travel essay

This has nothing to do with Dad.
But I think I've posted sans dad before.
This is something I wrote for my class, in a time when I was just beginning to go out into the world.
I'd been living in Rome for about two months, and life was just beginning to feel as if it were changing

A GOOD SWOON

Have you ever roller bladed through Rome searching for "The Ecstasy of St. Theresa"? It is not a common method of travel for that city, and although the sculpture celebrates great fame, the Romans tucked it away into an obscure little chiesa outside the center of the city. Finding it proved difficult but enjoyable (and a little dangerous as well).
My friend Michele came to the apartment I rented near Termini one morning in June. He carried two pair of monstrous looking rollerblades.
"We're going on a trip." he said, and began to lace up.
I hesitated. I had been living in Rome for a little over a month and had developed a thorough fear of Italian drivers. Italians are the types who speed up when they see an old lady crossing a street; they drive on sidewalks when roads are blocked. Michele plays this game when crossing a busy city street. He is always impeccably dressed (very handsome with red hair and large brown eyes). Instead of looking both ways he simply crosses, head up, earphones on, looking like he is walking through a park. He doesn't flinch at the revving engines or the Italian curses thrown at him from rolled down windows or sun roofs. He ignores everything with a motor. And it works. Cars stop for him.
Michele has no fear, and therefore he wins some deeply understood game of the via.
I, as an American and a tourist, am a prized target. I never win the game. I am afraid of chickens.
But it was Rome (when in Rome...) I was young. I had never heard of anyone rollerblading around Rome. This was the type of thing people wrote travel books about.
I am an awkward rollerblader and realized I had more to fear from parked cars and walls then crazy Italian drivers.
We stopped in many little places, bought gelato, rattled our bones over hundreds of cobblestone streets. Things seemed to be going quite well. Seeing Rome from a pedestrian view, but whizzing by it with the speed of blades is exhilarating. Delicious smells of food entering your nose at open storefronts, first warm bread coming from the bakery, quickly mingling with the smell of basil from a little farmer's cart, suddenly all gets immersed in the aromatic heaviness of pizza that smiling tourists are eating. They look shocked, still chewing, when they see you zoom past them, not knowing that you shared with them (at least in spirit) a bit of that tasty pizza.
As the morning raced on, (We had a map but neither of us were very good at following it, something about standing on wheels being disorienting) street by street, we honed in on our destination.
I was beginning to tire (we had spent the last 10 minutes pumping up a hill) Michele was ahead of me. He reached the summit of the hill and stopped. "O mia" he half-whispered. I finally met him at the top and peered over the other side. Ahead of us loomed a steep downgrade ending at the bottom (which seemed to me about a mile beneath us) in what looked to be a busy rode. "Well" I said, "Rome is the city of seven hills."
Michele leaned over and kissed my cheek. Swearing with a smile on his face, he suddenly turned and seemed to dive down the hill, his swear turning into a giggle of joy.
Michele is crazy, I think I've mentioned that before? At that moment I was petrified. I am not a good blader, Rome is not a safe city, so many things could go wrong. I made the sign of the cross (thinking of my mother), took a breath, and followed my crazy friend down the hill.
I can't really describe the feeling I experienced, fear mixed with euphoria. I can never forget it, even if a terrible disease wipes out all my memories, I will never forget that conflicting feeling, like bitter and sweet, ice and fire, sex and death.
Except for an inability to stop gracefully, I survived our trip down the hill. I felt heroic, somehow permanent. I'd faced a great fear and had triumphed.
In the afternoon we arrived at the church which housed the statue.
It stood inviting and empty. We removed our skates and helmets. We walked into complete silence and started down the aisle searching the walls for the statue. Its not the kind of thing the average tourist goes looking for. Sure, if it were sitting in an apse at Saint Peters there'd be several tour guides speaking about it in a multitude of languages, all carrying a different color pompom or baton as a focal point for their group.
Here there was no one but Michele and I.
It's really a shame too. The Ecstasy of Saint Theresa is one of the most beautiful statues I've ever seen. Its said to be the first depiction in sculpture of a swoon. And she swoons, she nothing but swoons.
Its extremely erotic (which may be why its not in Saint Peters). Saint Theresa is leaning back, her arm hanging limply at her side, her foot dangling. Her eyes are closed and the look on her face is one of profound pain and explicit pleasure.
An angel stands over her holding an arrow with which he is about ready to pierce her.
I stared, captivated by her expression.
In that quiet church I connected with this stone woman. Rome was my Angel and this day had been one thrust of his arrow into my soul. I was swooning. I wondered if my face had had a similar expression when I'd ridden the wind down one of the seven hills with nothing but rollerblades between me and heaven.
Angels holding arrows don't just come and pierce your heart every day. But if one does, acknowledge the fear but meet him with ecstasy, let your body go free, and put on your best swoon.