Blue Madonna

It's a little Petri dish of a room. Dark and small, the bed depressed. The Madonna framed next to a painted metal wardrobe. Paint peeling in layers of muted blues and oranges by the desk near a shuttered window. From here I'll cultivate the blues. Bring them to the surface and roll in them, spread them in a thin layer to the places they have yet to touch. The Madonna feels them--my blues--and extends a comforting hand. She seems to be offering me solace in an alternative I've yet to consider. Here in Rome the possibility of heaven seems somehow more plausible.

•
Most times two people becoming a we is a process as exquisite and unfortunate as any. Ours was no different. I remember the searching, the discovery, those moments, the absurd excesses of new romance. I remember feeding off Carmen's optimism and her eyes--dark Mediterranean things, somehow sad. And I remember the creep of reality. Now it's over. But although I say with confidence that it's come to an end, watch me as I try to escape the persistence of the we I'd so delighted in creating. As I struggle to say, what will I do tonight, and not what will we do tonight, or worse still, what is she doing tonight.

I toss my bag onto the desk, take out a white linen shirt, shake it open and press it to the bed. It's too wrinkled for Rome. Somewhere down the hall English is being spoken by Americans with strong southern accents that now break into Italian--bone jorno--with strong southern accents. A smile rises and quits. I look for something else to wear.

•
Carmen and I had been together for three years. Our parting was mutual--far too mutual to suit me--but she'd become my habit, and I hers. Unfortunately, habits die harder than love. But while our bond had grown pitiable, it was still a bond. To call what remained love seemed generous, yet somehow I love you's came with a mechanical regularity right up to the end. In moments they seemed obviously hollow, but only in moments. It was strange. It had become a kind of terminal patient who in spite of an occasional rosiness of cheek, knew it was time to pull the plug. I finally turned to run when I realized that I felt a sort of martyr's pain in allowing Carmen to love me. Perhaps it was a penance of sorts--a commitment for the sake of all the other commitments I've never made.

So here I am in Rome trying to escape this particular madness--to forget Carmen--to kick this ridiculous addiction--to find peace. Peace in Italy. I like the idea of it, but I need an iron. Severely wrinkled linen in Rome won't cut it, and I need suddenly to leave this room.

•
I draw. Pencils mostly. I don't know really what to call what I do. It's a kind of realism that flirts heavily with abstraction, or perhaps abstraction that isn't quite brave enough to abandon reality. In any event, I'm an artist, and in moments I think that I might find peace here through art. I like the idea of that too, but, in reality, I'm not that noble. So I'll confess to you now that I'm delighted to know that Gia lives in Milano.

One day, early in our relationship, I'd left Carmen alone in my apartment for an afternoon. When I returned she was sitting it the middle of my futon crying, surrounded by my journals--a confederacy of past lives. The Gia volumes had been read. The goddess Gia. The scribbles were years old--I was barely twenty when I put them down. Yet for Carmen, they were as alive in that moment as when first written. She kind of got over it, and we stayed together for another two and a half years. But from that moment on Gia was anathema to Carmen, and perhaps rightfully so. So I suppose I should confess this as well: I'm not proud, but in a way, choosing Gia's country in which to break free of Carmen is, among other things, a lyrical manifestation of spite. This spite is an asset I hope to leverage in case I need a little extra strength. In Italy, with luck, art, spite and perhaps Gia's company, this persistent we will become me.

•
I'm dogged by thoughts of Carmen, but Rome holds them at bay. Her narrow back streets roll and twist through the dense Roman fabric, and are made for those, like myself, who don't want to be found. Her textures, layered and complex, distract my pursuers, while the sing-song language of her people charm them, as they charm me. This is a place of the moment and of the ancient past. Aside from a late burst of fascist renovations, history seems to have stopped centuries ago. The near past, thank God, has no place here, and to consider the future seems inappropriate, if not irrelevant. Even still, from time to time, the near past finds a place and the pursuer meets the pursued.

I'm a little ashamed, but it's when my memories catch up to me--as they have in this moment--that I turn my thoughts to Gia and think to take refuge in a well-preserved past. Our relationship is remote, and normally I think of it only occasionally. But Gia tends to our old bond with an unthinkable tenderness. At times it seems beautiful for I'm not entirely immune to its charms, other times tragic. Right now, however, the possibility of some small resurrection seems the perfect way to take the edge off my anxiety, to quell the pangs of addiction.

It's midnight at the Piazza Navona. The crowds have thinned, yet here seem to be more lovers wandering, leaning into embraces. The packs of Italian boys have left to follow tender prey to the disco in the moonshadow of the Pantheon. The older men linger along the perimeter of a huge Bernini fountain, sitting, standing, dark eyes--lazy or bored, yet aware--cutting through the semi-darkness to see the most subtle gestures of a woman adjusting the seam of a stocking on the other side of the piazza, older Italian men, white shirts, dark pants--never shorts--and cigarettes, always cigarettes. I sit on a rail in front of the mingling stone figures in the center of the piazza and my eye wanders up to the moon, nearly ripe, flirting with the top of a Baroque church. I feel weak. They are upon me--a rush of memories. Carmen waking in the morning, still curled, an ivory ball on dark sheets. I ache for a distraction.

"Pronto?"

"Gia? Hey, it's me. I'm here...."

Gia's sister has a flat in Rome, and I call her to talk about spending a weekend together there. Even though she's soon to be married to her Venetian fiancé, there is, to her mind, always a place for me. "How are you?" I'm casual, even a little flirtatious. But careful. She has a disturbing way of knowing. "So....?" At the other end of the line, her hand covers the receiver. Habit I guess--I'll understand only every twelfth word. Perhaps it's the tone and cadence she hopes to obscure, though it's obvious what the sounds mean, however muffled. She's assuring him, just as desperately as we assured each other, that all will be perfectly platonic-- "...ti amo, Gino, ti amo...." She's back. "I tried to tell heem, bot..." He isn't having it. She'll stay in Milano. I'm on my own.

•
It's been nice. In fact, the last few days had been relatively peaceful. Unfortunately, yesterday I came here to Florence. Florence is beautiful. Really. But Florence is a whore. She's abandoned herself to busloads of vulgar Germans in tight, short shorts. Germans whose harsh voice fractures the Italian song. She's sold out to the Americans and others whom she feels might give her more money were she painted with neon and ripe with fast food.

The streets of Florence are wide and ordered, and don't allow the kind of immediate intimacy that I had enjoyed with Rome. If I could walk twenty feet above the streets, above the neon, she might let me see her other side, allow me to get next to her. As it is, for the first time since I've come to Italy, I feel truly alone.

If you've ever been alone in another country, you know it can be a trial. Loneliness hovers just above solitude--two drops on the verge of becoming one. It's been two long days here in Florence. When I awoke yesterday, I stayed in bed, lonely, anxious, unable to move. I had no reason to move. The streets held no appeal. If my room had a hint of personality--or a television--I'd be in it all day today as well. Instead, today I walk.

I walk for miles. In and out of crowded, neon-windowed bars, among people I'm not talking to, among people I'm not eating with, tossing back cup after cup of cappuccino, turbo-charging my anxiety. And walking.

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