36—La Triviata Flees Pronto Soccorso and Gets Ahead

And on the third day, they arose—Gesù, Cutuli the Unruli, and Giovanni il Batistta (though only his

head, if indeed it was his head). However, before we enter Paradiso, there is that tricky trek upward.
And just for the record, I'm wearing my Dante T-shirt.
It's late Sunday afternoon. The story begins about 26 hours ago. The shortest verse in the Bible tells us "Jesus wept." In my case: Cutuli coughed.
It was one of those coughs that feels and sounds as if you've just torn a lung.
My worst fear realized: I had bronchitis. This after thinking I was getting better.

Now, after four days alone and feeling like crap with no view of the outer world, I had descended into the worst version of my worst self. We could call this the Inferno—that place where you get what you deserve, which for all of my sins—that had for four days been dancing all around me—was, well, Verdi called the lady with the cough La Traviata aka The Woman Who Strayed. Our straying was different, but straying is straying, just as bronchitis is bronchitis. I was a useless wreck of a soul, worthy of nothing but becoming infected with the bacteria of my misdeeds alone in Rome.

Except I had neglected to notice that one cough does not bronchitis make and over the next two hours of stewing, I had not coughed once.
As I mentioned before, Italians say ho paura. I have fear.
In English was say, I am afraid. Well, I was fear. And when I am fear, I become an idiot, which was
what led me to head out in the night for Pronto Soccorso, what we in America call the Emergency Room or Urgent Care. This is when stupid went to bizarre:

I am in a taxi: frantically trying to think of the word for behind. Actually, I'd been right. Dietro is Behind. But apparently revising your destination to a taxi driver in transit in Rome is like trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube. So it was that we sped by the big bright and welcoming Pronto Soccorso just across the bridge, on our way to Fatebenefratelli. It sounded like a nice place, the name consisting of three words roughly translated as do, well, brothers.

In the driver's defense, we were speeding down a one-way street, weaving in and out of Saturday night traffic when I cried, "Pronto Soccorso qui...fermate....aspetta...dietro...è più vicino al mio appartamento." Freely translated: Emergency room here...stop...wait...behind...it's closer to my apartment."
There was nothing in Rosetta Stone or the Practice Makes Perfect workbooks that had prepared me for this.

35—Il Raffreddore

Which would you rather have? A cold or un raffreddore? oon rah-frehd-‘dohreh—go ahead, my American friends, say it before you decide. 

Since I’ve had to choose, I’m going with un raffreddore. 

As it turns out, they’re the same. Except when you’re lying alone, entombed in an apartment in the center of a fallen empire, it’s hard not to think of the thousands of dollars you spent for the experience and then begin excavating the ruins of your tragic life. But Italia is also the land of opera, and raffreddore is way more Pucciniesque than an achy old cold.

“I need an angel,” I said out loud yesterday morning to the 15th-century wall outside my barred window. Yes, I have begun

Looking tired at the end of a climb up the mountain behind
and a trek through the once-buried town to the forum—the once
bustling market place...
imagine how it was once filled with goods and the spirt of
gods honored in the temples all around. To the right,
the names of teachers inscribed to honor them
and the profession.

talking to the wall. 

Fresh from the site where Vesuvius buried Pompeii in molten ash on August 24, 79, I’d become suddenly terrified of being lost to the world. The ruins of Pompeii were not discovered until the late 16th century. And by accident. They were looking in the wrong place—by the sea, where the city had been. But the volcanic matter had filled in the bay so that Pompeii was now inland.

Pompeiians had a warning in the form of an earthquake seventeen years before the eruption. But hey, in 79, who knew about volcanology? And what was an earthquake but an angry god.

On the other hand, even with all our advanced warning systems and self-help books, are we any better at paying attention?  

Fast food at McPompeii A.D. 79
exactly as it was buried

Russell C notwithstanding
gladiators, like others of the
time were not tall people.

Imagine, getting up one morning, heading off to the Pompeii Starbucks or McPompeiis. Yes, they had fast-food places in Pompeii. The houses were small, fire was a hazard, cooking difficult, so many people often ate out, as it were. So anyway, there you are, a regular Mad Man in the Pompeii PR business and running late for a meeting with a local politician. The guy is up for reelection and wants you to promote hims by reminding the people of all the really fun gladiatorial spectacles he’s brought them—and like how totally awesome is it to watch a guy armed with a short sword and body armor matched in a death fight against a guy with a long sword and shield.

Gladiator training field

So now you see the big man standing by the wall in the street where you plan to paint his political ad when !BAM! the mountain behind you blows its f'n top. ! WTF!

And for two days, the mountain keeps majorly barfing up this flowing fire river of rock and shit. But hey, it will never reach you. Some wimps are running. But not you. You move with the power people and have things to do. Plus you’re a Pompeiian, tough, not like those rich second-home vacationers from Rome over in Herculaneum. You’re not going to let the terrorist mountain win. Except by the time the rock fire flows into town like your god of war gone mad, you’re folly’s fried and cast in stone….

34—On Becoming an Orange During the Red Alert

Having read about it as a psychological proposition, I imagined the unconscious as you might think of an orange back home on the counter while hiking—a cool sweet fruit, the juice, the pulp, the peel, more real to you in your desire than any orange could ever be.

A reality not there. But making itself known to us in dreams. Or madness. But also in those moments when loss sharpens the senses so the world becomes too much to bear, and angels reveal themselves. 

I arrived in my Unconscious, not as I would have expected in a dream but through a clogged sinus cavity in Rome. Do not confuse this cavity with the ancient aqueducts bringing water or with sewers that for millennia have carried off waste. Rather I have been in bed for two day with a stuffed head, fever that hovered yesterday like Satan, and a body aching for health and home. Oh, and there were terrible cramps in my feet.

Be careful what you ask for, you may get it. 

I came to Rome to contemplate the meaning and direction of my life. 

I studied up on empires. Living now in the prevailing one, I thought to get a handle on which way the chips off old blocks fall.

And living on the edge of an earthquake and tsunami, both real and of the spirit, I booked trips to Vesuvius and Pompeii—as if it is possible to confront the disaster that befalls us all, buried as sure as we were born in the ineffable ash of a day that stands at our backs like a mountain waiting, just waiting… 

And what can we do but pray in our way, so it was that I planned a trip to Assisi and a climb up Mt. Subasio to St. Francis’ hermitage. The tender saint would reach out over 800 years to touch my heart with the hand that caressed birds. And the wolf of my fears would lie down, and I would be brave and clear and love what it is that God would finally become to me.

Outside

Inside

The answers came but in a way I did not expect, could not have predicted:

The sky turned dark, and thunderous rains put the great city of Rome under “red alert.” Yes, this place of sun and love, fell all around me into the chaos of water, sirens, and the damp chill of the stone-cold empire. 

Gone was great city, so magnificently slow and hot and full of the histories of fruit and cream and grain that have outlasted emperors and the plague and the debauchery of entertainment that killed thousands of animals a day.

And with the swamping of Rome, my head filled. As from some ancient sewer in my soul, the phlegm rose saying, “You want to know who you are. The answer is not in the history of empires, not in blogs of travel or photos. Do not pin your meaning on the poor lost dead of Pompeii. Or seek the favors of St. Francis. He was a slight man, ill from the poverty of self-inflicted faith that only the poor and fully understand. And you, you faithless one, you go to bed with a stuffiness.”

And the fever came, sweaty and mean and confusing me into wishing I had stayed home with my cats.

33—Travailing Across the Centuries

L'elezione degli Stati Uniti had top billing today on Channel 3 here in Rome. As I heard it, Meetch McCohnell and i Rehpublicahni hanno conquisto la sinistra (the left) in a—(the word is the same in both languages—"debacle" per il presidente. . . .

Two days ago, I was walking around the tomb of the Emperor Caesar Augustus.

In the immediate area are apartments with window-box gardens, a lovely cafe with folks enjoying beautiful lunches and wine with the background music of a guitarist singing "Cahn-tahreh...." Tourists wander about with bags of souvenirs, through a quiet back lane, along a major street congested with traffic, many stopping in off the street for a quick prayer or picture at a 16th century cathedral.

I draw no conclusions about this. Empires rise and fall. People somehow survive.

Photograph by Stevi Carroll

However, in watching a 48-lecture series on the History of Ancient Rome, I found this theory of "the fall" disputed by Professor Garrett Fagan of Penn State who contended that the empire did not fall, it merely changed in order to adapt to changing times. It seemed to me this could just be opposite sides of the came Roman coin.

At the moment, thoughts of empire are too big for conclusions. For one thing, I'm sick with some some sort of respiratory thing that is threatening to turn itself into a bad cough. A fever earlier this morning sent me in and out of harrowing dreams like Alice in Wonderland.

It's after six-thirty in the evening, and I haven't seen the light of day. However, I am bonding with my dungeon (more pics soon).

Things can always be worse. As my friend Charlie noted in a Facebook comment regarding one of my stories:

.... reminds me of waking up in Cambodia with lizards all over my room. Remember - the root word of 'travel' is travail' ---

■Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French, from travailler to torment, labor, journey, from Vulgar Latin *trepaliare to torture, from Late Latin trepalium instrument of torture, from Latin tripalis having three stakes, from tri- + palus stake — more at POLE

Speaking of travail—

It doesn't get much worse than being buried under a volcanic lava flow. Yesterday I walked up Mt. Vesuvius, then went to Pompeii. It's definitely disconcerting to watch steam rising from the crater of this still active volcano that is considered one of the most dangerous in the world. Still, three million people live in its projected lava flow. Bizarrely, as I understand it, the most expensive properties are higher up the mountain. All this seems like folly. On the other hand, I am living on a coastline just waiting for a 9 earthquake followed by a tsunami of mythic proportion.

More details on the Vesuvius/Pompeii outing to follow, but let me set the stage: The trip itself was on a tour with our guide Antonella handling all arrangements—telling us when to pee and where the toilets were at our "comfort stop" between here and Pompeii. She advised us on the best souvenirs at the Monte Cassino (her fave being some sort of lemon liqueur)," got our tickets for the mountain, arranged lunch, and bought our tickets for the ruins, entertained us with stories and information to fill a good part of the three-hour bus trip from Rome to the Naples area.

Hey, did you know:

32—Between Keats and the Fashionistas

First off, I received an email from Ann mentioning that while in Piazza del Popolo and Santa Maria del Popolo, I missed the head of St. John the Baptist. I am grateful for the heads up on this. And with apologies for having deprived you of a description of this artifact, I promise to remediate my deficiency asap. Readers, continue to speak to me, we are all in this together.

Last time I mentioned Ali and the gifts he gave me. The elephant is for good fortune and peace. The tortoise is for long life. I must not, he said, give them to anyone. I won’t. Why wouldn’t he share that pizza with me?

Day before yesterday, on my way back from Piazza del Popolo, I took an unfamiliar back narrow street just to get away from the crowds. As an aside, streets here are a maze of diagonals. It’s easy to get lost. Two nights ago, for example, I thought I knew where I was going and at 11:15 p.m. decided I was hopelessly lost until aided by a British couple with a cell phone and map-quest savvy. It turns out I was not only on my street but eight doors away from my apartment. Even the tech-saavy guy stood looking at the little bright square of a map saying, “Via die banchi nuovi—that street should be right around here, but it’s not clear where.”

So anyway, earlier in the afternoon, I wandered into a back street to avoid the crowds when I came upon African men sitting in small clusters of 4 or 5, all with big blue plastic bags of street wares and personal items. Leaning back against walls filled with graffiti, they were listening to boom boxes and talking. I didn’t feel afraid but intrusive, as if I’d just barged into someone’s home without knocking.

31—OMG, It’s La Donna del Menu and L’Uomo del Sostegno Technico

What a difference a day makes. Wifi in the neighborhood is working, and Orlando came yesterday to fix the problem resulting from the outage. Turns out the outage affected the modem. The other good news is that Romaine still appears to have a sweet leafy interior. It is not helpful to begin a spiritual with murder by paranoia on one’s hands.

With that I decided to walk up to Piazza del Popolo (Piazza of the People) as a kind of time check be Tuesday’s meeting of the tour group to Pompeii. 

Selfie with Orlando 

Typed while Orlando was fixing the modem. After communicating previously with the cable company, the agreement was he would call them if he couldn’t get it fixed. He could not. And called. As the phrase “calling the cable company” numbs my soul with terror, I decided to record the event. Here is how it went down in real time, although coming face to face with the Charter Communications of Italia was surreal:

Orlando is not having luck. The company called TIM told him to call. He has on his speaker phone and is speaking with Charter’s version of Menu Woman. I love everything Italian. Except Menu Woman. La Donna del Menu? Well, first off, after you chose the correct number option, Italian Menu Woman sings. Something that sounds like what you might hear at Il Ristorante Napolitano in Branson, MIssouri. No kidding. And as she sings, her twin L’Altra Donna del Menu says periodically: “Hold on, please.” Ah, we’re through now to Tech Support Man. “L’Uomo del Sostegno Technico? I am not advanced enough to know what is happening, except for the words “non funziona.” It’s not working. Now we need a pin. No pin. Where did I put my travel sewing kit? The pressure is on…where’s a damned pin. Oh, but wait the little toothpick with the British flag that came in the pizza. (I have no idea why. But to still your curiosity will find out.) Still, even with the toothpick, non funziona. L’Uomo del Sostengo Technico is speaking now to several o women, everyone talking at once. It sounds like Christmas dinner with la famiglia italiana. 

Meanwhile, things could be worse. At the piazza this afternoon, I checked out the church called Santa Maria del Popolo (Saint Mary of the ——fill in. were you paying attention above?). A bronze tablet on the church tells how a walnut tree sprang up from the ashes of Nero and was infested with devils disguised as crows. So the church was built by Pope Pasqual in 1099 to exorcise these devils and in honor of the liberation of Jerusalem at the end of the first crusade. Well actually, the pope didn’t build the thing in that Il Popolo paid for it. 

What’s that? Could it be…“Funziona.” 

30—How I Came to Freeze the Romaine

I froze my lovely head of Romaine out of fear. The crisis surrounding this is not that my hopes were dashed for some big Caesar salad thing tonight. Did Caesar ever eat such a salad? And do we call Romaine a head since it looks more like a vegetable that couldn’t get its head together. I can’t check on any of this because the wifi is down for the entire historical center. How did they manage to found the Republic and Empire without wifi?

But getting back to the death of the Romaine. It began with, well, shall we call it a false expectation. I’d read on the rental website that my apartment is in an early 15th century palazzo with a “private” courtyard. Which raises another question? Are the pictures of rentals deceptive? Or is what we see wishful thinking? 

Whether light is a particle or a wave depends on how you look at it.

Anyway, I’d been swept away with the romantic notion of staying in a palazzo dating back to circa 1400. Who wouldn’t be, right? Each morning, I would step outside into my courtyard and feel the light filtering down from the blue Italian sky while enjoying my morning chi gong exercises. 

I was so jet lagged yesterday that I didn’t get the roman numeral o above the door exactly right. But it definitely says 1400 with a few added years so that construction was way before Cristofo Columbo’s quest for a route to enhance globalization of the spice trade but instead led to the genocide of 8 million people and a variety of environmental devastations in what we now call America.

Flash lights up the hallway
looking down into the courtyard.

So yesterday afternoon about 1:30 p.m. local time, I walked through the big wooden front door, down the hall, into the courtyard and experienced what must be the model for every depressing dungeon in Italian opera. The walls look seven hundred years old. It’s cold. And dark, like entering the womb of the history of everything that has happened in this building over the last 700 years. And that was probably plenty, given that it’s on a street called Via dei banchi nuovi—Street of the New Banks. Kind of a 15th century Wall Street?

I admit to feeling a perverse consolation after a woman on the plane, here for two weeks to visit her priest (what’s that about?), spoke condescendingly of my failure to write nine months in advance which is required for a tour of the catacombs. So bite, it lady. This isn’t a tour. I’m living it. 

Right after arriving, I got a call that my beloved soulmate-cat Reno might be having a health issue, as the day before I left, Dr. Dan had wondered if the unusual behaviors Reno was exhibiting might be something more than an adjustment to his thyroid meds. 

Fortunately, my very attentive landlord Orlando had left me a device that enables me to get online. But only if I sit in the courtyard. Unfortunately, trying to figure out with the cat sitters what’s going on required a phone. It was unclear due to several circumstances whether my Global Package from Verizon is functioning which mean I could owe Italian Roaming services something that would impress even those banchi nuovi dudes.