"this car charger isn't working for some reason. i'm going to head into rome and get a new one."
"don't they have them in the gas station in town? i'm sure i've seen them there."
"maybe, but better selection in rome, probably. better prices in rome, too. they're always going to charge you more at a gas station in a small town. it's a convenience fee that you're paying in those places. it's fine, i was going to be heading that way anyway - i've been meaning to swing by rome to get some garden shears, too. anything else? i can call you and check when i get to rome."
he loved saying "rome" like that. "head into rome," "swing by rome." it was just the nearest place to them. how cool was that! rome, the city of legends, of conquerors, of history, of myth - this was where he bought batteries! the place that people saved up to visit their whole lives: for him, this really was simple the place where he might fill up on gas one day and where the next day he'd have to know the right shop to pick up flowers for his wife to thank her for making dinner - with ingredients he had also picked up in rome. rome! that's all rome was to him! nothing special at all!
"i should be home by five, or six at the latest. it's tuesday, so you never know about that rush hour traffic, coming out of rome."
"okay. that's fine. see you then." "see you then!"
and he headed into rome.
the short story above was taken from the book written by b.j. novak, the american comedian, "one more thing." i read it some years ago and somehow i always remember it, the grandeur feeling of living in such city as rome doing mundane things. and now here i was living in the majestic city for some months last autumn-winter. i remember telling my friends months before, "you don't need any reason to want to live in rome. it's rome!" on which they all agreed.
i lived two minutes walking from the vatican, which means practically i can reach the city center easily on foot. every morning going to work by train i would see the vatican's saint peter's basilica. and if i took the bus i would see castel sant'angelo with the tevere river and the gorgeous autumn trees along the banks. it was amazing. it really did feel like what's written by novak, people save up to come to this place and yet i got to live around it and see it every single day, it totally felt like a grand privilege. in the evening after a tiring working day at the office i would go buy a gelato and sit on the vatican's piazza, where the pope usually held the mass, sometimes to just smoke a cigarette. it amazed me how this might be very luxurious to most people but it's just a simple mundane thing to me.
and then of course there was the notorious transportation system and all the chaos rome is famous for, which i have to say, you have no idea until you really live it yourself. and it is completely different being a tourist and actually living there to work. the chaos you have to live with day to day drives you crazy most of the time. and then again, as i've been saying, living in a city is not only about how great the city is, it's also about everything else. about your job, about the people you encounter, there are lots of aspect.
it was during my period living in rome, i have to say, i went through the most "pensive" period after quite a long time. the chaos of rome reminded me a lot of the chaos back home, in a disturbing way. it was the first time ever i craved to go back home, after one year being away having not one single desire or thought about home. and everything that happened made me think about how hard it is to just be. to be a human being. to be who you are. what is it exactly to be "who you are"? in the end you're just a byproduct of your childhood, of your past, of all your pain. there's maybe no such thing as "who you are", you're just the "fragments" you present to each people you encounter.
leaving rome, i was torn between having a great relief and also sad at the same time for not being able to grasp rome as great as rome is. at the end of the day, rome is rome. rome is magnificent. rome is majestic. to be able to stand on such old civilization is still a surreal feeling. to be able to call it home, i am proud.
roma, sei grande.
