Gioite anco' al gioire

"Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter.
Sermons and soda water the day after."

-- Percy Bysshe Shelley

Once I'm settled in Boston with high speed internet I'll finally put up posts with pictures from Rome. But for now, and after those mirthful posts, this blog will return to its original purpose: to ponder the profound aloneness of the human spirit and the despair of all mankind.

Just kidding! How can I be sad coming back from a great wedding? I've been to weddings weird and weddings dull, but every so often I get to be overwhelmed by a couple's perfection, and the throngs of their friends who seem to feel the same way.

Through the miracle of Google I found the email address of Betsy, the only other girl in high school who was as tall as me. I was fortunate to get back in touch with her just as she was planning her wedding, and even happier when she invited me to attend and to sing. I spent the reception collecting compliments (while reminding people that I was not supposed to the evening's center of attention!), chatting with people who might become new friends, and dancing like a goofball. (I must comment on one New York lawyer, a Punjabi metrosexual who danced like an exuberant and funky cartoon.)

Weddings can inspire two opposing emotions in me: sadness and joy. Sadness if I'm single and wondering if my own wedding will ever come to pass, and joy if I can finally forget my gripes and rejoice in the happiness of others. Soaked in wine and dance endorphins, I had a ball tonight.

Yet at the rehearsal dinner, where singles seemed to be an endangered species and wedding rings glistened on young fingers, I felt like an outsider. What haven't I figured out that they have? These are people my age who own property, are committed to their careers, and are starting families. Now that I'm going back to school and renting a room with 22-year-olds, I can't help but wonder if I'm missing the boat.

These couple of weeks in New York have been strange. Saying goodbye to old friends, promising to see each other soon but not quite knowing when and how. More upsettingly, I'm saying goodbye to people I've just started to become friends with, and putting miles of highway and the Chinatown bus in a budding friendship doesn't exactly encourage a future. I've also just this week been warned that Bostonians can be as cold as a Massachusetts winter, and perhaps the circle of friends I've imagined for myself up there might not happen so easily.

Ahi! So much to fret over! But I'll take the advice that I sang to Betsy and Bill today: rejoice in our joy, and let all the branches of the groves resonate with the sound of our joyful and breezy laughter. (or something like that, 17th century poetry doesn't translate well!)

I'm off to bed now with happily aching feet and a sense of dread for the work ahead (I'm moving tomorrow!), but with the memories of a night of dancing and smiles, promises of new adventures to make, and.... und ein klein wenig Verachtung. ;-0 (I'll let you read Thomas Mann's Tonio Kroger to understand that one.)

Boston, or what the heck am I doing here??

A trans-atlantic flight must be the closest simulation of birth that adults can experience. A grueling passage in a dark space with poor ventilation, profound exhaustion, and the emergence into daylight feeling cranky, grimy, and ready to scream.

Thus I return to the new world, fresh as a daisy after some 22 hours in planes. My first activity? Jump on a train to Boston the morning following just a few hours of strange sleep. Dormo ancora, o son desto? Che contrade rimiro, e che terren calpesto? Ulysses murmurs to himself after Neptune sweeps him ashore on his own country. Do I still sleep, or am I awake? What city do I see, what land do I tread? Arriving home was a trip through the looking glass.

Was I really in Rome all this time? Are those actually friends I made, or just my own dreams, evidenced only by my already grey memory and miniature images on my digital camera? And what will happen to those friendships after a few years, or just a short time? I prefer a long-term stay to a whirlwind city tour, but the drawback is that I have to adjust both coming and going, and I break my heart a little along the way. There's one companion who I particularly miss right now.

Boston is a gentle city, more quiet and boring than New York, but on a more human scale. Italians would comment to me that it is a rather a European city. But nonetheless, I smirked as I walked past "historic" 19th century churches. How can I take them seriously after seeing places that have been there for 2,000 years? But I felt comfortable there for one day, and I think I'm making the right move in going up. Even the women making my sandwich and the guys in the copy shop were friendly; they made eye contact and smiled. Eye contact! Smiles! I'm not in New York anymore! I saw an ad for low-carb bread, felt my stomach turn and knew I was at home.

The day was nearly as hot as a Roman afternoon, but the hazy light and the sky the color of clam chowder reminded me that I was a long way from the Mediterranean. I summoned my strength for a job interview, which went rather well, and briefly greeted some friends. I wrote my thank-you note in the hyper air-conditioned lobby of a hotel (I do like that A/C!), and sighed as I finished off the last of my Roman spring water.

Spending this weekend on the Rhode Island shore with my parents and a family friend, I feel like I'm looking at the wrong side of the ocean.

Amor, io parto

A......a......addio Roma!
A.....a.......addio Patria!
A.....a.......amici, amici, addio.....

Ottavia, I imagine, was promised to Nero while still only a child. It was a triumph for her father, who had fallen into disgrace with the emperor after his military failures. Of course, it was a passionless union, but Nero made the most of the situation. Ottavia was humiliated by her husband's exploits, but played the role of empress and prepared to bare his children. After barely 14 months it became apparent that Ottavia would be disposed of, the only question remaining was the means. She expected murder, either by her servants or by her husband himself, and spent many nights in her chambers with a knife clutched to her breast. But Nero was merciful and only banished her from within the walls of Rome, forbidding her family to take her in or any citizen throughout the empire to assist her.

It was an unseasonably cool morning when she left, carrying the supply of grain a senator had secretly given her. She made her way through the Porta Maggiore, murmuring, perhaps, something similar to the words above, which Giovanni Francesco Busenello put into her lips for Monteverdi's opera. My sighs and tears will be carried on the winds, she sang, where they may kiss the ancient walls.

My departure from Rome will be slightly less dramatic. And yet, like Ottavia, I'm terribly sad to leave the eternal city. To make friendships only to cut them short, to begin to learn a language only to interrupt the process, to start to settle into a city only to uproot myself again. And yet, I never intended to put down roots here, it was just a long vacation before a time in my life when I don't expect to be taking more time off anytime soon. Yet leaving certain friends here was the most heartbreaking thing I've done in a long time. But what have I really accomplished here?

This summer, a friend of mine had a baby. Another friend is expecting her third child, and managed to move herself, husband and twins across the country to a new house. Yet another girl put together a solo concert program, performed it well, and got a rave review in The Washington Post.

I learned how to order an ice cream cone. I've learned to cross a busy street, and how not to talk to men. I've learned some new words, and shifted gears to the Mediterranean tempo of life. I've loved every minute, even the lonely times when I wondered if I had made a mistake in coming here alone. In some ways I do have other accomplishments to show for myself (I now know Rome better than NYC), but for the work I love, I've done nothing. I feel like the two-faced Janus, looking forward to yet another new adventure, and nostalgically back on this time here.

Eight years ago, after I came back from Germany I stood in front of a friend to greet her. She didn't recognize me. I wasn't away for that long, hadn't drastically changed my look, and she certainly knew who I was. But I think she didn't recognize the amount I had grown in the time away, which must have been reflected in my face. Rome was certainly a different trip, and less a coming of age story than a humbling, back-to-school experience with a few more delights thrown in. It's hard to assess right now how much I've learned, if it will be of use (for music, language, etc.) but I feel rejuvenated, and I come home with a the gift given to all travellers: the ability to look at the familiar with new eyes.

And soon I won't be saying just addio Roma but addio Brooklyn. Addio Flatbush Avenue and Park Slope Food Coop, addio circle of friends, and nearness of family, addio friendly workplace and cozy apartment.

On my last walks through Rome, through the stuccoed porticoes and filagreed palazzos, past antique columns in modern bars, past textured chunks of travertine and over rough tufa, across the color palatte of amber, cream, maroon, and ivory; I am deeply grateful. Grateful to have been able to take the time to do nothing but have a romance with one city, to study the language and find my way around, and to enjoy the company of good people whose friendships I will try to sustain. The magic of the experience lay not just with the landscape but with the friends who took me into their lives and hearts, and whose company I am only just beginning to miss.

The heat of a warm country heightens the senses - good and bad - and makes you feel like you just had a vigorous massage. The stares of the men here no longer sting but make me feel like a goddess, cresting through waves of worshippers. As I walk, both this phenomenon and the saturated beauty of Rome remind of the Indian song I learned to sing in canon: Now I walk in beauty, beauty is before me, beauty is behind me, above and below me.

I'm coming back, will you recognize me?

Kennst Du das Land??

As a child and young adult, I recall having a distinct image of The Personification of Italy. It was a dark-haired maiden, olive-skinned with caramel-colored eyes, flashing a brilliant smile with a gelato in one hand and a glass of wine in the other. Growing up with the grandchildren of the three-I's of New York area immigrants (Italy, Israel, Ireland), Italy for me has always been a mythical, other-worldly place. The home of a good part of American cuisine, the land of big families with big hearts and smiles, the place of unspeakably beautiful landscapes, delicious produce and wine, and eternal sunshine.

For those of you who haven't watched enough Tony Soprano, allow me be the first to disabuse you of this fancy. Italians are defensive. Let me re-phrase that. Italians are not half as cuddly as you might expect, at least not to fragile me.

"Auhhh?" and a grimace appear to be a perfectly acceptable way of expressing miscomprehension to a foreigner trying to speak Italian. Do Americans do the same for foreigners in the States? And your first encounters with people are not always likely to be smiles and kisses. In fact, I am often reminded of German reservedness.

I bristle when store clerks take one look at me and insist on speaking English before I even open my mouth. Do they speak Chinese when Asian people walk through the door? I know that they're trying to help, but tell me why they keep speaking English when I answer in Italian?

Yes, Italians are warm people. But sometimes behind the smiles is a more sinister intent. If the first word you need to learn in Italian is scioppero (as in strike, which merits its own section on the Treni Italia homepage), the second word should be fregatura, or rip-off. Even the most unassuming of places can slap you with an outrageous bill, it's something you always need to be careful of. When mom was here, we had a nice meal in a local place, but were surprised at the final bill. The waiter showed me the menu and said that everything was a posto, but it took a bit of a scene to convince him that it didn't add up.

But then again, what appear to be rip-offs are often just mistakes, or at least curious judgment calls. Once, after I had waited on line for movie tickets, the clerk informed me that she didn't have change for my €10. All I needed was a €2 coin back, but she didn't have one? I asked if I could come back, and she said sure, and tossed my money back at me. I then insisted on buying the tickets (you see, I had already waited on line and the show was starting and I didn't want to wait again), and said I would return for the change. In fact, making change at almost any institution is always a chore- If you put down €2 your for your €1.70 gelato they will ask if you have exact change, even after you're juggling the cone.

I learned of a phenomenon that happens in Italy every summer, and it chills me to the bone. When people go on vacation, they abandon their pets, mostly dogs. They just drive out to some abandoned part of the countryside and leave them by the road. And we're not talking a couple of hundred animals; more like thousands. It adds up to one animal every two minutes during the months of July and August. Whether or not this is strictly an Italian thing to do or more universal, it breaks my image of the big-hearted Italian. But what I can't understand is that the same people must do this every year: get a dog, hang on to it for ten months, and get rid of it when they all head off to the shore. In Pompeii, where it got so hot at midday that I felt I could relate to how the residents felt when the volcano hit, dozens of dust-imbued dogs were roaming around, seeking out an ounce of shade.

Yet, I can't complain entirely. As much as it took a while to build up my nucleus of friends, some amazing connections have happened that I would never expect to see in New York. Once, when I was unable to make plans with a friend for the evening, she called her sister and had her hang out with me instead. I don't know if I would do the same if my brother hooked me up with one of his friends. And while it's always wise to be on the lookout for fregature, 9 times out of 10, you'll be alright. I was picking out a canteloupe at the market the other day, and the shopkeeper said that that particular breed doesn't smell like anything, but is delicious. I was wary, but I bought it anyway, and she was right.