cobblestones and cypress

I used to wake up in Rome, Italy, in the little apartment I shared with a cellist when I worked in the opera. There was an open shower in the corner nearest the foot of my bed, the water coming from the ceiling and draining straight into the floor, no curtain, and a sink, but the toilet was in the hallway next door. There was an enormous window near to my roommate's bed and there were shutters but no screens, no insects (amazing considering my proximity to the famous Campo de'Fiori), and it was 110F/43C every day.

I was initially not accustomed to heat back then. I got a yeast infection. I received my first non-American prescription from an Italian apothecary. It was in Rome that I first learned to perspire, really sweat, after a bout of heat exhaustion. Another small, feisty orchestra mate found me waxing philosophical on the side of the path on the way to our forum rehearsal site, no plans to be there on time but looking to take a cat nap. 

She picked me up and hoisted me, her violin, and my horn all the way back to our apartments on Via dei Giubbonari. Strong like bull.

It was so blasted hot that everyone rested in the afternoon, just as you flatlanders are told. All shops closed their roll-down enclosure and kicked back or even slept. Occasionally I rehearsed down in the cool recesses under a monastery, but our orchestral space was locked away each afternoon, so I would need to get my horn and music ahead of time if I wanted anything at all. Either that or I had an in with a local deli and could go in and kick back with them where it was slightly cooler among all the salted hanging meats.

The Campo was crowded, but I always got my breakfast there. I had great conversations there, too. Though always in Italian, they knew me as American. My accent, as one with a trained ear, was impeccable at the time. "How do you know I am American? Why not French, or British, or Hungarian, why?" 

"Your smile! You are always smiling. The rest do not smile - especially not the French, no."

I loved to take photographs. It was with real film back then. I took colored photos of the usual, but I saved the black and white film for the days when I was on my own and the world was mine. I went down to the forno for some pane and local political banter and then headed down the back alleys. 

My favorite day started early. An alley made narrow by chairs in various states of manufacture had no one in sight but elder Italian men and young Italian boys darting in and out and working on the chairs. I probably took the best photos of my life that day. 

My camera was stolen later that day while having lunch with my roommate on a bench in a park. She was holding my bag with camera. A gypsy came up and asked directions at length and she fell right into it. He placed the map in front of her face and stole my bag. He went away and she didn't know what had happened. 

I did not mourn the tiny bit of lire I had lost. There was little in the bag. I mourned the canister of black and white film. I felt as if there were lives in there, souls, and they would never so much as feed these people because even if they hawked the camera, they would toss the film in the trash. I would never share that experience.

Yet the memory has never gone away. I can see the eyes of the boys, feel the air, the cobblestones, smell the citrus, the wood, the trash, the pane, the cypress. I can see the exact placement of the counter and the arrangement of the people that day at the forno. 

My heart is full and yet it pines in ever so slight a way.

Ephemeral memories are like that. They will envelop you in your dreams for a time and tease you with a come-hither smell that’s present nowhere within reach.

There’s no substitute for experiencing life. Your own life. Yearning for the lawn or house or car of another is not similar because we think it is better as a reaction to what we have rather than from a presence. Being present in what we have, where we are, and what we feel removes the reaction to what we feel and just takes in the pith in its purest essence.

Memories become more vivid. We are happier, more free, less judgmental people. We are relaxed, perceptive, not impatient. Life starts coming to us because, whether we realize it or not, we do not expect it to delay us, deny us, ignore us.

That goes to our daily life in the everyday world. When we are present with ourselves, present with our families, feel and see, smell, and hear the environment around us instead of reacting to it, we also are relaxed, perceptive, and not impatient. Life starts falling into place instead of falling out of order because when we observe our space and our loved ones and our work instead of reacting, it has no expectation of falling out of order.

There is hope after all. Memories are sweet, and so is life right now.

Thank you for reading.