I found Rome, as a city, somewhat disappointing--even the Sistene Chapel was something of a let-down after being ushered and corraled through the infernally long and cramped corridor which seemed to have something to do with the Vatican's ventilation system. Nonetheless, I was feeling good, and even religious for a few days. I had been reading Ugo Foscolo's The Last Letters of Jacopo Ortis, which was, by and large, pretty boring, but contained enough redeeming gems, like "Everywhere I look I see nothing but infinity absorbing me like an atom". And I felt this, and I started seeing this city filled with people as a mindscape where I was continually encountering myself or god or life itself, it is difficult to say exactly what was surrounding me and what was within me, but I was living in a more or less constant state of grace for those days. I visited many many monuments, but found myself more affected by the masses of people and scenes like a nun shopping for bras at a fleamarket stand which stood out alone on the street, than the monuments themselves. And how odd it seemed to me, a nun shopping for a bra, given that you can't walk into a church with exposed shoulders or knees, how repressed are breasts and markets within the papal policy while still playing such important roles as Mary is everywhere with the baby Jesus and the church has been a money-machine for centuries. And if two people started fucking in the middle of the church, would it tempt people to sway form thinking of God, or could it sanctify humanity? A boy with a broken keyboard slung around his neck walked from traincar to traincar, asking for money as the keyboard played "Ode to Joy" on demo mode. And I thought, what does he do when he isn't here? And, why the keyboard? Was it an insincere assertion of alliance with the goodness of song and energy or an attempt to create a more pathetic sight or the dumb habit of assuming the music can be exchanged as a goodwill good for alms? I cut the line to San Pietro's Basilica to see how I'd feel about it--no need to do it again; and in any case, waiting in a line can be seized upon as an opportunity to do any number of things--a free time of sorts.
I find myself walking into any bookstore I see and browsing the books greedily, wanting to read them all, to write them all. I met a guy in my hostel named Simon who was reading Pessoa's The Book of Disquiet, and immediately became anxious of finding someone closer to realizing my ideal self than I have come, but got over it quickly. All the same, allies or enemies, to build or to lay siege--these are the basic thoughts upon encountering someone with some sort of potential value to me. As I said, more or less constant state of grace. The next day I was back to god and found it most difficult to see it in deceitful or sad things, whereas understanding that which was manifest before me and within me as life itself, the world, or myself, was much easier, though it wants a degree of detachment when it doesn't come on its own. In the pregancy of things, I saw the deceit of shadows and staircases; I saw the greif of clothes waiting to be sold and clothes that had been sold; I saw the joy of these as well, and the greed, and the dying. There were men selling flowers in the Piazza del Popolo, and I found a bouquet hidden by a statue and was tempted to steal it and give it away, flower by flower, to people so that they could give a flower to someone--to give the gift of giving. I though better of it, though, and let the men sell their flowers, not wanting to take bread from their mouths, and I didn't buy any flowers because I was attempting to live off of 7 euros per day and would have put me out of at least two days of food.
My last night in Rome was not to be my last night in Rome. My farm wasn't contacting me back, and I was getting nervous about where I was to stay. I began contacting other farms, but none needed me for at least another week, if at all. Finally, I got an e-mail back from Stefania, the owner of the farm where I had originally planned on working. The buses to the town closest to her farm were not running for the day, and so I waited it out in Rome.
I arrived at the farm and it turned out to be a beautiful agritourism. That night I thought I had a revelation in my dreams about ideas and spacetime, but quickly lost it in waking, and there was something about Hansel and Gretel and the concepts of German and American overlapping, and then there was a cat somewhere in it, which made me a bit wary because before leaving, James had told me he had a dream where an evil cat came to him and told him he was going to "get your friend Jake when he least suspects it". A mosquito bit my upper lip and I looked like a fool for a few days, which I found alternately amusing and embarassing.
Ideas were flowing, but soon I became inattentive to conversation, less interested in the world around me, even when we went to buy a peacock. For however much I disparage habit and will continue to do so, I recognise that I need it to a certain degree, though I wish I didn't. I felt myself losing sensitivity, maybe from the energies spent by the constant movement since Elba. I began getting frustrated with myself for this ebb, and began stretching and playing with my mind as I had on Elba, trying to snap out of whatever funk I though I was entering. The beginning of the olive harvest didn't help my situation, as I was too tired to think; I had lots of complaints. All of a sudden, or so it seemed, I finished a song I had begun on Elba. And the next day I wrote a poem. The influx of idea energy was revitalizing, and they made the days labor easier to pull through until I understood how to pace the work and became habituated to the fact of it. Things are on the up and up now. I'm satisfied with the poem, though, paradoxically, as I grow more perceptive, I find it more difficult to tell good from bad--I see more variables, more logics, and lose the desire to follow any single guiding line--or to blow things into grand proportion, I lose sight of any one hegemonic ideology.
Fresh olive oil is toxic green as it is pressed and a little bitter. Go to The Euphemist if you want to read the little song or the poem. Go to www.mariadonata.it if you want to see the farm. Go to the stairs if you aren't being have.
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