“Anne Lamott’s book, Bird by Bird, has a great chapter called Shitty First Drafts that’s all about getting over those internal voices that tell writers that what we’re writing sucks. The essay is all about accepting those voices, realizing that they’re going to be there for as long as you’re doing something creative, and then doing the only thing you can do: press on.” -http://thewriterscoin.com
On that note, here is a “shitty first draft” from a recent trip I took to Rome. More to come on the venue the Short Theatre Festival was at. Called the New Economy, it was quite an inspiring location. Check out the photography from the location here. Until then, however, here are my initial impressions:
Like sardines packed in a tin can, our Easyjet landing provides me with a view of land on one side and sea on the other. Sun seeps through the window as some turbulence creates a stir in the cabin full of Romans returning home. This will also be my home- at least for the next 48 hours. The first set of boisterous laughs and raucous remarks from the cabin mark the beginning of an entirely different atmosphere. Leaving behind an already rainy and cool autumn in Amsterdam, shrub-like trees scattered along a dry landscape remind me of a Van Gogh print in my living room.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned from living in northern Europe compared to southern Europe, it’s a certain “keep it short, simple, and close to your self” attitude. Pondering this, my first burning question of the trip has entered my brain. Thinking about the old adage,”when in Rome, do as the Romans do,” I wonder: what is the difference between the Mediterranean lifestyle I am entering compared to the Dutch culture I have grown so fond of? My first quest? Find the Romans.
Upon leaving the hectic center of ancient Rome, I was able to explore not just what the Romans themselves actually do, but how they really do it. It was my hypothesis that they weren’t so different from their northern counterparts (minus the climate) after all. Following my intuition, I found myself wandering back to where my bed&breakfast was located in Trastavere. Upon finding said locals, I surveyed a variety asking them to describe their city in three words.
I drifted back to the previous afternoon, just minutes after disembarking the plane and getting picked up by a gregarious gentleman chatting on his cell phone holding a sign with our names on it. Smiling and waving to the distracted fellow, we passed him to avoid holding up the flow from behind us. Catching up with us, we were soon swept out of an air-conditioned airport into humid still-summer air.
Loading luggage and all piling in, our theatre troupe was heading into terrible traffic with a man I assumed was a Roman himself. Soon, after sharing scraps of conversation between the five of us and him, he quickly corrected my mistaken assumption when I asked him to be the first of many to describe his city to me.
Although a non-native, I got my answer in one sentence. It’s chaotic, fascinating and… he was interrupted by a tiny smart car almost sacrificing it’s life for our beast of a machine loaded with theatre production artillery. Shouting a loud swear word I hadn’t heard since my great-grandmother who hailed from Verona, I asked him about the third word. Shouting, he said, as we sped past the tiny bug of an automobile giving one last call in typical Roman style.
When I actually asked him if those would be the three words he would to use to describe this city, he gave a long drawn out speech, unable to keep it as simple as it was when the answer just came naturally.
Simplicity in expression, such as a short gesture that speaks sentences, isn’t the only thing the Romans come by naturally. Simplicity in their food is an act of heavy patriotism. However, not observing the siesta isn’t a complete act of treason as it used to be. Although a seemingly extravant eating culture is actually wound together by a simple web of fresh, local, and all natural ingredients that keep the Roman’s dishes not just close to their spices, but also close to their hearts. {edit}
That’s not to say all things in Rome are that simple. The word I heard most when asking the Romans to describe their city in three words was… chaotic. Although the girl who spent her whole cigarette with us after only asking for a light seemed calm, cool, and collected, she was quick to admit that she hailed from chaos.
The next morning leaving the laid-back residental neighborhood in the outskirts of Trastevere, the chaos suddenly became clear. The fountain di Trevi wasn’t as beautiful as I remembered it to be. As a matter of fact, it was downright claustrophobic.
Trastevere, however, brings the chaotic feel of Rome without the pantheon or Fountain di Trevi from clogging it’s clustred but elegant piazza. Patched along a neighborhood where the urban vibe of eclectic street art and graffiti meets gold-sheathed domes of ancient Roman churches, Trastevera is the real Rome. Eating a slice of pizza while washing it down with a cup of gelato, I listen to the soothing water of the fountain in the center of Piazza di Santa Maria. The bell of the tower strikes twelve as a flock of pigeons fly overhead. Punk youth camped out with their dogs along the walls of the piazza frame passing tourists walking toward the attractive church, a gyspy woman awaiting them, rattling change in a cup. An Italian family next to me shares a box of pizza.
My friend’s guidebook mentioned this neighborhood as having received the biggest surge of expatriate residents in all of Rome during recent years. Perhaps this also adds to the diverse style found not only in it’s transient inhabitants, but also on it’s labyrinths lined with tattoo parlors, pizzerias, postcard shops, and even a punjabi sweet shop.
Still recovering from Roman excess as I write this my first evening back, I am reminded where it all started to go wrong. After a heavy lunch, I pass a frenetic pizza and pasta take-away shop full of screaming locals at lunch hour. I can’t help but have a taste of food that seems to be leaving the pans faster than the four scrambling men behind the counter can weigh and collect on it. Although I get the awkward stare from a man next to me as I fumble over Spanish disguised in Italian accent, I fake my way through to order a fried ball of creamy risotto. Biting through the crunchy exterior into the core, I am treated to steamy chunks of spinach scattered around the al dente pasta.
Later that evening at Cafe del Moro, a bar blaring MTV music videos from the 80′s, I enjoy free aperitivos. Enjoying Italy’s answer to tapas, I admire the place. It has a sort of nostalgic feel with only two or three tables outside lining a particularly disordered four-way curve of pedestrian-only traffic. Grabbing one of the few spots any good people-watcher would envy made us feel exclusive and the huge glasses of house red they served alongside free mini-sandwiches, chicken nuggets, olives, and other international finger foods made Trestevere seem all the quirkier for the typical Roman holiday.
After a great run at the festival, we celebrated over a bottle of bio Belgian honey beer. It was there while chatting up the locals and attempting to break a bounty of language barriers that I heard the best answer for my Rome in three words question: Love, hate, live. Hell, we may have been a little drunk, but at that moment it couldn’t have been a more logical answer to such an illogical city.
