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Dusk has fallen, and we’re at the foot of the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius on the Capitoline Hill. MB, G., and I are freezing in the damp Roman air, so we button up our jackets and prepare to head off to the celebratory street dancing and music promised for the 150th anniversary of the Unification of Italy.
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We are not Caesar, and we avoided the Forum, so I can say with confidence that The Ides of March was by far our best day in Rome. After days of clouds and rain, the sun and the moon both showed their faces. We couldn’t seem to tear ourselves away from the Piazza de España and by dusk, we were still there, drinking prosecco at a café under moon clouds.
“How do we rearrange our lives to live in this magnificent city?” we ask ourselves. There’s something about Rome at night, especially under a waxing moon, that causes me to think that reinventing my life and steering it against all the plans that drive me forward is the most natural thing in the world to do. Here, in this city of fallen empires and lovers on Vespas, going against the current of one’s well-planned life seems possible, even wise. The words of Keats, once an expatriate in Rome,
Here in Rome, tsunamis and earthquakes seem as distant as the dated letters of the 18th century Grand Tourists- the young British noblemen who came to Rome to study Italian art and to carry marble busts and statues back home to England.
Here in Rome's historical district there are no skyscrapers, no billboards, and no high-speed expressways. Instead, we walk over streets and sidewalks of cobblestone polished smooth by centuries of moving carriage wheels and the shuffle of pedestrians’ feet. One, red geranium peaks over a windowsill high above the street. There is more marble here than tarmac, and more cafes and patisseries than fast food. Our hotel has ornate, brass handrails and well-worn, marble steps leading all the way up to the 6th floor. In this neighborhood, there is no evidence, thank Artemis, of America: no McDonald's, no Starbucks, no strip malls, no Hummers. Instead: family-run ristourantes, cafes, small specialty shops, and Vespas.
As I walk on the very stones on which Julius Caesar walked on his way to the Forum,
I have never been to Italy.
I’ve read about it in travel magazines, dreamed about it while watching Fellini films, “Enchanted April” and “Stealing Beauty”, and absorbed a bit of it through my Italian friends' cooking and la dolce vita. I’ve dreamed of visiting the country long before “Eat, Pray, Love” was ever published, and longed for all things Italian: shoes, wine, men, pizza, art, vineyards, trains, Venice, waterways, canals, Popes, saints, laughter, and gelato.
view from the window just before landing in Rome
So, when MB invited me to join her in a expatriate writers class being held in Rome, I knew it was the perfect time to put my life in the American Southwest on hold for a couple of weeks and head to Italy.
MB flew in from Crete, and I from the U.S., and we met at Rome’s Leonardo di Vinci airport. After hopping on the train, and schlepping our luggage 17 blocks through the cobblestone streets of Rome’s historical district,