Rome Alone

The following was scrawled sweatily into a damp notebook last Friday in transit....

So I’m in Italy for two reasons. One is that an old friend is getting married in Sicily. More on that later. The other is that I was invited to a city called Faenza by a reader of this here blog. So I thought I’d kill two birds with one stone. Then two birds turned into a third bird as my new friend in Faenza passed me on to a friend of his in Rome. So, armed with a letter of introduction – much like a character in a Victorian novel – I made my way South to what is almost definitely the most beautiful urban setting I’ve ever experienced.

My host in Rome was a charming Italian chap called Paride, which as far as I can work out is the Italian for Paris, as in ancient Greece, rather than France or Texas. Paride has a friend who owns a B&B on the outskirts of Rome and this is where I stayed. Unfortunately Paride has a very busy life and a baby with a fever so I ended up spending more time alone in the city than would have been ideal. But for the most part this was no chore and I managed to have myself a good time.

However, I have to say, I don’t think Rome is a great city in which to be alone. But then what city is? I suppose then, what I mean is, it would be a wonderful city in which to be in love. But then what city wouldn’t?

OK, let’s start again.

Rome is a very romantic city. So much to see and do; so much space in which to prance around; old men playing accordion all over the place; bridges and hills and restaurants and roses, and although I was thrilled to be there, I also felt lonely. And besides that, I felt a little apart from everything, locked out of what was really going on. I guess I felt like a foreigner. At one point I found myself wandering around the Jewish quarter, and I felt more locked out still. Not only could I not speak Italian, but also, I had a big floppy godless foreskin and my skull, but for slowly thinning hair and hot and cold running elbows, was bare.

Also, it was there in the Jewish quarter that I happened to glance up at an open window in an ancient building above me. Inside was a high-ceilinged apartment with a book-lined wall and warm copper light seeping out into the balmy night. I craned my neck and stared, thinking, 'I want to live there'. And I felt sad.

I definitely want to live in another country. I still fancy the idea of Amsterdam but I suppose there is more to life than getting wrecked and staring at prostitutes with an unsettling combination of longing and self-loathing. So maybe I should try and move to Italy. The language is wonderful – it's often described as a sing-song language but for me it dances – and I'm beginning to feel that it would be a terrible sin to go through life without being able to communicate in something apart from English. It feels like it's almost a responsibility to master another tongue and in doing, to carve out another personality, another life.

Indeed, so far, if this trip has done anything, it's made me feel, very strongly, that my life is nowhere near large enough. It's an enormous world and I really need to experience a lot more of it before I die....