License to Be Thrilled

When in Rome I did not do as the Romans do. I tried but they had millennia to work it out. I was there for not quite four years.

When in Rome I had a job at an agency of the United Nations. They (we) worked on food and agriculture in the global south. It was an odd job for a city boy but I did my best.

When in Rome I felt worried and guilty a lot. My kids were more or less grown up but still. Sometimes I can’t believe I went. I was fifty-four when I got there and almost fifty-eight when I left.

When in Rome I decided that my coffee of choice was caffe lungo. I learned that Italians feel it is really disgusting to drink cappuccino after lunch and so I never did. I never much liked cappuccino anyway.

When in Rome with a visiting friend I went to the crypt of the Capuchin monks who created elaborate sculptures from thousands of human skulls and bones. The sculptures are disgusting and creepy but beautiful as well. Some people say cappuccino was named for the Capuchin monks and their coffee-brown tunics.

When in Rome I mostly failed to speak Italian but loved taking lessons with my teacher Rossella who reminded me of Giulietta Masina. Back then at least I could hold down a transactional conversation. Today not so much. Ho dimenticato quasi tutto is a sentence I say when I visit Italy now.

When in Rome it was easy to make friends. Most of them spoke multiple languages including my mother tongue which made it even easier. “Mother tongue” is an expression people in those multilingual circles use sometimes. I envied them beyond words.

When in Rome for fun I played the piano in a band called License to Thrill that covered songs from the James Bond movies. We performed a few times in Roman pubs and once for some reason at a sort of community barbeque in the suburbs. I’m not sure what the picnicking Italian families thought of us but after the show we ate and drank for free. We needed a designated driver to get us back to the center and I could not drive a standard shift at the time (although I can now) so it wasn’t me. It was the husband of one of the singers and he was not happy about it.

When in Rome I lived in an apartment on Via dei Quattro Cantoni. Down the block there was a strip club called the Blue Moon. Right next door there was a bar called the Club Why Not? I never went there and do not know why not except that sometimes I saw people including eastern European women in short tight skirts leaving in the morning who looked like they’d had a pretty rough night. Around the corner was the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore which is the second largest basilica in Rome after Saint Peter’s. I often went there in the summer to cool off and gaze up at the golden vaulted ceiling.

When in Rome I would pass through the piazza at Santa Maria Maggiore on my daily errands like going to the supermarket or catching the metro at Termini. Once or twice I had to weave through the crowd gathering for the pope’s annual visit to the basilica to celebrate the miracle of snow in August. Days like that reminded me that I lived in the belly of the beast.

When in Rome I learned that Romans call cobblestones sampietrini because Saint Peter was the rock of the church and cobblestones are little rocks.

When in Rome I got a phone call from my son one night about a sad and terrible family crisis. I flew back to New York the next day. I stayed there for two months and my bosses in Rome let me work remotely. This was before everyone was doing it. I appreciated their flexibility. I returned to Italy and stayed for about another year and still loved it but realized that my Roman days were numbered.

When in Rome I decided that the Pantheon with its open oculus (through which thousands of rose petals are dropped every year on the feast of the Pentecost) was my favorite ancient building and Piazza Navona (with its three wonderful fountains by Bernini and della Porta) was my favorite piazza. I would not be caught dead among the tourists at the Trevi Fountain. I lived in Rome long enough to become snooty about tourists even though a lot of Romans probably thought I was a tourist and I kind of was.

When in Rome I decided that a place called Suburra was my favorite restaurant. It was next to my metro stop and had fluorescent lights and no atmosphere and delicious Roman food like carbonara and cacio e pepe. Also pappardelle al cinghiale which may not be Roman but is incredibly tasty. And house wine in liter bottles that was fine and cheap. Suburra was also the name of the ancient neighborhood and red-light district where Julius Caesar was born. I gained weight in Italy but lost it later.

When in Rome I was never pick-pocketed though I was robbed last summer when I went back for a visit. I rode a Vespa only once when I lived there. Getting pickpocketed and riding Vespas are two of the most stereotypically Roman things you can do in Rome and both can be dangerous.

When in Rome I watched on RAI TV as the college of cardinals elected a new pope to replace the German one who shocked everyone by retiring. I considered going to the Vatican just for the spectacle but it was raining.

When in Rome I spent many an evening on Tony’s terrace. Tony lived upstairs on the top floor of my building and was and is my closest friend in Rome. Sometimes we chat on video and if the weather is nice he might be sitting outside on his terrace. When he is out there and it’s the right time of day I can see the amber Roman light reflecting softly as the sun sets and I almost feel the warmth still rising from the old stones down below. I’ll be visiting again soon and that is a good thing pickpockets be damned.