Aneddoti brevi (Short anecdotes)

Swimming in the Mediterranean Sea - Sperlonga
Sept. 25 2015

In the stretch of four weeks I have swam in the Mediterranean Sea twice: the first was at Napoli and the second at Sperlonga. Both were beautiful experiences but I had, what I can only describe as, an out-of-body experience while swimming in the Mediterranean Sea at Sperlonga. It was late afternoon, the sun was gleaming on the waves, the rays were warming the water around me and as I swam deeper into the sea I could feel my body and mind relaxing. I closed my eyes in an attempt to fully grasp this blissful feeling. I let my body be completely engulfed by the sea and as I relaxed my muscles I could feel my body swaying with the sea. I was no longer swimming in the sea, the sea was cradling and rocking me. I felt a chill travel through my entire body and leave through my fingertips. At that moment, my body was no longer mine. I was part of this immense body of water. I was a tiny floating spec slowly dissolving into the Mediterranean. 

I had to resurface for a breath of air and the spell was broken: the Mediterranean returned my soul and sent a rolling goodbye kiss down my entire body as I walked out of the sea and on to her sand.


Saturday afternoon bus ride
Sept. 26 2015

The Saturday afternoon after arriving back to Rome from Sperlonga I decided to hop on a bus headed for Trastevere to buy a new sketch pad and charcoal. My nonna (Italian grandmother) decided to accompany me and as we walked out into the streets and towards the bus stop there I could sense a glowing blanket of tranquility over the entire city. There was a golden light radiating off the streets and buildings. We stepped on to the 23 and as I sat down in front of nonna I could feel the warm rays of sun caressing the side of my face. The sun was creating a halo of light around nonna and as I stared at the serene look on her face while she looked out the window I was finally able to think of the word to describe what this afternoon felt like: dream. I turned my head towards the window to look at the flickering lights on the pavement of Viale delle Milizie but my trance was quickly interrupted by a tiny old italian woman waving her finger around and refusing to take the seat that a young man offered her exclaiming in a tiny but furious italian voice, "Rome has gone to shit! This place used to be beautiful and now it's full of crap on the streets and..." She added a dramatic gasp to her monologue as she saw a man with two dogs get on the bus. "SEE! Back in my day there weren't any damned dogs allowed on the buses! ROME HAS GONE TO SHIT!" To which the man with the dogs replied, "Things change, lady..."

I looked to my nonna with a perplexed and incredulous look on my face and said to her, "how? How did this afternoon take a drastic turn from blissful tranquility to Roman chaos?" She smiled at me and said, "È una passeggiata particolare." Oh, and peculiar it sure was! Right after she said this a man walked on the bus with his eight year old son and as the father validated their tickets the little boy (who was wearing a fanny pack btw - figo!) accidentally stepped on a lady's foot. The woman reacted by screaming at the top of her lungs and proceeded to give the boy the stink eye for the remainder of her bus ride. 

Just like that, the picturesque Italian afternoon transformed into the everyday, hectic, Roman bus ride.