Romancing Roma

                                                                      Romancing Roma

She sits on my mind like a haven from the pressures of modern life, do, do, do’ we are told, yet how to get off the treadmill? Maybe just how to rest and put the brakes on my mind to stop and look and think?

 After recovering from illness I was in Rome for three days, looking for confidence. Was I healed? Would travel be part of my life again? Then Rome smiled, opened her arms and welcomed me in as if I had been the only one there.”I am here,” she said to my heart, “Just for you.”

 Thousands of eager hearts and hardy feet journey to Rome, yet I did not know what a Pre-Raphaelite picture would be  painted on my mind, painted with subtle, rich, brush strokes that sought to captivatingly capture every  aspect of the beauty and history of my hostess. 

That was three years ago, yet today I was in Rome, and it was summer, even though outside of my window, a numbing cold mist blew and I could see with my eyes, the very antithesis of what   I could see with my heart.  The birds were singing in the Borghese Park and   lovers walked hand in hand, lost in the fathomless pools of each other’s eyes, their sighs and longings mingling   into a musical score of as yet unfulfilled love.

The traffic was noisy, but it was a happy noise of achievement, in getting from one place to another. Vespa’s weaved their helmeted way between the stylish cars. In direct contrast to such elegance there came the gentle trotting of a horse buggy as the trusted steed pulled its load of swivel necked tourists. The horse having seen it all before, his interests were the practicalities of food and rest to come

In Trastavere District, the houses fit like a jigsaw, colours warm and welcoming as if each wall had absorbed the sun for a different reason, this is where life is .The walls of the Byzantine Church, gold mosaic shimmering in the sunlight as you looked and took in her shining history. These buildings were made to last, along with a people whose willingness was to make sure that hope was brought about for each generation.

Out in the streets, standpipes slaked the thirst of happily weary tourists and Cafés sent out the scent of Espresso, into the waiting population. Bakers filled their windows with a cornucopia of delicious temptations, sent down from Heaven that morning .Market stalls sold bags, knitwear, and unknown mysterious objects of daily life there which I, as only a visitor was not made party to.

Over a bridge, (any bridge, they all have a story to tell which they will relate for free to those who will stop and listen to their age old tale.) across the flowing liquid history of the Tiber. I stood and looked at the swirling water, would I have the courage of a Horatius to jump in and hope I would be rescued and picked up by the eager waiting hands of fellow citizens  upon  the other bank.  Up past the heights of the Mausoleum of Hadrian and looking up to the brightness of St. Peters, where so many events in history had had their conception.

 Stop, look, think and listen. Sit under a welcoming   tree and watch the Romans go by, the same faces but different attire as those who flocked to the offices and markets, houses and palaces of the Rome of the Caesars

I went into St Peter’s along with many others and when I stopped and looked around I started to cry as I had done three years ago. The sunlight playing off the diamonds of my tears, as reality and history came in equal proportions, sometimes in focus and sometimes out. 

 I stood to text my friend, a lifelong lover of Rome. Her descriptions had got me here, yet even she whose verbal portraits of walks round the Eternal City, had thrilled my heart so much, even she had understated the beauty that surrounded me. I mentally thanked her and blessed her verbal persuasion that put me here, to drink in the rich wine of the majesty, and towering beauty of Michael Angelo’s vision. After uttering a heartfelt prayer I went out into the street, and Rome welcomed me back with her knowing smile.

Queues were forming at that witness to the truth of history, Coliseum, whether it was for a first time experience of that wonder or going there for the tenth time, it never loses its jaw dropping sense of awe. It has survived everything the ages could throw at it . Up to my seat and in my vision within a vision, I was Marcus Ulpius, commander of the XII Legion ,coming back to Rome to see the beautiful Devorgilla. It had been a long journey, no time for rest my journey had been sustained by seeing her blue eyes again and holding her in my arms ,Then due to the ravages of time ,the road to her box had been blocked off…….how would I find her? Then with a sigh I realised she had long turned to dust.

Coming back down to earth or the sand of the arena, as   the echoes of the ringing, shining swords of Gladiators brought the crowd to their feet .What did these high born ladies see in a Gladiator anyway? Then I could hear the city say, ”This is Rome , there is love and life is short .”

  Past the white marble Arch of Constantine, he who had taken the Empire out of the Sun to follow the Son.  I thought, one camera card and I could photograph the faces that made history – how much would I be expecting Hollywood look alike? Perhaps history was kind in letting the famous sons and daughters of Roma be seen only in stone, examples of the ageless perfection of the sculptor’s art

Now instead of perfection, the Arch is patrolled by its gaggle of mock Roman Legionaries and Centurions, seeking pretty wide eyed tourists to put an arm around and be seen in pictures that will end up being shown thousands of miles away in Moscow or Brisbane or Hawaii. Maybe if I walk through the arch I will time travel, and see it all for real…”sometimes son”, my mother said, “expectation is better than realisation.”

 Across the busy corso , to the start of the Forum. When I get to the other side of the road during a sanity break in the traffic, a sleek ice blue two- seater draws up, the kind of car that inhabits your dreams and beckons knowing there is an impassable gulf between you and she. The dream parks by the road. He gets out, tall and imperious, not a hair or thread out of place making a film star look like a street sweeper. She, his Beatrice decanting her lovely presence from the car, eyes sparkling and lips smiling at her beau. Honey blonde hair cascading down the sides of her face, as if every hair had been allocated its position in some prearranged conference. The old men passing look at her and sigh and the young men look in wide eyed wonder thinking, thinking, and thinking, “I had only touched the outer courts of the Temple of love till this day.”  In their hearts, fall at her feet , willing servants for but one smile .

In my mind’s eye I started the walk that would lead to the Senate House, real decisions were made that shook the known world, and around which  Caesars movers and shakers congregated intent on deals, business ventures and taking risks just like their modern counterparts. Untold wealth, or death poverty and ruin, would your ships come home or be lying at the bottom of the sea? Where ship and cargo were  slowly being coral covered with the passing years until the day when aqua lunged seekers would bring their captivating  cargo back up into the sunlight to dazzle and excite a new generation .

How did they manage with only an abacus and without the Internet or computers? Somehow thoughts of business ventures were not as romantic as history or the depth of unrequited love. A group of tourist following their guide and wondering how history in this most interesting of cities could be so uninteresting. My hostess is hurt, “Rome is many thing” she hints, “but never boring.” 

Round Augustus and Livia’s house – He the first Emperor, she the power behind the throne. The palaces come in a rich profusion of styles and colours and history .Nature is taking some of its territory back, introducing vibrant living colour in place of the fading hues of  past generations. Happily shy birds make their invisible song part of the picture that imprints itself on the mind of the traveller. What would I have been if I had lived then? What would I have done? How different it was then, yet were their dreams so different from ours, and did hope still spring eternal in the Roman breast?

Feet crunching on the gravel and walking on the road where history walked. Going over the paving stones on the via Sacra. So many came and did not know that they would leave their mark in that history. Peter, Paul messengers of the Christ who would change history forever. 

Past the place where Mark Anthony gave the funeral oration, when mighty Caesar fell. That spot even hallowed today by blue flowers placed in memory of the long dead Julius. In our antiseptic, clinically, clean, cities everything seems cut and dried . This is your lot, tow the line, die a nonentity in a world where individuality is as varied as the taste of supermarket bread. Today if we were to cross the Rubicon like Caesar, we would ask for a risk assessment first.

I thought back to Beatrice, in Latin her name means ‘she who makes happy’ what was in her heart? What did she really want? To be loved or listened to? To be needed? Or to find someone who could look below the beautiful outer layer to the heart beating and pumping the rich red blood of hope and dreams. Those hopes and dreams, which when the bloom of youth had faded , would cause her to look at her life and say” I am content.” Mixing her sighs with the sighs and hopes of others in this magical city.  ‘Carpe diem’- seize the day, tomorrow may never come. 

Today each time we part my wife and I part with a kiss, I want the last words she hears from me to be “I love you.” What of the Romans, when parting could be for months or years? Saying goodbye at the port, “I will be back in the spring, my love it will soon pass.” Smiles of reassurance  that neither feel. “Only 90 days and we will be back together. Ninety long, leaden, loathsome, lingering days without her.  Only those who have been in love know the pain .Ninety days, how quickly said –how painfully lived. Back to the house once filled with life but now as dead as yesterday’s dreams, a lonely couch and salty tears.

Bottled water and the cool of the senate house, remembering the speeches that were made there that had effects throughout the known world, yet so much of the world was unknown.   Poppies pushing their rich red petals out into the sun in a place where so much blood was shed, as one dictator after another came and went the way of all flesh. 

The painted frescos of the senate, and the old echoes of long dead Roman history makers, history makers whose subtle Latin turns of phrase would be lost in the  present day seeds of humanity that were planted by them .People with petitions milling round the Senate building .Seeking to catch the right eye, that has not unromantically changed.  The voice of Caesars wife,  “don’t go to the Senate today…I have had a dream.”  Casca and Cassius make their way up the steep Senate steps while an ambition blinded Caesar walks through the Senate doors to death and immortality.

Even in your mind’s eye you get hungry and thoughts of food come to the fore, the hands of urgent practicality placing the pictures of long ago events back in the history book.

Coffee and cake ‘al fresco’ as you sigh with relief ,even in a daydream as you remember the scent of double espresso and a pastry filled with orange and custard , and  blood flows back into wearied feet.  In the café, all humanity is there . She too has coffe and cake as she draws a picture of the young man two tables down. He ,lost in a book, brows slightly knit. Her pencil flashes over the pad giving it  life. Gradually his likeness appears, no line is waisted. He must do this often for he reaches out and locates his coffee by touch, so intent on what he is reading. I wonder if she will tell him or show him the sketch. Will she take it home to her easel and flesh it out? If she does not talk to him she can imagine him to be just the way she wants him. Gentle reader, you are waiting to find out what happened, but this is Rome, the most romantic city on earth. She gathers up her pad after having extracted the drawing and as she passes his table stumbles and lets the pad fall, and it lands at his feet. When I left the café ,she was sitting at his table drinking coffee (it did not matter if she had just had some )her head on one hand ,eyes wide open and smiling and he looking at her drawing with a great deal of approval. My hostess says,” Even in Rome, love is like a flower it has to be planted before it can grow.”

This is the city for the lover, the artist and the poet. Modern days are not allowed to intrude, on the romance of the place. Each comes to Rome expecting something different, something that will touch the spirit. Even the ugliest can be beautiful in Rome. Rome gives them dreams and brings to the surface the poet in everyone, even those who love from afar. She casts Lotus Eater eyes over her visitors, and the hurtful is hidden.

The Spanish Steps, what a place for intrigue. Maybe the cameras were not just taking pictures of the scenery? The spy and Rome what a combination, trying to elude the ‘heavies’ in the crowd and there were some ‘heavies’ in the crowd working their way towards me .What information did they have? Were they from Oleg and what of Miss Veronese?

My heavies had nothing else to sell but postcards of various views , then one tries to sell me a genuine gold watch ,only 40 euro’s. Armani jackets, ‘I ‘ave this friend, he know Senior Armani personally, for you a low price.” Only the items have changed since Roman days.

Two children trying to jump up the steps and to dodge through the crowds. Mother trying to keep an eye on them, father is off buying ice cream. I wonder what they are thinking? Is this their first time here? What to tell their friends. I hoped it was not an educational trip. Maybe some children just want to enjoy things- we did, remember?

 What a seething mass of humanity, each with a story to tell. The elderly lived in face, harassed by experience. He is recounting his memoirs of “Il Duce” and what it was like then. “You youngsters do not know you are living.” I wait to see if he will mention that at least the trains ran on time –I feel disappointed that mention of that wonderful achievement is left out.

Then comes the night, and the scene changes, Tavernae and Cafes kick start into life. Hazardous candles and oil lamps on the wall, sun baked tiles, become a rainbow of colours as flames flicker across them.  Exotic names and menus appear in time for the nightly ‘Passeggiata’ when Rome comes alive. 

In the old buildings of Trastavere, diners out at tables in the street take everything in. Waitresses, spin and pirouette like ballet dancers between the tables. Nothing is spilled and nothing is dropped, nothing to spoil the scene. Just out of sight there is live music ,romantic Roman rhapsodies fill the night air. A glass of Chianti and hands reach across tables first brushing accidently on purpose and then eagerly entwined fingers , speak volumes inplace of the yet unspoken words.

Ragazzi (girls) ,like beautiful moths head towards the music , blinking, their dresses of flowing colours shimmering in the evening light .Sometimes in twos and sometimes with guys in their coolest casual clothing . One girl is singing to her boyfriend, she has a captivating voice and at once I am held spellbound as she shimmers past ,his eyes in rapt attention to her loveliness . Did the Romans of Caesar do something like this? They could not have looked like this .One guy smiles at the girl on his arm and the light of a firelamp reflects off his eyes and the white of his perfect teeth.

Friends ,acknowledge friends at tables or in passing and one hardy soul has his scooter and steering with his knees he seeks to play a lute(no do not ask me how he does it ,but this is Rome ) as he steers down the thronged passage of people. 

Others sit by the fountain in the square, wrapped in their own dreams, arms round each other. I ask myself do Romans do anything else but love and eat or is the one a necessity for being occupied in the other? Carpe Diem –seize the day for life is short. 

When the passegiata ends then there is bed. “When you come back, my hostess city says to me .”When you come back to Rome, maybe you will not be alone .You will come back,they always do , then you can have the renewed adventure of exploration, with a hand holding yours.” A gentle breeze caresses my cheek, “Buona notte, fino l’indomani –sleep well until the next time.”