Author: Marina McCarron

Last January a friend mentioned to me that he had a companion ticket he had to use up by the end of June and might I be interested in a city break. Having flown first class with him to Copenhagen I was indeed ready for a trip and said I wanted to see Rome again. He agreed as visions of British Airways first class lounge danced in my head.

We were careful booking, wanting to be there before it got too hot, not during Easter or when school children were on break. Rome is a busy place. We booked for the 24-27 of April, feeling quite smart. ‘We should be okay, as long as the Pope doesn’t die,’ he observed. I was at the gym when he sent me a text saying, ‘The Pope just died. Our trip should be interesting.’ It grew more so when it was announced his funeral would be on the Saturday that we were there.

I first saw Rome when I was 21, recently graduated from university and completely and utterly lost in life. I remember Rome being huge, the traffic being scary, and wishing I was with my friend Tiff. It was on this trip I learned to be careful about who you pick as travel partners, but I’ve had mostly good luck since.

I had champagne on the flight mostly to brace myself for what I was sure would be the chaos of Rome, but the airport upon landing was almost empty. We walked straight through customs, even without an EU passport. At the bottom of an escalator we saw a group of priests huddled together and I thought, I wonder what the collective noun for a group of priests is? A religion? A pod? Given the news in the past years, my mind went to a few dark places.

As we took the train – clean, cool, comfortable, delightful, really – from the airport to Termini, I looked out the window at the passing landscape, thinking about all the area had seen as the image of Russell Crowe in Gladiator, walking through the fields, hand brushing the wheat, flashed through my mind.

Soon we were at Termini, and I was shocked at how big the station was. I remembered it as being a tube-shaped building, open at both ends with a few bakeries and coffee shops. The Termini I landed at had posh shops, bars, lounges – it was more like an airport – a really good airport – or a shopping centre from where trains happened to arrive and depart. The crowds that were absent at the airport were plentiful at Termini.

As we left the station I looked up at the buildings lining the street, wondering if I would see the place where I had stayed many years earlier, but we were greeted with a row of rather lacklustre shops, not the tall, multi-storey, off-white building on a corner I remembered. I hoped it was on the other side of the station and had not been torn down.

Our hotel was two minutes away. The lobby was nice, the staff pleasant, and the room, while not sporting much of a view – was lovely. The bathroom was tiled and the shower ‘threw off some heat’ my friend would later say.

Of course we headed immediately to St Peter’s, distracted along the way by motorcades and ridiculously handsome police officers. Carabinieri, polizia, and the Guarda de Finanza which confused us, but it wasn’t really their job descriptions that caught my attention. Somewhere on the application I am convinced it states: ‘Gorgeous men will be prioritized.’ But then, I’ve had a thing for Romans since studying their empire in grade ten history class. 

One of the main reasons I wanted to see the Eternal City again was to visit the Mausoleum of Augustus, Julius Caesar’s adopted nephew who ruled after him and was one of the Twelve Good Emperors of Rome. While not as famous as his adoptive uncle, under his reign Rome flourished. (And the first thing he did when he took power was to go after the men who killed his uncle. Family loyalty. Wow.) I saw his mausoleum on my first trip, but it wasn’t open to the public. I remember it looked small and inconsequential considering his role in the creation of Rome, more like a large hut than a mausoleum.

We made our way there very early Saturday morning, mindful of the funeral starting at ten. While I remember standing on the street looking at his mausoleum with not much around, now there is a museum next door – white and shiny, housing the Ara Pacis, the Altar of Augustan Peace commissioned by the Roman senate to celebrate Augustus’s return from three years away in Hispania and Gaul. With my back to the museum, staring at the mausoleum behind a shabby fence, I saw a homeless man rolling up his sleeping bag, and thought about the parallels between Augustus and the man who was being buried later that same day, a man who wanted his coffin to rest on the ground, wanted to be buried not in the Vatican but in a nearby church that was special to him. Who wanted a simple grave, with just his name.

I felt something as I looked at what was before me: a burial place for a great leader long gone, a falling down fence, a dome of a church in the distance. And something else: an opening in the sky, a portal – both an entrance and an exit perhaps. I began wondering again about what happens when we die, if there is a Heaven, if we come back again and again until we get it right. Mostly I wondered if Augustus and Pope Francis were connected thought the light in front of me.

I took a photo with my phone and marvelled at how it looked, showing it to my friend.

‘It’s like the sky is opening up to receive him. Or sending down light to replace his.’

My friend said, ‘Good shot. Your phone has a great camera.’

Know your audience, know your travel partners. That’s a good rule for life. We moved on, heading to St Peter’s for the funeral, as I thought about all the people who walked the same streets I now trod. All the people around me. Usually crowds make me feel lonely. That didn’t happen in Rome. But then, I was distracted by the officials keeping us safe.

*

Sunday evening rolled around and we found ourselves back at Termini. I told my friend I wanted to find the other end of the station, so I could look for the place I stayed at so many years ago. We wound our way along, looking for a place to have a drink before catching the train, mindful of the crowd, scanning for pickpockets… and then it appeared. The hotel I stayed at. Where I had to pay forty Canadian dollars for a call I made to someone in Canada I wouldn’t cross the street for now. Where I looked out the window processing hundreds of emotions.

‘That’s it,’ I said, pointing.

‘Do you want to have a drink there? Some sort of full circle moment?’ he said.

I thought for a second then shook my head. ‘No. She’s not there anymore.’

‘Who?’ he asked, looking around.

Once again I was leaving Rome, my mind swimming with all I had experienced, all I had witnessed, all of the thoughts I had on death and Catholicism and travel and where I want to live and… everything.

Augustus was a good leader who made Rome a better place. Pope Francis was a good man who made the world a better place. Maybe they are connected in some larger, cosmic sense. But I’m starting to believe you can reincarnate while being in the same body. I felt that in Rome, staring at a place I stayed thirty years ago that still stands in a city that has changed and grown and expanded. Much like me.

As we settled into the airport lounge to wait for our flight, I said I felt like finding a quiet corner to have a cry. My alpha male friend looked like he wanted to hop out the window and take his chances on the wing of the aircraft departing. I’m not everyone’s dream travel companion, either.

*

I’ve been back for weeks now. My small suitcase has been emptied and my large suitcase is being prepared for my next trip, spending the month of June in Canada, a trip I also booked in January. My mind is still whirring, and I keep thinking about Rome, wishing I had stayed for the conclave, or spent a day queuing to see where Pope Francis now rests instead of watching from outside.

 I couldn’t get close enough to the Trevi fountain to throw in three coins, like I did last time. But I know I will return – the appeal of Rome is eternal.

There’s a 7-Eleven in Florida that is one of my happy places. It looks out onto what I guess could be considered a busy road. It’s wide and has four lanes but I don’t remember many cars. To the left is the beach and to the right is the place where I get my nails done. I know the shops, the restaurants, the houses well. I just don’t know the name of the street. It’s at the corner of Gulf Boulevard, in Treasure Island, if that helps.

I can’t remember the first time I went into this particular 7-Eleven. I think it was when I put gas in my rental car. There was a little sign saying you had to pay before pumping, so I trotted in, wallet in my hand, my mother’s voice about how easy it would be for someone to mug me ringing in my ears. I went years without a handbag, just carrying around my wallet, hearing her warnings. The closest I came to being mugged was in a parking lot in Stratford Upon Avon in England. I heard my mother’s voice then, too. But that’s another story.

When I tried to pay the tall male clerk said, ‘Yea, that sign doesn’t apply to you,’ and he chuckled.

Because I was Canadian? A woman? I had no idea what he meant. I just felt like I was special the way he said ‘you’. Later I saw the sign indicated this policy was in effect at night, but by then I’d already spun all my theories of what it could mean.

The second time I went in was very early in the morning in the week before Christmas. There was a time when getting out of bed for me took an act of God. I would curl up in warm sheets and hit snooze over and over. My father used to get up early and feed the birds until we complained at the noise they made. Dad was a fan of animals and mornings. In many ways he knew what was important in life, but he was not a fan of hot weather, although he rallied to trot through Disney World with us, and later with his grandchildren. After he passed away my mom, who loved hot weather, started renting a condo in Florida at Christmas. I fell in love with it and the neighbourhood it was in the minute I laid eyes on it. I loved the thatch roofed local bar called the Ka-Tiki. I loved the houses on the road that ran parallel to the beach, especially one that had an outdoor ceiling fan. I looked for it each time I walked by. I fall in love with houses all the time, but I’ve only ever fallen in love with two stores while travelling: A clothing shop in Bellingen, Australia called Retro Bello and a 7-Eleven in Treasure Island, Florida.

I think I was heading to get some milk for my mother’s tea when I ventured into the convenience store the second time, the air conditioning greeting me along with a hello from the clerk that marked my first visit. I saw the coffee pots at the back of the store and headed to them, telling myself convenience store coffee would be pretty dire. When it sits on those little burners is gets a wooden, scorched-earth sort of flavour. And it’s generally weak. So even as I walked toward it, I was preparing myself to be disappointed.

What I saw was not one pot, not two pots, but several pots of coffee. The handles announced the type and I perked up, impressed by the selection and finding my favourite dark roast. Then I saw something that truly thrilled me: International Delights creamers. Lashings of it in those cute little white pots with the covers you peel back.

I love International Delights coffee creamers. I love the French Vanilla flavour and the Bailey’s and the Hazelnut. I love going to American grocery stores and looking for new flavours. Once I saw After Eight and to this day I am disappointed I did not buy it.

I don’t think I can express the simple joy I had standing there in shorts and a t-shirt and sandals, pouring French vanilla creamer into a cup of coffee. As I stood at the cash I wanted to tell the clerk how happy I was, but those are the kinds of things that make people think you are weird. I know this, first hand.

When my sister flew in a few days later I took her to 7-Eleven and showed her the coffee station and the little creamers. Instead of being delighted, she couldn’t believe it as I poured them into my coffee. ‘They’re not good for you,’ she said, sounding much like my mother and her wallet warnings, rather aghast at my stupidity. I am very careful with my diet, but if International Delights cream was laced with arsenic, I think I’d still drink it.

‘I know. But they’re fabulous.’

She looked askance, added one to her coffee, and we walked over to the beach to drink it. It was one of those moments you know you will remember forever. Maybe not the day, or what you were wearing, but the feeling. That all was right in the world. That despite a dodgy bank balance (me) you were indeed pretty blessed. That life was good.

As Florida became a tradition, so too did the 7-Eleven. After a night out dancing at the local bar my brother and another sister and I went there for pizza and ate it on the beach walking home. We bought cold beer there and red wine when we ran out and didn’t have it in us to walk to the Publix. We had so many good times in that little patch of Florida.

We’ve logged many Christmas trips, and I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone how much I love the 7-Eleven, but I’m saying it now. It makes me happy, whatever I’m picking up and whoever I am with.

Maybe its crazy that I find so much happiness in a chain convenience store in Treasure Island, Florida. But I do. I think my Dad would, too. He liked coffee, loved air conditioning, and always enjoyed a chat with a stranger. Sometimes when I sit on the bench and drink coffee with my sister I like to think he knows where we are, and the happiness I feel.

I didn’t make it there for the holidays this year. I hope to return soon. But in the meantime, there’s a certain pleasure in knowing it is there, waiting for me. That the coffee is brewing and the waves rolling. Maybe I’ll find the After Eight flavour on my next trip.

May the coming days bring everyone good coffee, good times, and the simple joy I find at 7-Eleven in Treasure Island, Florida.

Happy 2023. #seveneeleven#7eleven#retrobello#bellingen#creamernation

Two of the characters in my very first book, The Time Between Us, fall in love at Maxim’s. So on a recent magical three day weekend in Paris, I returned with them in book form to revisit their old haunts. I am sure I felt them around me as I strolled the streets of my favourite city. Here’s to them, and to Paris.

I can still remember where I was when I said it. Part prayer, part desperate plea, part hideous, crawling fear that I was wasting my life and would never be happy.

I can’t remember the time of year but I know the kitchen of the house where I stood was dark, even though it was daytime, and despite the windows. It was a grey, rainy, windy kind of day where you could either curl up with a good book or a long-haired stranger in a white shirt and riding boots could knock on your door, looking for Catherine. With my luck the stranger would show up just as I was hitting the best part of the story, and he’d have a horrible cold. Perhaps an axe. Maybe both.

I don’t know what motivated my actions, but I do remember walking in circles as I said, ‘I just want to write a book, I want to be a writer. I want to be a published author. I don’t care if I ever get married, I just want to write books.’

It appears some omnipotent force was listening that day, for my debut novel is about to go live on Amazon. I’m not sure that’s the correct way of saying so perhaps I should be clearer. An agent signed me in July 2020. My book was edited and rewritten and cried over, mostly by me but perhaps by my editor, too – I’m not sure.  Last December, a London publisher made an offer. Two audio book companies bid for the rights. Contracts were signed. Germany bought the rights, and a translation is being worked on as I write this.

Still, I didn’t want to tell anyone. I waited for the email saying ‘Oops, we meant to sign a Martina McLennon who wrote a book called This Time Among Us’.

I started writing my second book. I worried about my third. But still, it didn’t feel real. Even as the jacket was designed. Even as the advance money started to roll in. I felt I was tempting fate when I wrote out my acknowledgments. But I kept going, because all I’ve ever wanted, since I started reading books at the school library years ago, was to be a writer.

Then, magical things started happening. People I’d lost touch with read about my deal in the trade papers and got in touch. Friends started asking when they could buy a copy. One heady day I was asked if I would be doing a signing in Canada.

So I sent out an email to all my friends who at one point had heard me say, head bowed, voice soft, that I wanted to write. Unless I’d had a glass of red wine in which case the strength of my voice and how I held my head varied.

And I was overwhelmed by the support and kindness and love shown me by the people I told.

I’m still not convinced that on November 11^th the digital version will drop. In eight days I will know for sure. And I’m still not married.