Sunday, September 16, 2007

Shawn Assignment # 5


The Progression of Beauty and Expectations

For an American, Italy is one amazement after another. We grow up hearing about Rome and Florence in school, through TV and movies…Our minds build up a collection of images through time, and then meld every piece of information into one, giant, absurd chunk of historically questionable, but quite glorious, ball of expectations. Ancient Rome, Renaissance Florence, the mafia in Naples…stereotypes, tyrants, and heroes. Everyplace has them, but Italy…I’m in Italy…

Cinque Terre

My first brush with beauty came in the scenic and brightly painted villages in Cinque Terre. Like pastel candy wrappers all bunched up together. The train dropped me off in Riomaggiore, the southern most village and my base of operations. The houses were built right up to the edge of the ocean. A hike connects all of the five villages together. I was there so long I walked it three times in total. Strolling along the Via dell'Amore, the trail for lovers connecting two of the villages, admiring the amorous graffiti, and the thrown covered in combination locks with no combination to represent the binding love of countless couples. All on display.

The Bus Down to Naples

My first order of business in Naples was to see Mt. Vesuvius. My mother has always dreamed of going there, and to Pompei. The top of the volcano is barren, and the city obscured by the smog even on this clear day. We have only an hour to hike to the top and get down to the shuttle that will take us back into the city. It’s a close call as we stumble down the winding path. I grab the front seat. The city slowly appears before my eyes, clearing the smog and dust, and it is beautiful. We hurdle down a road wide enough for one car, honking to warn whatever is around the corner. That, more than any other time in Italy, was when I questioned my mortality. Ancient Rome makes me feel young but the bus…it was a more immediate problem.

The Coliseum

I watched Gladiator at a hostel in Naples before the program began. On a giant, flatscreen TV. The hostel was a converted fabric factory. I slept in the loft of a nine-person room. The Simpsons was on before the movie, and we watched while lounging in bean bag chairs In just a few days I would see the Coliseum in person.

I remembered here
Before I came here.

Memories are often inaccurate.

The Coliseum was always the first monument I thought of when someone mentioned Rome, even before the movie. I thought it was cruel. The reality is grand, and the distance from its ancient uses dull any lingering repulsion. It was all exaggerated anyway.

Like a lion bred in captivity,
My imagination does not run wild.

Birds of prey with clipped wings hop from perch to perch looking for life in corners.
But all the mice were fed to the snake.

My last moments roar in my ears; a deafening lust for blood.
Mine and theirs.

The view from the outside is my favorite. It represents the grandeur of Rome. I’ve walked past it over ten times, both at night and day. What I expected and what I saw…it exceeded expectations and dashed them at the same time.

The Bottom of the Duomo

The focal point of a city with so much history the mind builds walls to keep out the wonder. Green and cream checkerboard churches reach to the sky at my back. I look up to see. Golden doors catch the sun and throw it in your peripheral vision. Inside the church lifts up to hold the sky away. Darkness penetrated by the natural light.

Private Tour of the Vatican

Another Caravaggio. I see the originals of angels that have hung above my bed since I was born. We walk through a hall with framed ceilings. To the Sistine. It is not what I expect. The room is smaller than I thought it would be, but the paintings are bigger, and cover everything. You usually only see one part at a time. A lot to take in, and I sit down to absorb. I wonder what it would be like without the benefit of privacy. I sit and run my finger between the plastic seats, along the original stone. A thrill runs up my spine. Nothing like this exists where I live. It is too young.

San Pietro—At Night and Alone

I went to San Pietro three times, and I can see the dome from my apartment. The first was at night, after dinner, after the Sistine Chapel. Very few people were around and soft lights lit up the square. We laughed and played until we were kicked out. Next time we went to see the church, and it was too crowded to be beautiful. The baldacchino, and Bernini’s statues still made the deep impressions they were intended to but claustrophobia overrode. The last time I went alone, to donate money for my grandmother. I stand in the square to watch the columns line up. And this time there is no line to get into San Pietro. I walk slowly up and down the halls, basking in the low whispers that can now be distinguished. This feels like a church.

Cortona’s Grand Salon at Palazzo Barberini - We lay on couches and look up into the painted sky.

Venice, Murano, Burano, Torcello – Pink alligators climb on houses, the light glints off the rolling water. The boat rocks and I hold tighter onto the railing. We get a tour of the islands in four languages. They take us to the glass-makers, and the lace-makers. The last island is full of the ruins of a church. It is beautiful and I know nothing about it.

In the end, I will remember the paintings and the sculptures, how you walk and nod to monuments now familiar and still awe-inspiring. Past the Pantheon, the Trevi, the Spanish Steps…and the gelato.

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