd sent Lorna a post card with that image emblazoned (emblazoned, such a perfect word for a Phoenix) on it. A while ago (months she thinks, though the days and weeks and months all blur). She'd come to Greece to find herself and what she'd found is that seal, that image of Phoenix, everywhere. And she'd sent it on a post card to Lorna and as so often happens, then she stopped seeing it. Until she saw it the other day in the post office and so she thought of Lorna. Postcard-Lorna-Under the Tuscan Sun. She decided to watch it (yes, of course she owns it, it's a movie that makes you cry and laugh at once). And watching she is struck by one line:
Signora, between Austria and Italy, there is a section of the Alps called the Semmering. It is an impossibly steep, very high part of the mountains. They built a train track over these Alps to connect Vienna and Venice. They built these tracks even before there was a train in existence that could make the trip. They built it because they knew some day, the train would come.
Jean has been laying track.
The train is coming soon.