The Most Beautiful Thing

While in Rome, I wrote down my thoughts of beautiful things. These made the list:

Our Campo Apartment

August 22nd

12:05am (Rome)

Tonight I sit in a room with yellow walls. Yellow walls, warm rust tile floors, white trim work and a living room. I’m home. This is the best apartment I have lived in thus far. Thank you. There’s art on the walls of things I’ve seen with my own eyes. That’s neat.

P.S. Terrace

August 23rd

10:10pm (Rome)

The musicians are on rotation in the Campo. They all have a version of “Over the Rainbow” and the woman who sings “Casa Mila” in the six to seven time slot is actually a thirteen year old boy who plays the violin and has a pot belly. Good crescendo though. I prefer the six-piece band that plays at ten. People dance and they have an accordion and two alto saxophones. The soloist is now shuffle stepping and waving to the dancing twenty-something girls under the Jedi.

Light is coming out from the room where my roommates study. Over it and the lights of Rome I can see six stars.


Parco Savello

August 27th

10:30am (Rome)

Umbrella pines and orange curves up a hill of cobbled stone. Across the river Rome and more domes than I can count let alone recognize. Yet I stand in green. Green roof, green floor, green walls with brick accents and red flowers. Kids run and old people sit.

An Italian walks to the ledge smiling. A group of Asian women standing there turns and shamelessly stares at his approach. He is so excited his body starts to shake and his smile grows so broad you can see his tongue. The women who until now were speaking excited Japanese, suddenly burst out, “Come si chiama?” and lung forward. “Pluto, si chiama Pluto.” But the answer gets little notice, the barer of the name has already been engulfed.


Santa Croce

August 29th

10:00am (Florence)

Woodwork, blind sun, and my shadow. The form is so simple, yet so overpowering. Light would have come in from one side. How can something so beautiful be so simple? Central nave, clerestory, side aisle, transept, pointed arches, and white walls. It’s perfect. We are so small, so small beneath the dome of heaven below which the dead sleep.

I could have looked long,
But the rush, the bump and shove
Moved me on
I wish I looked long


Venetian Sky

August 31st

11:42 pm (Venice)

The bars of the bed are cold between my toes. They twizzle and curl. The sheets are white and clean and the shower has twelve heads. I will sleep in Villa Dori tonight with six friends; all girls so different: Gabrielle, June, Mindy, Melissa, Elice, Michelle. Tomorrow we go to the city on poles. Erina and Johanna say it’s beautiful. It looked so at home across the sea. Tonight I saw the same stars. The big dipper and the hunter’s dog shine here too. They didn’t see it, but I did. The sky must be so big, and we all so very, very small.


Duomo

September 7th

10:15am (Orvieto)

The angels are singing. They’re singing and I can hear them. Light from a clerestory. Smile and lift – right through the rafters.


Notte Bianca

September 9th

3:05am (Rome)

The world met beyond language and their was a dancing of color and springs on a night where the sea of faces consumed the cobbled stone. Remember this night under the distant stars, remember before the men – block them out. Remember the noise of song and drum of countries not your own. Remember the smile of a girl who clapped with arms overhead as they tumbled and turned on and over pole, rope, and each other. Remember the Chinese in red tights lifted high over the six others. Only a boy – his whole life to live thirty feet above the hard floor. Remember that the girl smiling was you.

September 14th

10:20am (Rome)

I remember the sound of Notte Bianca just now – the first song with the girl in white. Pulsating and free. Dona Nobis Pacem.


Piazza S. Pietro at Night

September 13th

2:31am (Rome)

Grandpa died yesterday. Mom told me in an email titled “News.” I walked to the Vatican to say goodbye. I can’t linger in grief, but I feel different. Like I had to push a rock uphill to pour out my heart. I cried both for loss and for realization – tears of joy and sorrow. How real faith, it’s as concrete as the blue-black sky. Grandpa is home, and someday I shall be. Ci vediamo nonno. Amen.


Going Away

September 21st

11:30 pm (London)

I’m sitting on an airplane that hasn’t taken off; when it does, I will leave Europe. I don’t want to. Mi piace Europa. Mi piace non capire sempre. C’era molto things sapere, that way. Going back feels like an adventure I am too tired for right now. A good sleep will change that, but I really like it here. Thank you so much. Amen.


I sit in Seattle now, at a plastic conference table in a square meeting room lit by compact florescent bulbs. Outside is wet and grey. I made this list before I left, but I couldn’t decide until now. Couldn't determine the most beautiful thing. Now I know:


Amici

August 29th

1:56am (Florence)

The plates kept coming. Longing to detach from the uncomfortably full lower half of my body, I press on. La cameriera is annoyed with us. I pick up snippets of her mumbled italiano. Campra l'acqua or something to that effect. Latter in the moonlit streets she is forgotten. We hear nothing but each other’s voices. The scooters have gone and the cars seem oddly out of place on the cobbled streets. The piazza that burned hot has turned blue-black. You can see it on your skin, like home. We wander through moonlight back to the place from whence we came. The rooms full of strangers we now call friends.

September 6th

1:22am (Rome)

Forgive all. Friends came this night. I sat in the conference room missing their arrival and aching all over over what was said “in jest.” Forgive all, love covers. All sleep well tonight, Amen.

September 10th

Sometime after 1:15am (Rome)

Friends leave tomorrow. We walked along the River Tiber joking of baby stories and well-toned bladders, leaves under our feet. Will we end up together? Four friends of varied relations to one. I asked, “Un tavolo per Quattro per favore.” Things so small and yet so gratifying to be understood. The world turns round and round, unlike the ball in this pen.


What is most beautiful was not the height of a dome, the taste of gelato, the color of a flower or any combination of brush strokes or chisles in white marble. Them I wrote nothing of, not really. Now they are fuzzy to my mind's eye, like its lost its glasses. Only the heart's memory is crystal clear. It remembers the other hearts that beat, the way we laughed, and how it aches all over at the thought of missing them. The most beautiful thing, people.