in the room with raphael

crowds of people pulse on all sides of me, their body heat pressing into me, hearts thumping, their fingers pointing at walls alive with color and history. wide-eyed, they sigh and speak a babel of languages, their heads and necks tilting back—snap, crack—for a better view, first in the pinacoteca, and then in raphael's rooms. there it is, the school of athens and, oh god, higher still, heaven in a ceiling. at times i think i cannot breathe. there are too many people. i remind myself inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale.

i attempt to take a few pictures with my iphone—after all, how often does one encounter the stanze di raffaello?—but i am not really in the mood. am i coming down with a cold? a raw rain runs clear rivulets across the vatican museums' windows. i position myself by backing away from the throngs toward an empty area near the wall, being careful not to touch the wall. (i have already been chastised once for touching by roman guards in the castel sant' angelo.) the window area is cordoned off, but i feel better with a view of the damp day beyond the crush.

my blah mood starts to disperse when i notice a couple intent on studying the artwork. i try not to stare, but they stop right in front of me. i pretend to be interested elsewhere, yet i am curious. my eyes can't help returning to them, to her smooth white skin and wavy reddish-blonde tresses, to his intelligent eyes and shapely bald head. there is nothing outstanding to behold in these ordinary people, but something about the strangers that i can't quite figure out gives me the sudden urge photograph them. that's the odd thing about it—i am rarely moved to take deliberate snapshots of people i don't know.

the second i see them, i realize they are unusual subjects. he leans into her, gently, slowly, his hand touching her hair, his head touching her head—but no, it's not a tender moment he seeks, it's the audio guide—while she looks up. after he gets close enough to her to hear, they do not move. they stay frozen in the spot they have claimed for themselves, her eyes fixed on the ceiling, his eyes fixed on me (well before i even lift my phone). it's as if they are simultaneously posing for me, but not posing for me. yet that can't be, that's not it. they are listening, absorbed by a voice in their ears whispering a language they understand, explaining the details of what their eyes witness.

i try not to be obvious; i turn and take photos of the frescoes—but what to focus on with this overload of detailed stimuli coming from walls and ceiling? so i just do it; in the blink of an eye, i do it, i do what i have wanted to do all along—i turn back around and touch the camera button.

there is this uncanny sense i have—an idea, a ridiculous idea, perhaps, but a fun one and one that seems like it could be true—that this man and this woman make their living as actors, not because they are dramatic or seem to be striking a pose, but quite the opposite—because they are relaxed and comfortable and, above all, quiet in their own skin, in their own space. it is as if they are alone, not a tourist in sight, in the vast, ornate, renaissance chamber, as if they belong standing where they are standing, and they themselves are on view, an audience sitting in darkness just beyond the walls of raphael's room waiting to applaud.

the man and woman are in position—they just are. they inhabit—more than that, they own—this piece of air.

i can't help clapping in my head.

stuccoed

it wasn't until the next day, after jet lag had subsided and i could properly take in the neighborhood where we were staying, that i noticed dense stucco-like patterns spattered on objects in very specific areas around the ponte sisto, along lungotevere dei vallati, up via arenula and into the park near our hotel.

i like to think of what i saw as organic graffiti, but these graffiti artists didn't arrive stealthily in the middle of the night armed with spray paint. they arrived promptly at 4:45 in the afternoon and their work was brazen and bold and loud, loud because there were so many of them.

what were they called? where did they come from? why were they here?

i should have noticed the clue—a foretelling right there on the wall—when i opened my eyes after that first delicious sleep. a previously unnoticed golden hued print of a flock of black birds (no artist's name given) hung near the left side of the bed.

after a day of gorging on seeds and bugs, anything in the fields outside the city, tens of thousands of starlings could be seen, and heard—this is called murmuration, the indistinguishable blending of all those bird wings and voices which, the first time i heard it, i thought was rain—heading back to rome to roost in the large plane trees that lined the tiber river and the park outside our door.

the birds swirled and glided, swooped and dropped over the rooftops like sooty snowflakes, each movement in their ever expanding and contracting ballet fascinating and mysterious to those for whom it was a novelty. to the locals, the birds were merely messy pests.

truly wise people opened their umbrellas when walking for more than a minute under a canopy of trees vibrating—yes, and i mean vibrating—with starlings. the birds' bellies were, after all, full from a day of feasting.

unless, that is, they didn't mind becoming stuccoed like the sidewalks and cars, and the occasional head or handbag.

connecting the dots

If you sit down at set of sun

And count the acts that you have done,

And, counting, find

One self-denying deed, one word

That eased the heart of him who heard,

One glance most kind

That fell like sunshine where it went—

Then you may count that day well spent.

But if, through all the livelong day,

You've cheered no heart, by yea or nay—

If, through it all

You've nothing done that you can trace

That brought sunshine to one face—

No act most small

That helped some soul and nothing cost—

then count that day as worst than lost.

—George Eliot, Count That Day Lost

walk with me, if you would, through the old, narrow cobblestoned streets of the centro storico—historic center—of rome.

look here, along via giulia, where aristocrats lived, as well as famous artists who created great works for some of rome's palaces and cathedrals—men like raphael, cellini and borromini—for a close-up view of renaissance urban planning. what mankind accomplishes! the year 1508: this street would be the longest (1 km) and straightest rome had ever seen.

look up. michelangelo's arco dei farnese. the arch was supposed to connect the palazzo farnese with the villa farnesina directly opposite across the tiber river, but that feat of grandeur never happened. maybe the money ran out. who knows. now there is only this lovely, ivy-covered section of michelangelo's impressive design spanning the street above our heads.

further along via giulia, a stone face mounted on a wall, also from the renaissance—as is so much in old rome—the interesting fontana del mascheroni, fountain of the mask. the chin and lower lip are stained a sick green like a verdant vomitus from the mouth where water spews out. they say the fountain flowed with wine in the old days when via giulia was known for its street parties.

see that heap of clothes on the park bench in the piazza benedetto cairoli on via arenula (benedetto was once prime minister of italy)? in front of another burbling fountain? it's a man. men sometimes sleep here during the day, sometimes at night. when it rains they disappear. the unmistakable odor of urine permeates the exterior of a shed in the corner of the park.

on the ponte sant' angelo, be sure to notice a head-to-toe bronze metallic statue man sitting with a bronze umbrella over his head. another guy with a large brimmed hat is spray painted entirely black. unmoving. they really look like real statues. human statues in this city of statues. i saw them yesterday near the forum on the via dei fori imperiali.

don't miss the man—it's always men, never women—who plays "drums" on many various-sized plastic pots and buckets. he's quite good. the sign beside his money jar reads donations for a real set of drums.

in the campo de' fiori square, location of rome's oldest outdoor produce market (since 1869—it was previously used for public executions), observe a talented musician who strolls among the market vendors and serenades the tourists with his guitar. after a few songs he walks toward the ristorante tables and around the scurrying waiters to where tourists sit with their cups of espresso and glasses of wine. he smiles and holds out a cup of his own. i offer a few coins—grazie, grazie—and smile right back at him.

humanity in a foreign city. foreign, but the same. linked points of humankind—everybody, anybody, me, you, him, her, them—connected to one another under the same setting sun.

over the brenner pass

after strolling around bolzano and saying hello and good-bye to the 5000-year-old iceman (his story is interesting: he died—perhaps was murdered?—in the alps not too far west from brenner and is remarkably well preserved in the south tyrol museum of archeology) we left our rental car in bolzano, took the train and headed out of the dolomites and into the kitzbuhel alps toward st. johann in tyrol.

our railway journey was uneventful—we shared our compartment with an elderly italian couple who spent most of their time in the dining car—but the scenery was lively—absolutely picture book pretty. as the train wound through the mountains i thought i would be able to capture some images of the tall, pointed firs lining the mountainsides and the fairy tale villages scattered in the valleys below. (some of the evergreens were not even ever green—they had turned a sunny shade of yellow; the sprinkling of huge, intermixed green and yellow "christmas" trees was an unusual sight.) what was spread out beyond the windows looked like a festive christmastime tableau, even without any snow on the ground. but the train's windows were filthy so, sadly, no pictures from the train.

we stayed in a quaint, old austrian inn on the post road.

there was a small shop in the village which had a window display of traditional austrian folk costumes for sale. very pretty, but where on earth would i ever wear one of these dresses except perhaps to a costume party?

here is a chalet i saw as i walked along a lake in the tyrol. with a little snow added to the scene the house and setting would have looked very christmasy. i could live in a once-upon-a-time, happily-ever-after storybook cottage like this one.....

couldn't you?

riding with the contessa

italy. october 2011.

somewhere in the october distance
in a patchwork of nourished rows and turning vines
a reflection curves, spins
off metal, penetrates my eye
comes at me, alighting from the misty golden
heaven of hills—olive, basil, rosemary, cypress—as if
i am staring at a some kind of priceless painting
capturing a wild, refractive, and bold medieval light
shining past centuries and on and on and i shield my eyes with my hand
and i am alive and pressed with a hefty gladness
a gift, an unexpected prize that comes with the day
this welcome day, how much there is of it
in the moments before drumming hoofbeats west of bologna
near casina announce a cloud of warriors i can feel in my chest
riding, riding toward me away from sky and falling sun.
i see her at once fearlessly leading the ranks of men—
matilda of canossa, la gran contessa—clad in armor
her face riven with pride and lust for the chase
strands of her long brown hair lifting, unfurling
like airy banners waving triumphantly
with each rise and fall of her horse's hooves.
i smell the beasts' sharp sweet sweat
hot breath sucked in and out of power machines
hundreds weighted with rippling muscles
all knees and heels, hocks and fetlocks
gouging the fields to seek an enemy—to repeat the humbling
of an emperor who had groveled penitent in the snow—
soldiers bearing swords and daggers protect the quattro castelli
the apennine stronghold, the golden road that curves through
the mountain pass to matilda's doorstep.
block the teuton onslaught! through the rush of bodies
the spraying saliva and blood of men and animals
i hear cheers in the twilight—witness another october....1092—
glorious shouts of victory fly up through the vineyards—
henryVI is beaten!
fling him back across the alps
from whence he came!
i stand alone
instant silence dropped
on this primordial bed compacted with these fallen bones
planted in soughing rest, deep and light—wistful, wistful—
powdering the earth, oh soft, soft.

a stroll through an outdoor market

oh the incredible colors and smells—large hanging bunches of bright red chili peppers and fresh papery garlic. pomegranates, oranges, lemons, limes, grapes, flowers, roasting chestnuts. fresh breads and pastries and an incredible selection of local cheeses. (i'm getting hungry as i write this.)

i could have strolled back and forth in bolzano's market all afternoon, up the via goethe and over to the piazza delle erbe off the piazza walther—you wonderful passeggiata, i'm glad you turned up and i could savor you once again.

the market in bolzano (northern italy near the austrian border) is marvelous and filled with all the right foods. the people who live in bolzano are bi-lingual and speak perfect italian and german—trilingual if you count their own local german-ish dialect which i could not understand. (every mountain valley and village speaks the official national language plus a gazillion different mishmash dialects —it can get audibly confusing.) the culture is a mix of italian and tyrolean. i loved the fact that the restaurant menus were in italian and german and not english.

i finally (!) managed to find a place not crawling with americans.

on that early november afternoon we had a big lunch and ended up feeling so full we decided to skip going to dinner and instead bought cheese, bread and fruit at the market. later that evening when we had finished our simple "dinner for two" we went out and enjoyed a glass of wine. i believe it was as close to a perfect day as you can have.

and the people watching was great, although it was a little too chilly to sit outdoors.

the sweetness of doing nothing

there is this thing the italians call il dolce far niente. translation: the sweetness of doing nothing.

these people really know how to live.

il dolce far niente has nothing to do with laziness. quite the contrary, it has everything to do living life deeply and well—with slowing down and savoring life, lingering with the little things, getting out and drinking in the magic of the moment.

try it. do like the italians do. stroll through a garden, stand there, look around, touch the plants, the flowers, the statues, the water. smell them. visit an art gallery, a museum. meander through an open air market and along the colonnades of an outdoor shopping arcade, and then up to a piazza.

when you get there relax at a table for two, drink some nice local italian wine or a cappuccino. enjoy the view. watch the people go by (watch the world go by!) and then find a restaurant, order an antipasto and a primo (healthy whole foods) and eat slowly, as if your life depended on slow not fast.

there is another italian word related to this view of life—the passeggiata or the promenade. the idea behind this word is simple. everyone—young, old, couples, entire families—should get outdoors on weekends, stroll along, and take in their surroundings. italians wander and observe, chat and gossip, flirt and window shop. and eat.

the nice part about living life with gusto is that you don't have to travel to italy or anywhere far away to do it, and it can cost next to nothing. you can enjoy this outlook on life in your own area, neighborhood, town.

i find this manner of absorbing life, of living it to its fullest at a slower pace, of taking time for visits, passeggiatas and eating food—with sundays reserved as a day off for most shopkeepers—to be wonderful, civilized and healthy, unlike the wild wild west of american indoor shopping malls and fast food/junk food emporiums that are rarely closed and where the shopping rush is insane and sometimes dangerous (i'm thinking of the barbaric attitude surrounding the christmas season where mobs assemble outside stores which open at midnight after thanksgiving).

is the point of living, the way to find happiness and fulfillment in life, to be derived from a continuous, mad, addicted shopping orgy?

this crazy kind of hurry up culture is virtually unknown in italian society (or the rest of europe for that matter) and it used to be unknown here—italy's slower lifestyle is the way life used to be in the states. what happened? can we ever get back to what is real and slow down, focus on people, families, meaningful dialogue, and enjoy the simple things in life, instead of squandering existence on our plastic, artificial, unhealthy, fast, fast, fast shop-til-ya-drop mentality?

zooming around lago di garda

the drive along the western shore of lago di garda surprised me. i expected early november in northern italy to be chilly and the mountains on both sides of the lake to be covered in snow.

instead, it was warm—there was not a speck of snow even on the tallest dolomite peaks—and, in addition to olives and grapes growing on every spare patch of ground (including almost vertical groves clinging to the mountainsides; how sturdy and tenacious the plants are—and that description also holds true for the  farmers who tend these crops), there were sunny, bright lemon and orange trees full of fruit, and clusters of palm trees greeted us, making the lakeside seem like a mini tropical paradise.

the towns surrounding the lake enjoy a climate influenced by the tall peaks and garda's warm water—they are in their own mild micro-climate.

low clouds persisted on the day we motored along the shore in our little lancia, zooming through tunnel after tunnel carved out of solid rock at the edge, at the precise point, where the mountains meet garda. then we ascended the steep, snaky roads up to tignale and montecastello.

the frighteningly narrow roads—with plunging rock precipices directly outside the car window—hairpin turns and blind corners created an interesting excursion, especially when the weather turned even cloudier and we encountered bicyclists along the way. looking at the positive side, it didn't rain so we didn't have to add slippery roads to the already treacherous drive.

but on a more negative note, the images i took from almost 2000 feet above the lake at montecastello do not clearly show the lake below and the mountain peaks on the eastern shore due to the poor visibility. yet even with the cloud cover the views across the lake were stunning and our explorations up there made for a great day.

up the stairs in italy

in addition to bidets in every hotel bathroom, italy also has a lot of stairs both inside and outside. few small hotels have elevators so i walked up 55 stairs (i counted) in siena after checking in, and up again after going down 55 stairs for breakfast—and again, up and down, up and down, several times a day.

in the hill towns of orvietto, montepulciano and siena, and the more mountainous tignale, stairs are everywhere. if you want to get to visit these places you have to go up, sometimes by car and then eventually on foot. alleyways between buildings go up (and back down after you go up), cathedrals are up, piazzas are up, restaurants are up, peoples' homes are up. of course not every "up" is reached by stairs. the cobbled roads go up, too. but stairs are inevitable. you go up hundreds of them in places built along the steep sides and tops of hills.

italians eat well and drink well (and so did we in our travels around italy)—hearty soups, wine and cheese, meat and olives, vegetables and desserts—bring on the antipastos, the primos, the secondos, the contornos, the dolces!—but i rarely saw a fat person in italy. the fattest person i came across was german.

italians are fit people. they walk a lot. they walk up a lot. who needs a gym when you spend your day tackling hills and stairs in order to get from here to there.

the rooftops of siena

i wake up before sunrise just like i do when i'm home in maine. my brain doesn't seem to register that it's after midnight there; nice, no jet-lag issues.

but the difference between when i wake up in my own bed in maine and when i wake up in a strange bed in a foreign land comes down to the moment i pass from eyes-tightly-shut-sleep to eyes-mostly-open-alertness. unlike when i'm at home, the first morning i'm in a new place i don't lazily turn over, slide deeper under the covers, and squeeze my eyes shut again in order to extract a few more minutes of warmth and softness and peace before the day officially begins.

nope.

i simply can't do it. i can't roll over and go back to sleep

i'm too excited by the thought of smelling foreign air.

especially since my room is a few floors above street level in a city perched high on a hill overlooking the rolling toscana landscape of vineyards and olive groves.

instead i leap out of bed. (ok, i admit that's a disgusting thing to do at such an early hour—my husband is so totally appalled by my uncivilized leaping out of bed at this indecent time of the morning that he expresses his disgust by remaining an unmoving, mute, almost mummified-seeming kind of lump on the other side of the bed—especially since there is absolutely no need to get up yet.)

he can sleep. i, on the other hand, walk across the room, open the curtains, unlatch the interior wooden shutters (they are everywhere in italy) and then the windows and stick my head out to breathe deeply and look at what morning has to offer in the medieval italian hilltop city of siena .

ah, the view, the view (with no screens to block it!).....

in a city where all the buildings are fairly low, being at the top of one of them lets you see things like the black birds (are they ravens? crows?) do, as they swoop and dive and ride the air currents around siena's rooftops at dawn.

i am thrilled that the window faces east. here comes the sun.

i love the old red-tiled roofs that slope down toward narrow, cobbled passageways, many of which i later find out are actually one-way "roads" barely wide enough for small fiats and lancias. i discover this fact as i am rudely pressed against a building waiting for a car to pass.

beyond the rooftops is the rolling countryside shrouded in early morning mist. amazing to think the view has not changed that much in hundreds of years.

another good reason to jump out of bed in the morning like a madwoman.....

c'est mon plaisir

c'est mon plaisir....it is my pleasure. look up, and high above one of the the front doors at the isabella stewart gardner museum in boston you will find the stone carving with that inscription. gardner (1840-1924) lived on the fourth floor of her mansion, fenway court, and designed it with the venetian palazzo barbaro  in mind. the three floors below contained her substantial art collection, and today the collection is displayed almost exactly as it was at the turn of the century. isabella gardner's pleasure was to collect and bring to boston beautiful artwork, and then show it to the public for a few days each month (starting when the museum opened in 1903). after her death, her will stipulated that her home and her collection should remain as it was in her lifetime—for all to see. that was her pleasure.

in anders zorn's painting isabella gardner in venice (1894), she stands tall with arms outstretched, welcoming guests into her home and out onto the balcony to see the fireworks. she is happy and full of life. at the gardner museum i almost expect to see her come around a corner, arms outstretched, and greet visitors: please come in, come in. it is my pleasure to welcome you here.

the isgm is like no other. i highly recommend a visit. it feels as isabella intended - you are in italy in an italian renaissance palace, not a museum. much of the art is italian renaissance. the rooms are laid out like the actual rooms in a palace, with straight, long staircases leading to the different floors. it is rather dark on a cloudy day—exactly as it would have been in the 1400's and 1500's. away from the windows it can seem a bit dim; there is no museum lighting. there are also no labels beside each piece of art giving the artist's name and date. (there are handheld cards in every room, however, to give you as much or as little information as you want - mrs. gardner preferred that one contemplate each piece on its own merit.) and yet a museum it is, with rooms full of paintings, sculpture, ceramics, tapestries, drawings, rare books, silver, furniture, stained glass and ornate wooden doors and mantelpieces.

isabella gardner did not like stuffy, sterile museums. hers was intended to be different from the start—and it is. four stories up, the central courtyard is covered in glass (the first of its kind—1903—
in the u.s.)  flowers and plants bloom all year. most of the three floors of museum rooms face the courtyard. the light that fills the space from walls of floor to ceiling windows is magnificent. i stood for a few minutes in each open window (there are a lot of them), sniffed the moist, fragrant, fertile earth, and allowed my eyes to feast on the stunning view of the lush green garden below. (this was early february 2011 in boston, where they had recently endured one snowstorm after another.) above my head there was snow clinging to parts of the glass roof. it must be a wonderful experience to be inside the gardner's courtyard during a howling northeaster.

in several rooms there are glass-topped wooden cases. the tops of the cases are covered with dark, soft velvet fabric. lift up the fabric and you are able to peer back in time at old handwritten notes and signed photos sent to mrs. gardner by friends and admirers, including fdr, walt whitman, teddy roosevelt, henry james, john singer sargent and james mcneill whistler.

as you walk through rooms—like the dutch room, the early italian room, the raphael room and on toward the tapestry room—you will pass walls filled with paintings and drawings. suddenly you will stop dead in your tracks when you notice an odd sight. taped on the wall where there should be a framed piece of art there is instead a small, glaringly naked, white piece of paper. on it is typed "STOLEN." several extremely valuable works of art were brazenly taken from the museum in 1990. the case remains unsolved.






.