Tag: travel

Rome, che cosa vuoi?

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Statue of Giordano Bruno

Rome is a hard place and I am a hard person.  What I mean by hard is simply that Rome is all stone and little nature.  It is all grit and grime and movement.  I often feel now that I find myself to be same…  That there is no softness, purity, and no patience…  I am eager to build upon the last event and move on from the present one.   I feel as though my life has shown me too much in too short a period of time, and has made me too wise… but not wise enough to avoid this place where I have now found myself.

If you asked me what I want most right now, I would say to be free of all worry… then I would say to remember… then I would say to forget… then I would say nothing… for why should I want?

I despise Rome because it is so much like me – It reflects back to me so much of myself… or at least, who I have been in my many forms.   And it seems that now I am finding myself to be no different from many of my clients, whom I have seen over the years, i.e. wanting the past to go away… wanting to be far away from myself, but finding myself nowhere else but here with me.  I suppose I am human after all.  And so I have placed myself here in Rome, a physical manifestation of all of the parts of me I had come so to resent, but perhaps no so much anymore.  Now, Rome, what do you want?

Nessun Dorma

“Nessun Dorma” (“None shall sleep,” an aria from Puccini’s opera “Turandot.”)

Haiku, airports, and a missing cellphone.

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This is not about today, nor yesterday.  I am backtracking.  Well, as you saw, if you read the first post, I am quite late in starting this… and most things – Um…I am working on it.

When I look at my planner (yes, I actually keep one), it says “Wednesday, February 2, 2011, ‘Begin documenting more detailed.'”  No, this is not some secret code, nor was I stalking anyone and logging his/her every movement.  This was simply an instruction to myself to begin writing more about my thoughts about who I thought I was becoming… If only I had actually started… It might have helped.  Well, I won’t take the full blame for my late start on this one.

In the interim of not writing about the wonders of me, I was trying to plan for this trip.  Meanwhile, Boston (where I actually live) was going through some kind of war with the snow gods and was losing the battle fast!  Snow storm after ice storm after snow storm found me and everyone else desperate for something less interesting to happen – For  me, things only manage to get worse… um, I meant more interesting.

Being that I am chronically late for everything (I should ask my mother if I actually showed up on time for my birth), I decided quite late (on Monday) to rent an international cellphone for my trip (on Thursday).  Of course I requested for this phone to be shipped overnight to me via FedEx (arrival for Tuesday)… and of course, the snow gods landed, not just Boston, but the whole northeast and midwest of the U.S. a massive snow/ice storm on… Tuesday.  That’s right!   So, my phone sat in Indianapolis (frozen, I am sure) for two days, while I begged, beseeched, prayed, cried, and downright politely bullied my way through the ranks of FedEx… all the way through to Thursday morning – I am not sure I actually slept.

Airports

Logan airport is not a nightmare… Driving there, however, well, that’s another story.  Add random snowfall… Well, you get the picture.  I still didn’t have my phone. 

Sitting at the gate about 60 minutes before boarding, I get the miraculous phone call from FedEx stating, “Your package is ready for pick-up in Needham.”  Really?  Can you be serious?  I mean, I am only in the airport, pass security check, about an hour in the wrong direction from you… These are just small points, mind you – After gently suggesting to the FedEx employee that perhaps FedEx might want to bring the package to me given the circumstances, I discovered that I was not goddess-like after all, and could not actually move mountains, nor persuade the powers-that-be at FedEx to agree with me.

So, no-international-cellphone-me travelled from Boston to New York’s LaGuardia.   By the way, I make it a rule to send messages to my loved ones (family, friends, bill collectors) to let them know that I will miss them and that I am leaving.  It just so happens that one of my beloved friends, who happens to  live next door to me and is quite aware of a not-so-recent shift in my relationship status, thought that when I said I was “leaving, ” I meant that I was leaving forever and never ever coming back.  Thus, there I stood in the middle of LaGuardia (I can’t text and walk at the same time), trying to explain to him that the world hadn’t ended and that I would still be his neighbour, and that I wasn’t moving to Rome, but just taking a small vacation… I still am not sure whether or not he believes me. Oh well!

From LaGuardia I went on to Philadelphia (never do this to yourself) to take my international flight to Rome’s Fuminico airport.  Besides having to take the smallest airplane I had ever seen in my life to Philadelphia, the outdoor shuttle commute from one terminal to another was a health nightmare as you went from the blast of heat from the inside to the blast of cold from the outside – I am almost certain this is one of the reasons why I have the cold I have right now! (I should call someone and complain.)

Haiku

The flight to Rome was not without event.  For the most part, it was quite a nice and gently ride – I ate nothing.  You might ask, “D., why would you do such a thing?”  Well, I will tell you why.  As I said, the flight was “not without event.”  I am not sure what was going on with the passengers on that flight.  Consistently throughout the flight, however, it seemed a majority of the passengers were either hacking up one or the other of their lungs, or sneezing the remains of their last meals into the air.  (The other reason I am sure for my present cold!) I spent the majority of time with my scarf wrapped around my nose while dousing myself in Purell!  The woman in the row behind me actually tapped me on the shoulder and applauded my efforts as she too had been doing the very same thing as I! 

To pass the time and keep sane (I hate flying even though I have been doing this since childhood), I practiced writing haiku.  Yes, haiku.  Why?  Well, I am actually a part of a haiku & haiku art course, and will have to present work when I return.  So, I figured I better get my understanding of haiku together… Or if nothing else, get the form down.

I wrote many.  I won’t share them all here, because (as my teacher Pamela let me know in no uncertain terms) they were not very haiku.  I will, however, share two that she liked and commended: one, I wrote before my journey; and the other, I wrote during the flight to Rome.

Leaves must turn towards

the colour of rust- Find joy

Beginning the end.

 

Have you yet counted

the raindrops, numerous, wild

pushing forth new life?

 

I am soooo very late… but what’s new.

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Truth be told, I should have started this blog on the 6th; or perhaps, if I were over-achieving enough on the 4th; when I first arrived in Rome.   The fact is that the idea never came to me, and probably never would have, especially given the fact that I shy away from anything that exposes my private life to any type of scrutiny whatsoever.  Why?  Well, I am a therapist, and privacy (as well as secrecy) is a way of life. 

I could bore you to death discussing the argument about whether or not a therapist should be a “blank slate” for his/her client, or if a therapist should be “a regular person.”  I won’t.  The reality is that as a young therapist, I have come to understand that publicly displaying one’s life is a huge “no-no”…   After all, what would clients think?  That I am human?

My friend, Doli (Croatian photographer, Dolores Juhas), for some time now has been asking me to “write something.”   Since I have come to Rome, she has been on me to “write something like a blog” especially now that I have taken to writing haiku and posting them in the ‘Notes’ section of my Facebook (yes, I am on Facebook).  And although, I am sure she (and every one of my ever-loving-me friends) love reading my haiku, I have decided to take the plunge and start this blog.  The question is: what will it be about?  Most of these blog-things have a point – Right?

21 Days: Rewind the clock… then fast forward.

October 2010.  I found myself in Rome, Italy (not Georgia) attempting to visit a friend.  I say ‘attempting’ because it never really came to fruition.  Picture it, the Tuesday before I leave on Thursday, my friend’s father passes away.  So, I found myself, for the most part, alone in Rome.  Now, you might think, “Hell yeah!”  After all, Rome is the eternal city, right?  Party central?  Well, when you happen to be Black, young, female, and not knowing a word of Italian, Rome became a type of giant hallway of  mirrors with every eye staring at me, except the eyes were not my own – It didn’t help that prior to my leaving that I had read different postings about Black women in Italy being perceived as prostitutes because some of the population of North African women decided to prescribe to such a profession.  Thus, my tiny, dark hotel room became my sanctuary (by the way, never go to this hotel). 

Perhaps it was all the staring, or perhaps it was spending too much time alone, or perhaps it was just my dreary hotel room; whatever it was, I left Rome that October feeling quite certain of one thing: I had no idea who I had become.  On almost a daily occasion I found myself staring at my own reflection and simply thinking: I do not know who I am anymore.

February 2011.  I decided to come back to the scene of the crime – Rome.  There are a multitude of reasons I could give as to why I am here.  The truth is that I hope to find some closure to what had been opened in October; or, at the very least, some guidance towards the truth, i.e. of myself.  So, I gave myself 21 days to answer a specific question…  You know, a rather simple one:  who am I?