Cosmo and Silvia visit their younger brother, Vince, in Berkeley, California, where he attends college. Named after the eighteenth-century bishop and philosopher George Berkeley, this university town has long been associated with social change, political activism, and civic unrest. Berkeley reminds Cosmo of Philadelphia’s University City, and when he peers into a café that resembles one near his apartment, he realizes that he has been on the road for only one week. Though brief in time, the journey already feels like a lifetime—so much has happened in such a short span.
After stopping at a nearby independent bookstore, the three siblings head to the café. There, Cosmo surprises Vince by purchasing a Carlos Castaneda book, a choice that seems wildly out of character. “Who are you, and what have you done with my brother?” Vince jokes as Cosmo goes to pay. Silvia laughs and replies, “I think our big brother might be changing, Vince.”
As they sit together in the café, Cosmo explains that the road trip has forced him to confront an uncomfortable truth: he had been stuck in a rut. “Once you’re in it,” he says, “you can’t get out, and it’s like you’re not really alive.” Silvia reflects that everyone becomes trapped in some kind of rut at different points in life. “The world takes people out of themselves,” she observes. “And they have to get out of themselves to live in the world.”
When Vince asks why Cosmo became stuck—and how he lost touch with himself along the way—Cosmo’s answer is simple, clear, and devastatingly honest: fear.
This post is from my blog series on the places visited in the road trip story, “Discovery of an Eagle.”
Grace Mattioli is the author of the Greco Family Trilogy books, including Olive Branches Don’t Grow on Trees, Discovery of an Eagle, and The Bird that Sang in Color. These books are available from all major online book sellers, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Apple Books.
