I'm not keeping very close track of time, but I think I've been in Rome for almost a month. I'm measuring time loosely by how comfortable I feel here. By now I can breeze in and out of metro stations, fearlessly walk through the labyrinth of Roman neighborhoods, and I know which buses to catch after the metro stops running at night. I feel more a part of the city every time I lose my bearings in a new neighborhood, where ancient, narrow streets seem to connect to the next street, and the next and the next in a completely illogical pattern. Inevitably though, I come across an exuberant young local who is more than happy to explain my way home, or I happen upon a coffee shop where I can sit for awhile, sip an espresso, observe gorgeous black-eyed children with curly hair playing soccer for awhile, and set back out again to eventually find my way home.
I have points of reference that make me feel more and more like a true denizen of Rome. One is the Testaccio market, which I've visited the three past Saturday mornings. This week I even woke up at 6:45, at my friend Cleo's apartment where I'd collapsed after too much wine and vodka, and caught the metro back to my part of town, about a 40 minute journey, to arrive in the Testaccio market before it got too crowded. I bought bags and bags of fresh fruit and vegetables, and, although I could barely carry what I already had, I topped off my load with a large bunch of fresh roses, because I couldn't resist. Back at home, I unpacked my treasures and arranged my flowers, and realized I could never buy roses from that vendor again. Over the next hour I kept smelling the strong scent of fish, and I couldn't figure out where it was coming from. It seemed more and more like the smell was wafting out of my beautiful bouquet of roses, and when I put my face into the arrangement it was confirmed. Then I remembered the rose man had his booth right next to the fish man, who displayed an enormous table of swordfish torsos, complete with esophagus, eyeballs and sword, and many other varieties of freshly slaughtered wildlife, whose stench had traveled back with me and filled up my apartment for the rest of the day.
It is for these types of reasons that I'm falling in love with Rome. My fishy roses epitomize the revelation I've had about this place: that I've so far experienced it as a mixture; a mixture of the most breathtaking beauty and a kind of eerie complication. The dogs represent it too. I have loved dogs more than ever since I've been here, because the dogs here are so damn mangy! I'm not talking about wild dogs, I'm talking about the ones walking around with their well-dressed Roman owners. Walking down the street I often pass a large, gorgeous dog tied to a tree outside a shop, while their owner is chatting inside. They all look so happy, but so amazingly unkempt. It's one of the things that makes me smile uncontrollably or even start laughing as I walk past, because the chic Italian with his filthy dog it's such an adorable contrast.
Roman culture itself is like that: citizens boast their cleanliness, style and attention to detail, yet cobblestone lined with garbage and lush, historical parks full of litter are commonplace. These types of contradictions are partly noticeable because I have a foreigner's eyes, and I am ignorant of the complexity behind them. But my own experiences have come to me containing both the dark and the light side of life.
Another sight that induces joy in me are the elderly folk of Rome. To me, their beauty parallels that of Rome's monumental and ancient structures, although in a completely different way. Old men, well-dressed of course with a nice scarf, ball cap and jacket, walk arm-in-arm down the streets, engaged in their friendly conversations. Old women also walk arm-in-arm, sometimes wearing matching outfits, but are still somehow completely stylish. They walk at their meandering pace, stopping for coffee or to look into a shop window and bask in the spring sunshine that lights up their features, and shows they've been walking these streets for centuries.
It was about 8:10 am and I stopped into a bar to drink a cappuccino and smoke a cigarette before class. I sat down at a table outside and enjoyed the hot rays of sun shining in my face, when I heard someone speaking to me. I squinted upwards and saw a figure enshrouded in light, speaking to me in Italian. He moved out of the sun and I realized he was a very old man; thin, with a white beard and gray-blue eyes. He sat down next to me and asked me again, "Quanti anni hai?" I was annoyed, because I'm usually getting hit on when I'm asked that question, and this guy was ruining my good opinion of the old people here. But I was also a little confused so I answered the question, and he told me, "Ah, that's nothing, I'm 94!" Then he told me I should stop smoking. "How many do you smoke a day?" he asked. I told him I smoked 1 or 2 about four times a week, and he said "that's too much". Then he told me he grew up outside of Rome, but moved to Rome when he got a teaching job in a local school. He was a teacher for 40 years, he said. He told me his wife had died 10 years prior, and when I said I was sorry, he waved it off, smiled and said, "I'm going to see her soon!" He told me his name was Paul and I introduced myself, and then said goodbye and went to class. I had a smile on my face for at least half of that day, and I took my conversation with my new friend Paul as a sign that I should definitely temper my smoking habit, because obviously this man was some sort of angel.
This is an example of another characteristic of Rome: it's ability to make death seem less daunting, and even beautiful.
I was walking home late one night after visiting a museum and when I crossed the bridge over the Tiber I noticed a man sitting on the ledge leaning backwards with a strange look on his face. I was disconcerted but kept walking. I kept looking back at the man though, and he kept looking back at me, and I couldn't shake the feeling that I needed to go make sure he was OK. I turned around and walked back over the bridge toward him. I said hi and asked what he was doing up on the ledge. He looked at me with an eerie, embarrassed grin and shrugged. "I don't speak English" he said. Using hand gestures and trying to speak the little Italian I know, I told him I was worried and I wanted him to come down off the ledge. He just stared at me and shrugged with the strange look in his eyes. I asked him if he was planning to jump, and he shrugged. I wasn't sure what to do so I just kept talking to him, although he pretended to have no idea what I was saying.
After awhile I decided to let him be. After all, who was I to presume staying alive was better than death for him? He was going to do what he wanted to do, and maybe he, along with Rome's marble tombstones so beautiful they made even death seem romantic, and the Tiber, that has seen millenniums of lives come and go; maybe they understood something about the afterlife that I didn't.
I continue to observe and ponder, in the spirit of Gelassenheit, that attitude of "availability before What-Is, which permits us simply to let things be in whatever may be their uncertainty and mystery" (Carlo Angelino, Il Religioso Religioso nel Pensiero di Martin Heidegger).
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