"How meet beauty?"

My feelings about Rome turn out to be complicated.

I'm sure not everyone in the world loves Rome. Like any big city, it's noisy, hurried, smoky, dirty, expensive, and confusing. (Although the Italocentric guide who lead our Colosseum tour bragged that the Romans had invented straight roads, he failed to tell us where any of them were. Around a hundred yards of straight were as much as we ever experienced. It is fun, however, to play a little game called "Who Will Be First to Find the Name of This Major Thoroughfare?")

Rome is also splendid, romantic, surprising, and deeply moving.

I was fully prepared to ooh and aah over historic, architectural, and artistic treasures. I can read, after all; I can watch PBS; and thirteen years in Catholic school provided ample exposure to illustrations of many of Rome's wonders. However, long before I'd almost reached the limits of my ability to consume massive quantities of food and wine, Rome's treasures themselves began to feel like too much - and for a variety of reasons.

Let's start with the Pantheon, since that's where our hotel was, and it was the first thing to knock the wind out of me as soon as I set foot on cobblestones. I mean, 2,000 years old? Largest unsupported concrete dome in the world for centuries? Oldest structure in continuous use on the planet? And it is truly wondrous.

"Marcus Agrippa son of Lucius, having been consul three times made it," says the chiseled inscription. (Hadrian actually commissioned it to replace Agrippa's previous Pantheon, which had burned down. But Hadrian tended not to put his name on things.)

I wish I had the photographic skills to convey its scale-

or the way the sunlight coming through the top of the dome is a timekeeper not yet fully understood - 

although twice a year the sunbeam illuminates the main entrance in a pretty impressive way. We were curious about what happens when it rains, and found ourselves searching for various holes in the floor. Note to self: visit Pantheon during vernal or autumnal equinox, and when it is raining.

When the early Christians were doing away with the pantheistic model, they replaced pagan representations with Christian ones that were at least as (what's the word I'm going for here? grand? showy? ostentatious? imposing?). And as beautiful. 

I grew up believing my guardian angel protected me from things like being run over by a car, and that choirs of angels would usher me into heaven. These sculptures embody all that hope and belief. And all that innocence.

I understand that throughout human history we've built monuments to forces beyond our understanding. The more imposing the better, to show our respect and awe - and in hopes of winning a few favors when things seem to be going badly. Bring your best to the deities who have made this world possible.

Here at the Pantheon began my conflicting feelings about Rome's spectacular antiquities. The ancient religions replaced, histories torn down, melted down, updated, eradicated. Pieces of the original structures requisitioned by papal order for use elsewhere. Belief in grandeur. Belief that grandeur means something other than showing off that you can indulge in grandeur.

While here I sat in an expensive hotel right across the piazza, gazing through a scaffold put in place to refurbish - at great expense - the building's facade, pondering the hundreds of millions of inch-thick bricks that had been put in place so very long ago from one end of this ancient world to the other. 

 

Put in place, of course, by slaves.

OK, so. Well. Back to the garden.

It's late May and we were gone for two weeks, during which it actually rained. You can imagine. I'm sorry I didn't take any "Before" pictures. Spent all day yesterday hacking back the Mexican primroses from the sidewalk garden. That it not a nice way to talk about a wildflower, especially such a pretty one, but they do have takeover tendencies and look very raggedy once the first blooms are done. They'll be back.

It's embarrassing how sore my quads are this morning after doing those 10,000 squats. While I'm on the subject of not talking nicely, you know how sometimes you need to hold onto the bathroom countertop to lower yourself into an, um, seated position? That. I would have thought that pushing a bike up those hills in Italy would have given me quads of steel. (I would like to report that I was pushing the bike uphill while I was seated upon it and pedaling, but it wasn't exactly like that.)

It's been a very pleasant spring around here, meaning the heat held off for the most part: nights were cool, the shade was cool, breezes were cool. I walked around the yard a lot, just looking. This is pink gaura (of the family Onagraceae). These little dudes distinguish themselves by floating on tall thin stalks like butterflies hovering. I've had white ones too.

Succulents are always doing something interesting and exotic. I keep meaning to write a piece just about succulents. Unfortunately, I have very mixed luck with them; I think they like to be left alone much more than I am prone to do. This one lives in the steel raised bed Floyd made for me last year.

The original purpose for the steel bed, and the cage that sat atop it, was for growing tomatoes in a way that the rodents couldn't get to the fruit. However, every year I need to relearn the fact that I am constitutionally incapable of growing most foods. So this year, I transformed the fabulous steel planter into a garden of rocks and ignorable perennials.

This guy above lives in a whole different part of the yard, on the north corner of the house beside a little stone patio, and I waited two years for the first blossom. It's Acca sellowiana, better known at least to me as a pineapple guava (no pineapples and no guavas, story of my life). It's an evergreen shrub that produces these exotic flowers in the spring. Worth the wait.

I mean to do a whole piece on cactus flowers because they are so amazing. One thing that kills me about them is that little bitty cacti have no problem producing flowers bigger than they are. The one above looked like a big pink hat and, as often happens, lasted one day. The cactus itself is maybe four inches tall.

Floyd came home from his bike ride yesterday to tell me that sections of the greenbelt are overrun with cactus flowers and wildflowers of all kinds. "We should go down there tomorrow," he offered. You don't think that a husband who asks you on a date to locations where rattlesnakes are known to be prolific and coyote pups have recently been born has an ulterior motive, do you? (No worries about the coral snakes; they are quite sluggish and need to gnaw on you for a while before injecting their highly lethal venom. And well, copperheads. I really prefer to do my mountain biking in winter around here.)

Anyway, I'll probably go but I'm putting my foot down about bringing Travis. The coyote parents are very clear in expressing their displeasure about canine visitors to their territory at this time of year.

On a happier note, the duranta (of the family verbenaceae) is finally coming into its own. The first year I planted it, deer came along and ate the tender buds every single time they appeared. I moved one of the duranta into the back yard where it's safe but gets less sun. This guy lives in the sidewalk garden but has somehow avoided becoming a midnight snack.

For no reason I can explain, the deer visiting this spring had a craving for the buds on the Mutabilis rose in the side yard. This is a great kind of old rose that has blossoms that change color during the day and create a shrub full of pink and pale orange flowers that remind me of my favorite Good Humor popsicle from when I was little - it was half raspberry, half orange. I can never get a good photo of Mutabilis, but this will give you an idea at least of the colors I'm talking about:

Fortunately, I have a spare one of those in the back yard, too. Bwahahahahaha, deer!

Italy, Part Two: Rome

A long time ago I wrote a poem that I liked perfectly well because I was young and full of poetry, and I liked how it started: "Who am I to talk?" Turned out I was the only fan of my poem; everyone else who read it thought that if I weren't the one to talk, I should just shut up.

To say anything about Rome seems squarely in that category: Who am I to talk about that great, ancient city? However, if unsurpassable predecessors closed down topics, pretty much all conversation would cease. Maybe the best we can do is bring our own true words to the subject at hand.

First of all, I have never before been one of those people who arrives down in baggage claim to look for someone holding a sign with my name on it. Arriving in a busy airport, a little woozy from lack of sleep but nothing too bad (did I mention you can count on Rick Steves to tell you what to do about things like jet lag?); but completely overwhelmed. Millions of people, evidently; half of them pick-pocketers and scam artists if the World Wide Web is to be believed, and 90% of them smoking cigarettes - I'm not used to this kind of thing! 

But we found the person who was there to find us, and somehow off we went.

My first impressions of Rome? I was glad we hadn't rented a car. Although over the next two weeks I would be able to switch off most of my reactions to Italian city traffic, I'm afraid my spouse will never recover from watching people on scooters zip around and between cars with no apparent regard for traffic rules or the laws of physics. Zoom past a line of cars in heavy traffic to claim a place at the head of the line? No problem. Pass on a curve? No problem. Propel yourself and your passenger (who may well be a small child) up through the left lane to bypass sluggish automobiles? No problem!

The first time Floyd watched a scooter slip between a bus and a truck with maybe four inches on either side of the handlebars, he was astonished. This amazement is with him still.

We were about to spend two weeks in a world of laughably narrow roads, cobblestone streets, and "sidewalks" that consist of stripes of white paint and pedestrian optimism. We couldn't decide if we were better off walking on the left-hand side, facing traffic; or on the right-hand side with traffic coming up from behind. I guess it all depends on how you want to meet your death: barreling toward you, or a quick surprise.

In America we're taught (at least some of us were) that if there is no sidewalk, you walk on the left-hand side, facing traffic. One Sunday Floyd and I found ourselves in exactly that position, walking a very curvy road, clinging like shadows to the stone wall beside us. I was blathering on about a scene in "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective" where Jim Carrey inches himself along with his back pressed to a wall in an effort to be invisible - ha ha! - when a scooter traveling at suicidal speed came around the turn and nearly sliced my dear husband in half.

But here we were, narrow cobbled passageways and all; and at some impossible point we climbed out of the back seat of the van and stepped into a world going back over two thousand years. Rome is like that.

I am a very weak student of history. Whenever I try to read something about the past, my eyes glaze over and the words slip like jelly across my brain and straight out my ears. So the idea of a hotel near the Pantheon could only seem cool because I thought that it ought to be pretty cool. I had to look up "The Pantheon" a number of times, and still had no idea. Wow! We'll be right across from a building that's two thousand years old! (With history, I am an eternal teenager.)

More about that later. First, la piazza:

The Pantheon stands in a piazza, of course. The Piazza della Rotonda, in this case. Being a city girl at heart it was easy for me to fall in love with piazze of all shapes and sizes: busy, lively, criss-crossed with traffic, residents, tourists, dogs, carabinieri, beggars, (yes it's true) pickpocketers, small shops, fancy boutiques, fruit stands, gelato places; the smells of cooking, cigarette smoke, two-stroke fuel fumes, cologne; people talking, laughing, arguing, making a fuss over every single baby; bow-tied ristorante staff encouraging you to sit, have a drink, eat, check out the menu - I love le piazze and regret that our suburban life censors them in all their richness.

Una piazza is a wonderful place to sit on a spring evening and share a bottle of wine and talk, or not talk. I'd learned from my extensive daydream excursions that in Italy a restaurant table belongs to you until you don't want it any more. Waitstaff, paid a living wage, have no need to turn tables quickly to reap more tips.

Now sometimes, as happened here, one restaurant isn't interested in seating you because all you want is a glass of wine and they are all into dinner. Non te preoccupe! There is una caffe right across la piazza where they will be happy to seat you and let you sit undisturbed until you wave a hand and say, Il conto, per favore - even though you are very shy and your accent causes the smiling waiter to reply in inglese.

Piazza life goes on well into the evening, in part because businesses have largely closed down for a couple of hours in the afternoon; but also because the Italians (at least as we observed) thoroughly enjoy meeting up with each other at the end of the work day. As superannuated Americans, we stretched ourselves to eat at 7:30 p.m. - which is when many restaurants begin serving dinner. The Italians would start to arrive an hour or so later, greeting one another with great happiness.

I began to think that in le piazze resides a sense of community - no matter how many tourists may be present. People from all over the world may find themselves here, but so do Italian friends and families who have been gathering in this place for generations. We would see much more of this in the smaller towns we visited later in our trip.

For the moment, still in Rome, we began to marvel at a city that functions with such narrow two-way streets. It was amazing how seldom we observed traffic backing up to make room for other vehicles. Suddenly "Smart Cars" began to make sense. And where a small section of a parking lot in Texas might accommodate a dozen of what we call cars, in Italy that small section would be adequate space for twenty cars and at least an equal number of scooters. Nobody says you can't park with a wheel or two on the curb, after all!

But what am I really wanting to say about Roma? That I could photograph its windows and doors all day long?

It would be wonderful if I could convey some of the smells that issue from the houses as Romans prepare to eat the best food  in the city, but that would make us all hungry and I am just starting the process of re-losing the pounds I lost just so I could go on this trip. I resolved in advance that I was going to eat and drink every single thing I wanted, and I am proud to report that I lived up to that resolution. How can you miss, when you visit a country that offers so many desserts at breakfast?

Do I want to make a point of what it feels like every day to step on slabs of marble that bears the impressions of - yes - thousands of years of footsteps?

I can say that Floyd and I walked quite a bit during our brief stay: from the Pantheon to the Vatican and back; from the Pantheon to the Colosseum to the Spanish Steps to the Borghese to the Trevi Fountain and back. And before I forget, I want to mention a few things I loved: how in May there are flowers even on tile roofs and stone walls:

Or how you can just be walking along a busy sidewalk lining an insanely busy metropolitan street and out of nowhere an antiquity appears, inspiring you to cross said street with no regard for the life-and-death implications:

The astonishing juxtaposition of the very new and the very old:

And how, even if your hotel bathroom is so tiny you pretty much have to turn sideways to get from the toilet to the teeny shower (which is too small to be a shower stall: it is only a space in the bathroom with a drain in the floor), you might be able to look out the wee window in that shower and see something like this.

Oh, and the fact that you can be wandering the city with no particular aim in mind, just wandering, and find yourself in a little piazza with a little piece designed by Bernini:

Now, that must have been an interesting family. 

Not My Garden, but Italy: Part One

This is a story of a dream deferred long enough. I'd worn out every sensible reason for postponing Italy when, as will happen, my 60th birthday arrived. In my mind, birthdays involving a zero demand special attention. "You know what I want, right?" I found myself asking my dear husband Floyd.

"Another bicycle?" he asked hopefully from his armchair.

(I don't mean to make it sound like he is a chair potato. We own three bikes apiece, and his are often and impressively used. He just likes being at home, is what the armchair reference is intended to convey.)

"No..."

The very next day I mortgaged my car and called a travel agent.

The obvious next step was to learn a little Italian. People say it's a good idea: native-speakers appreciate your efforts. It's polite. I thought it only made sense that for a trip to Italy, the cornerstones of my vocabulary should be food-related.

Menus are often helpfully illustrated, and I already knew a few words for various Italian foods; but what if un cucchiaio were needed? Not to mention il bagno. And I had a great deal to learn if I were to be able to ask locals about their favorite ristoranti.

I found myself an Italian teacher, a preternaturally patient man from that very country. Every day I practiced with Rosetta Stone, and every week I tried to sputter actual words to Carlos. I kept trying to remember that David Sedaris's accounts of learning a foreign language are hilarious. All I can say is I am eternally grateful to Carlos for instructing me how to order penne and not pene. (He said the waiter would know what I really meant, but he would probably tell the kitchen staff that I had ordered a penis and they would have a great laugh at my expense.)

Carlos also warned me that the Italians are not snobby like some Europeans are, and that as soon as I even tried to utter anything in Italian they would be happy and start talking to me in English. This could make it difficult for me to get in any Italian practice at all. If I wanted them to speak Italian to me, he said, I would have to tell them I spoke a language not many Italians can speak. "Tell them you're from Croatia."

For three months leading up to our trip, I daydreamed about Italy. I read about Italy, I looked things up about Italy, I read restaurant reviews for every town we would visit, I walked miles in Google Street View, I read dozens of recommendations about what to pack, I bored everyone senseless. I auditioned my picture-taking equipment, decided to take the "good" camera, and ordered lots of stuff from a company called Pacsafe so no one could slash my backpack or purse and run off with my photos or euros. I was thrilled beyond measure when one morning I awakened at about three as usual and my first thought was, Ho sonno. 

Floyd began to worry that no real country could live up to such daydreams.

Fortunately, it turns out that my Italy is the stuff of daydreams. And as for all the rest, Rick Steves's stuff is fun to read and extremely helpful with the practical aspects. His stuff puts me in mind of my Catholic high school's motto: Quodqumque dixerit vobis, facite. Do whatever he tells you.

Of course, we did lots of other things as well.

It's spring. All kinds of things are happening (me figuring out how to make a blog is not one of them).

Although I love irises, I haven't planted many in this yard

because I figured deer would eat them.

More about the deer later.

What I'm thinking about today is the unexpected. This is the first year we've seen both adult owls in the nest-box at the same time. (He is the smaller, exhausted-looking one.) Although we hear their trills every day, and often witness the "changing of the guard" at dusk and dawn, we haven't been treated to this.

We're looking forward to finding out how they follow-up last year's triplets.

Then there's the mystery of how you can walk around your yard several times a day, every day, keeping track of who's producing what. A gardener's eye is trained to the minute: a bud, a critter, a fleck of mildew. You think the yucca by the driveway won't do anything but be green this year.

And then in the middle of the night, it produces something like this:

  

Another first: two hummers at the feeder at the same time. I realize lots of people see this in their yards. Every hummingbird feeder box and video show half a dozen little ones feeding at the same time. But up until yesterday, all I've ever seen were little buzz-pilots at war.

Maybe it's a spring for the unexpected.