images from Italy

Images from Italy:


I have been blessed. Very blessed. I recently, won a bet from a long time good friend and as my winnings he had to take me to italy for a little over a week. It was a wonderful trip, helping to spring me from the bars of sorrow I have laid so dormant in these last few months.

Italian swirls all around me from fellow passengers, spoken in excitement and frustration, in gest and in the small voices of children sitting behind me. When we arrived at the airport about an hour and a half ago and checked in on Alitalia everyone started speaking Italian to us, and no one has stopped, it booms from a gnarled loud speaker over head, the voice garbled and tiny. I already feel like I am in a foreign country.   
The Last of the Florida Sun streams across my knees and onto my lap and I have to pee. 
     I feel slightly sick at this adventure taking my life and running away with it- like on the way to the Miami airport, Ben, one of Jorel’s employees, weaving in and out of the heavy traffic, enthusiastically telling me how he should have been a race car driver; the speedometer jets past ninety as we speed past a semi on the right hand side of the four lane free way. Jorel crammed next to me is working feverishly, sorting mail and speaking quickly into his phone. 
But the memory is suddenly jarred from my mind, as the plane bumps and jostles it’s way toward take off. I close my eyes and silently pray.



A market street, the clouds over head high and troubled, threatening rain. 
The smell of baking pizza wafts down the winding, worn, cobble-stone street mixing with the intoxicating sound of Italian spoken rapidly between friends. 


I sit at the Trevi fountain, buried in tourists and people selling something. 
Gelato shops with their doors propped open, an open invitation to the sticky sweet adventure in a cone. There are cameras everywhere, everyone trying to stake themselves into the moment, make it real for all the people existing somewhere else. 
The sound of shutters clicking and the smoke from a dozen ash laden cigarettes held in fingertips and on dry lips, surround me. 
The fountain gushes water, it's god's the mastery of silent watching. Everyone tosses a penny in. Wishing something different, but really all the same. Happiness.
I tilt my head and look upwards, the sky moves as if I am near the sea, low and moody and moving fitfully, against the grace of the cathedral sky. 


The city streets of Rome are jammed with people, streaming out in every direction, spilling over the sidewalks and into the streets. I wait to cross by an old fountain, it's stone lion spitting water at me, when the minor notes of fire truck comes streaking down the packed lane. It appears and I have a view of the cab for a split second, three men sit high in the cab, each laughing delightedly, smiles splitting their Roman faces into works of human art. The crimson truck turns the corner, passing a mere foot from where I stand and then they are gone.

I am packed in a train. Like sardines we stand and sit, obliged to move a few inches when someone must pass, wanting access to the doors and the empty platform beyond. I lean against a wall, my baggage between my legs, my exhaustion complete.
I am packed on a train bound for a town, I don't remember the name of. I have been walking in soaking wet leather boots for seven hours. I speak no italian. I close my eyes. 
Someone in the compartment, peels an orange, it's tangy sweet freshness permeating the entire room, full of bodies. I smile. I open my eyes. 


The train platform is empty, any other travelers have already departed, this stop a routine in thier montage of days. Jorel and I stand, exhausted but exhilarated, our roller suitcases leaning against our legs, looking out into the dark. No Taxis, no people. A road, with cars and streets leading away from us. We pick one road, leading down hill and begin walking. The little town of Anzio introduces it's self to us, gently. First darkened streets with houses, a few lighted windows, then christmas decorations appear on the poles lining the road. We follow them. The High street is bright and lit with many restaurants and shoes stores. The cobbles stone makes the wheels on my bag wobble, as it trundles along behind me.
The center, has a large white church and a glittering fountain. A few people linger besides closing pizzerias smoking and speaking together. You can tell they do this often.
    We ask for directions to the nearest Hotel, but the directions lead us to a very dark road, and beyond it is the crashing of mighty waves on a sandy shore line. We walk more. Finally, we stop and ask an older women and her husband, of course we hardly speak any Italian and they speak no english, so Jorel says the word Hotel, over and over again. The woman points us down a small side street, her husband speaking at her, I'm sure telling her that's not the right way. I stand and smile. Engulfed in adventure and the sparks of traveling.
We end up finding a tavernetta with the very sweet help of this older couple, they drove down to a closed hotel and tried to point us to it, then realizing it was shut the man, walked us all the way back up the beach to a small restaurant where they had rooms for hire. Their smiles as they gestured us into the anti-room of the empty restaurant were glowing. And when they left, it was with joy growing in all our hearts.

The restaurant is empty, our hosts mime to us, you want to eat? We nod and smile and sit down. They begin boiling water in the kitchen we can glimpse through an open door at the back. The bring us Pesca, fish caught in their local waters, red wine and crusty bread. Next is pasta, spaghetti, that melts in your mouth as if it's only design is to satisfy. Then more fish, battered and cooked, mini minnows with sause to dip it in. We are stuffed full, our gratitude grown in the simplicity of being taken care of.

Our room is up two flights of stairs, and the light will go off if you don't open your door pronto.
I kneel on the floor to get a better view of the lock.  Our key is a skeleton key, needing to be inserted in just the right way in order to get the heavy white door to budge and allow me into the room. I am not very skilled at this.
The light has gone out several times and I have had to get up and find the light-switch several more times, when the door next to the one I am trying to get through opens and a tall women steps out, she looks at me and then at my key, holding out her hand for it. I pass it to her and she deftly opens the door in one go, hands the key back to me and then disappears back into her room like a phantom, my words of thanks and good night echoing softly down the small hall.
The room is white, it's walls broken up by odd framed pictures of futuristic italian racing cars from the 70's, two lumpy beds, a small TV on a stand and a large dark wooden wardrobe, framed in speckled mirror from years past reflecting my pale freckled, travel worn face and behind me doors that lead out above the quiet street to a balcony where you can hear and see the pounding of the sea.  

The beach is wide and full of sand, empty of the tourists that must frequent this bit of sea in the heat of summer. But it is nearly deserted now, but for the beat of great waves upon the sand. A few lone seagulls stretch out overhead, searching the empty sand for a bit of breakfast. I lean my head back and  uncover my December white shoulders, stretching my freckled legs out on the sand, an invitation to the weak winter sun to fill me. 

A calico cat sleeps, on fisherman nets, under the midday sun. If the cat woke up and stretched and looked out it would have a very clear view of the harbor, the small bright painted boats, bobbing on the gray water.


My boots squeak slightly as we walk the clear line down the docks. The boats getting bigger as we walk, the first tiny fishing tugs giving way to larger fishing barges and perhaps oil barges too. They bob gracefully on the water, their salt-water laden ropes squeaking under the twilighted sky. 


The streets are quiet. Most of the pizzerias are closed, but my stomach demands food, lest it wake me up in the middle of the night. Again. The coffee shop/bar is fairly full of people, and they have two slices of pizza sitting in the case, as well as an entire row of fresh croissants, oozing chocolate, nutella, cream and sugar. We get four of them. and as we pay, I hear the smooth sound of Micheal Buble's voice softly crooning to me, "I just havent' met you yet" I smile, God always knowing how to speak into me, as I take a warm bite of sugar filled croissant. 















Thank you.


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