before i left for france back in june my old roommate warned me about the paris syndrome. known to inflict unbeknownst japanese tourists who come to the city with hollywood-movie expectations, they end up finding the dirty boulevards littered with trashbags and cigarette butts extremely disappointing.
that is not at all how i felt about paris, quite the opposite.
but it is how i felt about rome.
let me explain.
i was to meet up with my mother in rome (the same mother i hadn’t seen in the flesh for three months and couldn’t wait to hug and cling to). but after arriving in bologna, my new home, i’d realized id come to the end of my long-existing plans: move, university, summer in paris, and erasmus exchange. tick, tick, tick and tick. the fact that everything had been realized felt like a dream. a gift. a thing id forever be grateful for. but now, here at the end of all that, i realized i no longer had any plans for my life.
no wonder i felt discontent, directionless and disillusioned.
unfortunately, the thing that every old buddhist say is true: wherever you go you bring your mind with you.
so it was from the seat of disturbance that the city of rome unfolded itself for me.
i had spent the previous month living my dream in paris, and i found myself missing the city every day. i kept thinking: what if it was paris all along? what if i was supposed to go there to find out how right it would be for me? all i wanted to do was finish my book and write like a motherfucker, that genteel advice from cheryl strayed.
but i couldn’t find any foothold in the present.
i was walking along nursing these thoughts as rome happened around me. the trevi, the spanish steps, the jewish ghetto (the jewish ghetto ….. whenever i travel to a new place i have one rule: always visit the jewish ghetto). one day we were walking around the calm streets of trastavere, my discontent mind a constant third companion on these narrow cobblestoned streets. we ended up in campo fiori, the exuberant market place, and came out near the tiber. and there – for one glorious moment – seeing the bridge, the river: i thought i was back in paris. just like id stepped off at chatelet and seen the stone-bridge and the seine stretching out before me.
but then that moment passed. i saw the sludgy emerald water of the tiber and was back. the sun oppressive from above in the hot sticky heat.
i felt dizzy, disappointed.
if the 24 hour hotline said to exist for the culturally inflicted i would have picked up the phone and called.
but i realized that i had come to rome to try and run towards myself, not away from. and so when paris emerged to me clearar and more brilliantly than ever that day, i had to sit back and ask myself:
is that what i want?
i knew i did not want to run away from anything, not from my new home, not from this discontent. but going to paris would mean letting go of this dream of italy id set in motion almost four years ago – depressed, anxious, still living at home. a dream id based on a comically short (and highly touristically catered) four hour trip to venice, where id walked the floating city and felt this wish of something more beautiful taking shape. it had meant a lot to me then, a wondrous thing i could cling onto when so much in my life felt wrong and ugly.
perhaps, looking back now, it is what i needed to stay afloat.
but as part of my mission with this newsletter was to convey life without having all the answers, i must admit now that i have no such thing for you all now. i vowed to report directly from the field, convey what was actually unfolding. the downside (or potential upside) to that, is that i don’t have the power of what literature usually offers: postpartum editing. to narratarize; to rearrange the events as they happened into a neat, perfectly planned plot. in an aim that is more journalistic than literary, im trying to go after the story in the present. which, during times like these, may end without a neat bow that tidies every uncertainty up. problems and difficulties spring up without a plot device to solve them (as they do in real life). im sure that in weeks or months from now, looking back, i would have been able to fabricate a better story for you all. a story with exposition, resolved obstacles, and a happy ending. but from this seat of the present i can offer no such luxuries.
the red thread of narrative can only be seen by posterity.
on my last day in rome i saw caravaggios judith beheading holofornes at palazzo barberini. picturing the young jewish widow killing the old general to save her people, i walked away thinking that a woman does not have furrowed brows when beheading someone. she cannot afford to look away. like artemisias gentileschis version i much prefer, she has them set in stone. grip steadfast and muscles bulging.
i realized i needed to have the same steadfast brows and strong grip going forward.
so i sat down on the park bench outside the museum and wrote in red until i figured out a way in which to save myself.
the day after im sitting in the park of villa borghese alone, a saxophonist is playing estate and im eating the best piadina and tiramisu of my life. im waiting for a friend who i am to go on a mini backpacking trip trough the italian coast with.
now, my discontentment is not resolved. but what i realized on that other park bench is to put salvation on hold. i vowed to no longer let this uncertainty keep me from fully experiencing the world.
so heres to seeing the west and east coast of italy exactly as they present themselves.
without any mental clouds.
without anything to weigh my heart down.
to trains, flixbuses, and brushing my teeth in moving bathrooms,
see you from the road.
love,
e.
for some reason i missed this substack when it came out and it made me so excited to check my email and find not only one, but two! loveletters, there waiting.
from the first one i received i have been waiting every month to read the next one; the realness makes me feel like reading a letter from a friend.
very glad i found this, very happy to read your lil updates every month<3