Rome 2007

Hello... I've disappeared to the most wonderful place for a week or so, and as part reintegrating to the ritual of the habitual, I will blog about it.

I've been to Rome, which was a dream of mine since I was in college. I am still in awe of it all and forgive me if sometimes I might sound like a wide-eyed child... but that is how I feel. I used to say that I could write my way out of anything... Rome has proven me wrong. The emotional impact created by this city makes me want to giggle, laugh out loud, think , take a deep breath, cry away with heartfelt tears all traces of cynicism... and believe again in the possibilities of the human race. I might, or might not be able to be coherent about it.

I've walked through a city quoted by many as eternal, a place that moves along, yet seems to be outside of time. Time forces it self upon it, sluggishly stretching days into even longer nights. People live it all, breath it in, enjoy it. They talk out loud, caring very little for personal space... Romans will brake for gelato, even in the dead of winter and will take their sweet time for an even sweeter cup of coffee in a corner bar. They know, better than most, just for being Romans, that time, although imperceptible, is also unforgiving. They live here and now with a carelessness and a freedom that is contagious.

People live their ordinary lives threading daily in extraordinary places. Rome is a city were religion equates art and art surpasses faith. A strange breed of a city in which a Pope can be a sinner and a painter a saint.

Talking about heaven... God is everywhere in Rome, wether He wants it or not.You can find him in the wall of a chapel, the marble of a sculpture or the face of a beggar at the steps of a church. Rome is after all, if not the cradle, the poster child of Christendom. I've been to most of it's churches, falling in love with the stories and artists renditions of the saints, chiseling away faces so life-like, yet crossing into the divine by means of marble.

There are other gods in Rome as well, the old ones, the thousand altars Paul struggled against. They are decadent and beautiful and strangely inviting... they will steal half a smile from the most pious of souls, a what if, if you might. These gods for being both human in form and unreachable in nature turned more than one emperor crazy. Gods of blood and wine and water ever flowing.

The fountains are divine, there's one in every corner. Some of them bringing forth water from ancient springs... I threw a coin at Trevi, wishing to return.

This is it, most of what I am able to say without being carried away by the tears of a martyr or the laughter of madmen. It is, after all, the question I intended to answer to Lightshadow, at the cinema, when I simply didn't have words.

PS... with no pretense of poesy... props, kudos and all deserved praise to Maria Cotto, for being the map wizard. I am still baffled by her ability to read a map backwards, catch a bus and fend off minis at the same time... thank you for being my friend... let see where the next wind will take us.