The embroidered life
It's only through a series of departures and returns that life can start to constitute an image.
I had just met an American friend for a coffee. We’d talked about how hard it was to meet men in Rome. All I wanted was a nice man to take to dinner, and maybe a museum. But Rome was decidedly conservative in much of its culture. So, he told me, you were most likely to end up on a date with a closeted Roman or a Catholic priest. The priest won't tell you he's a priest until afterwards, he warned me.
I was decidedly not down for that situation. I could see myself having fallen into a tryst with a closeted priest in a past life, but I was well beyond that. I'd walked from the dynamics of the closet to failed relationships and a broken self, but now I was in a healing season, a growing season. I wanted art and intimacy. He recommended a visit Percy Shelley's grave and the pyramid beside it.
We ended our coffee. I took a bus south through the city.
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I had lived in Rome roughly ten years before. I’d started my study abroad as an escape from a traumatic sophomore year of college. I didn't plan on telling anyone.
On Easter Monday of that semester, I took a flight to Turkey with two of my classmates. Late one night, I shared my secret. It was the first time I had voluntarily come out to someone. He was warm and kind. When we returned to Rome a few days later, I felt like a new person.
Rome holds many histories.
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Those ten years later, after that coffee with the friend, I departed a bus near the Basilica di Santa Cecilia in Trastevere.
I'd been to that Basilica as many times as I'd been to Rome. On my first visit, in high school, I descended its ancient steps into the crypt with a friend. He had also chosen Cecilia as his confirmation saint. He purchased a postcard in its tiny shop. When we returned to Texas, he gave me the card, as part of a collection. He’d written a note to me each day of the trip. He wrote about his gratitude for our friendship and his prayers for me. He was the first man to really love me in Rome. Several months later, he started seminary.
During my semester abroad, I returned to the crypt, giving thanks for my time in Istanbul.
Years after that, I would bring a man down those stairs, and we’d be thankful for each other.
On my most recent visit, I made the descent alone. I was learning to love myself again.
I said goodbye to Cecilia, until next time. I left the Basilica and thought about stopping into a cafe to use the bathroom, but I decided against it. I’d wait until after visiting Shelley and stop for lunch. So I walked along the Tevere until I reached Porta Portese.
During the semester abroad, I had walked to the Porta Portese market with a vivacious grad student. We finished our shopping with a pair of new—used—bikes. I was the cautious rider. Bicycling in Rome was an inherently reckless activity for an American. (I was the only person to use my bike who didn’t hit someone with it.) She was more adventurous. She convinced locals to take her to dance classes and went on a date with a Swiss Guard. I think we bonded because we had such a deep desire to live, to really live.
Rome hadn't changed. Not really. Not like everything else. Every time I've returned to my college campus, I've struggled to connect to the constantly changing scenery. A new building goes up every five minutes. That—as well as the trauma I acquired there—has made it difficult for college history to come alive, for me to connect to my past self. But Rome is both ever old and ever new. It never really changes. Only I change. Rome can show me how. Rome, as the ancient unchanging city, is the measure of my change.
It's as if my life is an act of embroidery, and Rome is the cloth. I pierce through it with the color of a season of my life, driving the needle away on the other side. But eventually the needle makes its return. It's only through a series of departures and returns that life can start to constitute an image. If you want detail, your return must be near to the departure, but you must never return to the same exact place two times in a row. That will only undo the work. To live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.
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The walk past Porta Portese, over the Tevere, and down Via Marmorata felt longer than I'd anticipated. My water bottle was nearly empty. The sun had fixed itself overhead in one last persistence of summer. I was sweating. I was hungry. And I also needed to take a shit.
But I was nearly there. I turned onto Via Caei Cestio. I could see my destination. At least, I could see its exterior. A wall.
Rome's Cimitero acattolico, the “non-Catholic” Cemetery, is walled on all sides. I hadn’t taken this into account. I walked past the Piramide di Caio Cestio on its eastern wall, searching for a way in. I continued to sweat. I needed a bathroom. But I was so close.
I turned a corner, and I couldn’t see the end of the southern wall. I started to walk alongside it. I needed to pay my respects to Shelley, and to Keats.
But my poetic aspirations were slowly being taken over by a concern that, if I didn't find a way in soon, I was going to shit my pants. I was also concerned that I would find my way in, and then shit my pants, and Shelley and Keats would be pissed at me for shitting in their cemetery. If previous trips to Rome were a reminder of my need for love, this trip was starting to be underscored by the bodily need for a bathroom. Making my way along the wall, I could feel misery setting in.
I crossed the street away from the wall to see further down it. The view wasn’t promising. No open gate as far as I could see. But I decided to just take a few more steps down the sidewalk. I took those steps. No entrance in sight. Defeat.
Google maps recommended I turn back to find the nearest metro station. So I did. The wall mocked me on the other side of the street.
In those first few steps, I passed a man emerging from a building. As I turned my head, we locked eyes. Tall and tanned with high cheekbones, wearing a loose white shirt and linen pants. I took a few more steps. Then I stopped.
The desire for a bathroom faded. It didn't go away entirely. But it left the forefront of my mind.
I pulled my phone from my pocket and opened Grindr to find a very attractive Italian man. 0 feet away from me. Online now.
People think that a life is supposed to always move forward. But I wonder about that now. An embroidered life must move in many directions. Sometimes forward. But sometimes to one side. And then the other. And sometimes the next step, to get the image one is to become, is back in the direction you came from.
I turned around for a second time. I saw that he had also stopped, was also just looking up from his phone, was looking back at me.
Each time I've returned to Rome, I've thought that my life was starting to form a particular image. And each time I've returned to Rome, the image has developed in ways I hadn't previously expected.
I'm learning to appreciate the surprises.
He took me to lunch. Thank God the cafe had a bathroom.
