I cannot say why I chose to leave the cool interior of the Rome Center, to vanish among the camera-decked pilgrim hordes that are the only humans disparate enough to travel the streets in 109 degrees. Perhaps I craved another sip of the total alienation that one can only feel among the tourist throng of the international city. Or it may be that I had hoped to breakthrough the crowd just to see that there was an Italy on the other side which might not be so very different from the town where I grew up.
For one who grew and matured among the shaded cedar roots in the forest, the ponds swarming with tadpoles and dragonflies, the labyrinth of blind streets and graffiti strewn walls of Rome can feel inhospitable. Leaving the Campo de' Fiori I watched pack upon pack of khakied and handkerchief-bedecked tourists racing after the floating red flag in the crowd. Where are the stinging bees and the maggots that feed off of the tourist's sweat I wondered, remembering the poet's description of Limbo. If I had not known that Dante loved his city of Florence, I would be sure that he had modeled "Inferno" after the summer crowds of the large cities of Italy, the sea of flesh, undulating to allow horses to pass through, the steaming cobblestones after a short shower.
But there was no steam for it had not rained in many days. Drinking from one of Rome's many fountains I reflected on the ingenuity that synced flow of water to the flow of humans, and much later the flow of electricity. Rome is a city of flow, a million tubes linking reservoirs. I flowed through the smaller streets, moving quickly, just as a moving liquid's velocity increases when the diameter of its pipe decreases. In this way I flew through the Jewish Ghetto. There was much to see, but on this day I wished for speed above all else. Even as I walked, the lush fountains of inner courtyards passed silently, their gates open and beckoning.
In Rome humans flow, water flows, and for me as I traveled, ideas flowed. In this city images and objects are so bedecked in meaning as to be near collapse. Take the Pantheon which I could not see but I knew existed somewhere to the North, overgrown in a forest of buildings. It is a pagan temple and much of its structure has meaning in that. It is also a Christian church, and now a tourist destination, the weight of so many associations is overbearing.
As I walked down past the Forum, I drew near the Colosseum. Here the unnaturally red tourist foodcarts vended their four euro water bottles. Here gladiators with bright white t-shirts and cell phones, muscled like centaurs, harassed the oily bodies in damp Tommy Bahama shirts as they waded through the pools of asphalt that surround the Colosseum. One misses the quiet streets. In the center I saw rising above me the Colossus himself, that structure that has been the father and patron of so much pain and pleasure. At this navel, the dislocation of travel reaches its apex. I walked on to sling shot off its circumference climbing up a gentle slope. If it was the alienation of endless tourism that I wanted, this certainly filled me completely. The sun was now in the West and I begin to climb.
I entered the square of the Quirnale. Here there was a teasing breeze and for the first time since the journey's beginning, I found myself alone in an open space with only the melancholy and lost obelisk to see me and my shadow. Of its many wonders, the Piazza highlights and enhances shadows, spreading them out on the stones, black butcher-paper cut-outs. The air is lighter up here.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
The View from the Well (Creative Writing Assignment #18)
Note: Again, the quote below is purely the creation of the author.
“You must go forward. You cannot linger here. This place is a process. Down and rise again. Descend and ascend. This is the eternal and infinite recurrence.”
- Puteus Condus, “A Treatise on the Metaphysical Functions of Wells and Other Subterranean Shafts”
With some minor approximations one can deconstruct the well into two fundamental geometrical entities. The first is the cylinder, oriented such that the plane of its diameter is orthogonal to any line projected from the Earth’s center of mass.
I have come to the first opening onto the well shaft; it is only a few meters below the top. At this window the air is still thick and hot. It spills over the edges above, cascading down past me into the dim void. I cannot see this, but pushing my head out I can feel the heat spiraling and splashing in its descent. Above are the sounds of sparrows and I imagine them, their beaks open trying to expel the late-afternoon heat. I am still connected to the world here. When I look downward I see a million scintillating motes of Italian dust caught in the descending ray of light. Beyond is an indistinct pool. There is still a veil of unreality that separates me from it. I would not be surprised if suddenly the pool was revealed to be only an ingenious optical illusion. In the shaft the lines of the stones all lead downwards, drawing the eye to the watery vortex.
The second component is the set of double helix stairs that coil around the descending cylinder. Each helix makes six full rotations from the surface to the water. The stairs and cylindrical well shaft meet at windows.
The third opening and the light has changed. Or is it my eyes that have changed? This place is a process. Here the air is lighter; the summer humors that float above cannot weigh down this place. The warm tendrils of the sun snake their way down the stones to touch this point. I glance above and see that the sky has become deeper and clearer. The water below is an iridescent blue that mirrors the brilliant sky. These are two realities and I am in between them. Leaning against these cool stones, halfway between water and sky one can almost feel at ease. At this moment I could choose to return to the feverish Italian afternoon, or I could continue my descent toward the phosphorescent liquid that stares upward toward me, a pale eye. At this point nothing is certain. There is a freedom here where I can see simultaneously see into two worlds.
At the side of the shaft that extends into the Earth, the two helices meet on a bridge that bisects the diameter of the shaft and stands a meter above the water. Here, he who journeyed down may, without ever doubling back, ascend again to the world again.
I walk to the center of the brittle bridge that crosses the bottom of the well. The air has become thick again, but this time is saturated with the damp of ancient stone. This place is not cold. But it is absent of heat. The water below my feet is luminous, as if its purity itself was enough to give it light. It gladly reveals the sandy bottom several meters down. Looking up I see a sky purer than any other I have seen. I once believed that to see the ideal through the crude imperfections of reality I had to reach a point infinitely close to that entity. The cracked mirror when viewed closely enough reveals only endless repetition of the elegant and incorruptible atom. Looking up at the sky now though, I wonder if the opposite might be true as well. Perhaps one can also use complete isolation to see through to the perfection in everything. Here at the bottom the lines of the stone all lead upwards. I must go forward. I cannot linger here.
“You must go forward. You cannot linger here. This place is a process. Down and rise again. Descend and ascend. This is the eternal and infinite recurrence.”
- Puteus Condus, “A Treatise on the Metaphysical Functions of Wells and Other Subterranean Shafts”
With some minor approximations one can deconstruct the well into two fundamental geometrical entities. The first is the cylinder, oriented such that the plane of its diameter is orthogonal to any line projected from the Earth’s center of mass.
I have come to the first opening onto the well shaft; it is only a few meters below the top. At this window the air is still thick and hot. It spills over the edges above, cascading down past me into the dim void. I cannot see this, but pushing my head out I can feel the heat spiraling and splashing in its descent. Above are the sounds of sparrows and I imagine them, their beaks open trying to expel the late-afternoon heat. I am still connected to the world here. When I look downward I see a million scintillating motes of Italian dust caught in the descending ray of light. Beyond is an indistinct pool. There is still a veil of unreality that separates me from it. I would not be surprised if suddenly the pool was revealed to be only an ingenious optical illusion. In the shaft the lines of the stones all lead downwards, drawing the eye to the watery vortex.
The second component is the set of double helix stairs that coil around the descending cylinder. Each helix makes six full rotations from the surface to the water. The stairs and cylindrical well shaft meet at windows.
The third opening and the light has changed. Or is it my eyes that have changed? This place is a process. Here the air is lighter; the summer humors that float above cannot weigh down this place. The warm tendrils of the sun snake their way down the stones to touch this point. I glance above and see that the sky has become deeper and clearer. The water below is an iridescent blue that mirrors the brilliant sky. These are two realities and I am in between them. Leaning against these cool stones, halfway between water and sky one can almost feel at ease. At this moment I could choose to return to the feverish Italian afternoon, or I could continue my descent toward the phosphorescent liquid that stares upward toward me, a pale eye. At this point nothing is certain. There is a freedom here where I can see simultaneously see into two worlds.
At the side of the shaft that extends into the Earth, the two helices meet on a bridge that bisects the diameter of the shaft and stands a meter above the water. Here, he who journeyed down may, without ever doubling back, ascend again to the world again.
I walk to the center of the brittle bridge that crosses the bottom of the well. The air has become thick again, but this time is saturated with the damp of ancient stone. This place is not cold. But it is absent of heat. The water below my feet is luminous, as if its purity itself was enough to give it light. It gladly reveals the sandy bottom several meters down. Looking up I see a sky purer than any other I have seen. I once believed that to see the ideal through the crude imperfections of reality I had to reach a point infinitely close to that entity. The cracked mirror when viewed closely enough reveals only endless repetition of the elegant and incorruptible atom. Looking up at the sky now though, I wonder if the opposite might be true as well. Perhaps one can also use complete isolation to see through to the perfection in everything. Here at the bottom the lines of the stone all lead upwards. I must go forward. I cannot linger here.
The Discomfort of Pilgrimages (Creative Writing Assignment #23)
Note: The following quotes are all the creation of the author, and do not actually refer to any real document.
“It is said that after seven years of trials St. Abbo reached the foot of the mountain upon which Yehsalva the Elder had been crucified. Before he ascended, he knelt to give prayer and thank God for his safe passage. As he bent forward an asp emerged from a hollow in the earth and struck him in his ankle. Lying prostrate on the ground, St. Abbo was visited by an angel of the LORD who offered to give him the strength to climb the mountain and finish his pilgrimage.
“’This final trial is far too simple’, he replied. ‘My pilgrimage was to this asp. It was for him and every previous calamity that I first ventured forth. You of all should know that it was from the foot of this mountain that I began.’”
- Tykelmenos of Crete
The Book of One Thousand Steps
I am in the Basilica of St. Peter’s. Above me gold crowds the opulent vault, trailing down the pillars toward the voluminous eyes of the pilgrims and tourists. I watch them come around the corner and through the door. Their cameras are already blazing like automatic rifles. This is one of the world’s navels of spirituality and yet I feel a bitter anger when I am elbowed in the small of my back by an old woman with furiously red lipstick, or when the German tour guide leads her duckling tourists to the exact spot I have fought so hard to maintain. The ridiculousness of my anger provokes me to even greater anger. “Not now, not here,” I plead with myself.
A pilgrim is a person who battles against his own wrath. He lures it out with the trials of the journey, then he slays it.
* * *
“Let misfortune be as a friend to you. Through misfortune a pilgrimage is born.”
- Askinof Jerimiahikov
“Following the Saints: A Guide to the Perplexed”
As the train drew into the station we looked up from books and sleep to see that the clouds, our constants companions, had finally made good upon their promise. Even now the tree branches were sagging under the weight of the rain. We looked at each other: the bare arms and legs, progeny of the Italian sun. No one had anything besides a light cardigan. Tentatively hands reached for bags. With a gasp the doors opened and the smell of wet leaves gushed in. We stood watching droplets cascading down the doorframe.
A voice behind said sarcastically, “Well, at least we will remember this”.
The pilgrim is a person who remembers through discomfort.
* * *
“When the Metropolitan of Novgorod toured Rezin he was shown a man who proclaimed himself to be a hermit. The Metropolitan looked upon the man and spoke.
“’But brother, a hermit lives apart from humanity in the wilderness. You live in a mighty city.’
“’ Yet is there any other place that can cause greater loneliness than the mighty city?”’
- Grom the Scribbler
Chronicles of the Metropolitans
It is Notte Bianca and I cannot move. One arm is tightly pressed against my stomach, the other is held up in a contortion that I never thought my tendons capable of. I stand on the stairs to the Capitoline Hill. What I am waiting for in this line I do not know. I cannot ever remember being so close to so many people. The man next to me is smoking a cigarette, but I might as well have been smoking it since our faces were only inches apart. I have never been so close to so many people, but I have also never felt loneliness like this. Here in this crowd among the dozen languages that are being spoken I cannot understand anything, here among all these people who have never seen me and will never see me again.
The pilgrim is a person who is isolated when others surround him. The pilgrim is most alone when he is with his own kind.
* * *
“We spent the night under a bridge to escape the rain. Near dawn we awoke to find the swollen river rushing past our legs. I had never before felt such fear. Why didn’t I have Adel teach me how to swim?”
- John of Salingary
The Search for Telimare
When we exited the bus my throat was raw, my cold was gaining ground inside of me. I searched the exterior of the silent city for a fountain. Soon my search was rewarded when coming around a corner I heard the gurgle of water greeting water, that jovial conversation that so many of the fountains in Rome celebrate. Bracing one of my hands against the side of the fountain I leaned forward and allowed the water to flow through my mouth. The tendrils of cold wove their way into my skull and face. I then drank greedily. After I was finished one of my companions pointed to a sign beside the fountain. “Non potable. Do not drink water!”
In a silent city,
Water is laughing constantly,
It has a secret
The pilgrim is someone who chooses poorly. A pilgrimage follows the wrong answers and ends at the correct one.
“It is said that after seven years of trials St. Abbo reached the foot of the mountain upon which Yehsalva the Elder had been crucified. Before he ascended, he knelt to give prayer and thank God for his safe passage. As he bent forward an asp emerged from a hollow in the earth and struck him in his ankle. Lying prostrate on the ground, St. Abbo was visited by an angel of the LORD who offered to give him the strength to climb the mountain and finish his pilgrimage.
“’This final trial is far too simple’, he replied. ‘My pilgrimage was to this asp. It was for him and every previous calamity that I first ventured forth. You of all should know that it was from the foot of this mountain that I began.’”
- Tykelmenos of Crete
The Book of One Thousand Steps
I am in the Basilica of St. Peter’s. Above me gold crowds the opulent vault, trailing down the pillars toward the voluminous eyes of the pilgrims and tourists. I watch them come around the corner and through the door. Their cameras are already blazing like automatic rifles. This is one of the world’s navels of spirituality and yet I feel a bitter anger when I am elbowed in the small of my back by an old woman with furiously red lipstick, or when the German tour guide leads her duckling tourists to the exact spot I have fought so hard to maintain. The ridiculousness of my anger provokes me to even greater anger. “Not now, not here,” I plead with myself.
A pilgrim is a person who battles against his own wrath. He lures it out with the trials of the journey, then he slays it.
* * *
“Let misfortune be as a friend to you. Through misfortune a pilgrimage is born.”
- Askinof Jerimiahikov
“Following the Saints: A Guide to the Perplexed”
As the train drew into the station we looked up from books and sleep to see that the clouds, our constants companions, had finally made good upon their promise. Even now the tree branches were sagging under the weight of the rain. We looked at each other: the bare arms and legs, progeny of the Italian sun. No one had anything besides a light cardigan. Tentatively hands reached for bags. With a gasp the doors opened and the smell of wet leaves gushed in. We stood watching droplets cascading down the doorframe.
A voice behind said sarcastically, “Well, at least we will remember this”.
The pilgrim is a person who remembers through discomfort.
* * *
“When the Metropolitan of Novgorod toured Rezin he was shown a man who proclaimed himself to be a hermit. The Metropolitan looked upon the man and spoke.
“’But brother, a hermit lives apart from humanity in the wilderness. You live in a mighty city.’
“’ Yet is there any other place that can cause greater loneliness than the mighty city?”’
- Grom the Scribbler
Chronicles of the Metropolitans
It is Notte Bianca and I cannot move. One arm is tightly pressed against my stomach, the other is held up in a contortion that I never thought my tendons capable of. I stand on the stairs to the Capitoline Hill. What I am waiting for in this line I do not know. I cannot ever remember being so close to so many people. The man next to me is smoking a cigarette, but I might as well have been smoking it since our faces were only inches apart. I have never been so close to so many people, but I have also never felt loneliness like this. Here in this crowd among the dozen languages that are being spoken I cannot understand anything, here among all these people who have never seen me and will never see me again.
The pilgrim is a person who is isolated when others surround him. The pilgrim is most alone when he is with his own kind.
* * *
“We spent the night under a bridge to escape the rain. Near dawn we awoke to find the swollen river rushing past our legs. I had never before felt such fear. Why didn’t I have Adel teach me how to swim?”
- John of Salingary
The Search for Telimare
When we exited the bus my throat was raw, my cold was gaining ground inside of me. I searched the exterior of the silent city for a fountain. Soon my search was rewarded when coming around a corner I heard the gurgle of water greeting water, that jovial conversation that so many of the fountains in Rome celebrate. Bracing one of my hands against the side of the fountain I leaned forward and allowed the water to flow through my mouth. The tendrils of cold wove their way into my skull and face. I then drank greedily. After I was finished one of my companions pointed to a sign beside the fountain. “Non potable. Do not drink water!”
In a silent city,
Water is laughing constantly,
It has a secret
The pilgrim is someone who chooses poorly. A pilgrimage follows the wrong answers and ends at the correct one.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
A History of Trouble (Creative Writing Assignment #20)
At times it is difficult for me to travel. You might read this and draw images of a figure of a fragile disposition, a lethargic nature, or an anxious temper. Do I fear airplanes, pickpockets, terrorists, or the horrific countenance that might constitute foreign cuisine? It is altogether less interesting than that, though perhaps you will still fail to believe me. It is this quandary that has led me to finally claim my word as PARALLEL.
When traveling, especially in Rome, you can see all sorts of people. There are the hordes of red-faced, animatronic tourists, trudging mindlessly forward, dominated by their headsets. Moving among these is that class of people that sustains itself through the generous tourist. The hawkish vendors of knock-off purses, the ubiquitous statue men in their latest unpersuasive wrapping of sheets be it a gold painted Tutankhamen or a spray painted Roman orator, and of course the many beggars of all imaginable forms. One can even sometimes spot the endangered species, the Roman. So many people. And with this phantasmagoria of faces and bodies, within this cacophony of clucking, whining, barking, grunting, sighing, and screaming, there are weaving around me so many stories. There are probably more stories, memories, and impressions walking about St. Peter’s on a Saturday afternoon than could fill the Vatican library.
This overwhelms and troubles me. I walk through the Camp di Fiori and pass a man selling flashing heart pins. Did he know that he would one day be doing this? Does he sit late at night, counting his earnings and think back to the first time he learned to swim in that now remote amber river? Do his sore legs again remember the sensation of being able to thrash about, free for once of soil and stone? What of the silent Japanese woman that sits alone in the Pantheon early on a Thursday morning. Why has she come to Rome? When did she first leave the city that she was born in? Does she remember the excitement at seeing the ocean for the first time, the horizon so keen that your eyes might slip over the edge? I can never know these things.
So my word is more a hope than a reality. I hope that all these lives actually run PARALLEL. That by living my life, I have in some way lived the lives of all this flesh that swarms through the streets of Rome. It is a selfish hope. Like the man who burns a book simply because he knows that he is incapable of finishing it. But what an ease it would be on the traveler. To be able to walk down a dim street in Trastevere, see an old man sitting without a shirt, mending a dilapidated bicycle and be able to confidently think, “What an interesting sight, but I know that what this man has felt I have felt as well. His life has just been a variation upon mine just as mine has been a variation upon that of the gaudy woman that is walking toward me”.
PARALLEL. Probably just an illusion. Nevertheless I continue to meander on through Rome, passing countless eyes, but perhaps only one continuous story.
When traveling, especially in Rome, you can see all sorts of people. There are the hordes of red-faced, animatronic tourists, trudging mindlessly forward, dominated by their headsets. Moving among these is that class of people that sustains itself through the generous tourist. The hawkish vendors of knock-off purses, the ubiquitous statue men in their latest unpersuasive wrapping of sheets be it a gold painted Tutankhamen or a spray painted Roman orator, and of course the many beggars of all imaginable forms. One can even sometimes spot the endangered species, the Roman. So many people. And with this phantasmagoria of faces and bodies, within this cacophony of clucking, whining, barking, grunting, sighing, and screaming, there are weaving around me so many stories. There are probably more stories, memories, and impressions walking about St. Peter’s on a Saturday afternoon than could fill the Vatican library.
This overwhelms and troubles me. I walk through the Camp di Fiori and pass a man selling flashing heart pins. Did he know that he would one day be doing this? Does he sit late at night, counting his earnings and think back to the first time he learned to swim in that now remote amber river? Do his sore legs again remember the sensation of being able to thrash about, free for once of soil and stone? What of the silent Japanese woman that sits alone in the Pantheon early on a Thursday morning. Why has she come to Rome? When did she first leave the city that she was born in? Does she remember the excitement at seeing the ocean for the first time, the horizon so keen that your eyes might slip over the edge? I can never know these things.
So my word is more a hope than a reality. I hope that all these lives actually run PARALLEL. That by living my life, I have in some way lived the lives of all this flesh that swarms through the streets of Rome. It is a selfish hope. Like the man who burns a book simply because he knows that he is incapable of finishing it. But what an ease it would be on the traveler. To be able to walk down a dim street in Trastevere, see an old man sitting without a shirt, mending a dilapidated bicycle and be able to confidently think, “What an interesting sight, but I know that what this man has felt I have felt as well. His life has just been a variation upon mine just as mine has been a variation upon that of the gaudy woman that is walking toward me”.
PARALLEL. Probably just an illusion. Nevertheless I continue to meander on through Rome, passing countless eyes, but perhaps only one continuous story.
The Pantheon in Four Colors (Creative Writing Assignment #10)
8:37 am
Eleven. This was the number of people that stood in the Pantheon. They orbited, sliding about the circumference. The vast floor remained empty. A janitor stood trying to tell a joke to a Japanese woman who had been sitting alone on a bench. A young couple meandered along, pointing and whispering to each other. These individual personalities will be absorbed and obliterated in the swell of photomongers when noon arrives.
The Pantheon was at its most powerful then. I could hear each of my steps ricocheting off the walls to eventually pass up through the oculus and outward into the Roman morning. Without the crowds and noise, the dome seemed to recede upwards as if the weight of all those pounding shoes during the afternoon had been holding it down. As I looked up at the dome I saw that the shading on the coffering gave the impression that the oculus was growing. That the dome was dilating to allow the sun in. I imagined the immense Pantheon as a flower, the oculus opening in the morning with the first rays of the sun.
In the morning I believed that I was in a Christian church. The crosses, the wooden carving of a crucified Christ, the frescos of the Annunciation, they were all visible. A narrow beam of light had only recently begun to crawl down the coffering, but the sacred language of church was already visible.
A pigeon suddenly darted above my head, soaring upward to a niche at the base of the dome. I saw this as a particularly Roman omen to leave.
The color that dominated the Pantheon in the morning was yellow.
2:10 pm
In the afternoon the Pantheon is a dark place. As I cross the threshold I have a fleeting fear that the darkness will not recede, that the Pantheon has been transformed into another dim cave, cloaking its exquisite vastness in obscurity. But then I see the sun-stain that terminates that vast and yet ethereal pillar of light. Through this column a million dust motes, citizens of Rome school, climbing hot currents upward. It seems like it might be made of some other medium than atmosphere. That one might be able to swim upward through the thick sunlight. The dust motes become tiny bubbles.
The hordes have come and now their cameras blaze. Are they afraid that their memories are weaker than their external hardrives? In the blurry confusion of echoes I cannot hear my footsteps any longer. Somewhere in the dim crowd a child is testing the strength of his shrill voice. That echo I do hear.
In the afternoon I believe that I am in a pagan temple. The same light that illuminated a circle of stone has seemed to suck the light out of the rest of the Pantheon. The Christian symbols have been veiled in shadows. The gloom the golden altar wall has turned to the color of urine. The wooden Christ that had previously drawn my attention now has taken on a new meaning with the change of light. Shadows have slid down from the arch above him enshrouding his bent head. He has gone from triumphant victory to forgotten martyr. Jupiter has taken the day shift.
The color that dominates the Pantheon in the afternoon is purple, like the dried blood of the sacrifices that once happened here.
7:17 pm
It will be the first time during the day that the Pantheon seems just as bright inside as the sky is outside. Soft, yellow lights will be switched on above the niches. The dome will be dark now except for a faint ring of light around the oculus. The tourists will be beginning to thin, they will move faster, shuffling in, pointing their weapons, snapping, and then shuffling out again. I will look to the coffering and see that opposed to this morning it will look as if the dome is contracting, as if the oculus is shrinking. The flower will close for the night.
With the help of the luminous bulbs, Christianity will take back the Pantheon. The wooden Christ again hangs triumphant, gloriously enthroned in artificial illumination. I will be able to see his bent head and know his sacrifice. The gold of the altar wall will shimmer again as I walk from one side to the other.
The colors that will dominate the Pantheon in the evening are blue and gold.
Eleven. This was the number of people that stood in the Pantheon. They orbited, sliding about the circumference. The vast floor remained empty. A janitor stood trying to tell a joke to a Japanese woman who had been sitting alone on a bench. A young couple meandered along, pointing and whispering to each other. These individual personalities will be absorbed and obliterated in the swell of photomongers when noon arrives.
The Pantheon was at its most powerful then. I could hear each of my steps ricocheting off the walls to eventually pass up through the oculus and outward into the Roman morning. Without the crowds and noise, the dome seemed to recede upwards as if the weight of all those pounding shoes during the afternoon had been holding it down. As I looked up at the dome I saw that the shading on the coffering gave the impression that the oculus was growing. That the dome was dilating to allow the sun in. I imagined the immense Pantheon as a flower, the oculus opening in the morning with the first rays of the sun.
In the morning I believed that I was in a Christian church. The crosses, the wooden carving of a crucified Christ, the frescos of the Annunciation, they were all visible. A narrow beam of light had only recently begun to crawl down the coffering, but the sacred language of church was already visible.
A pigeon suddenly darted above my head, soaring upward to a niche at the base of the dome. I saw this as a particularly Roman omen to leave.
The color that dominated the Pantheon in the morning was yellow.
2:10 pm
In the afternoon the Pantheon is a dark place. As I cross the threshold I have a fleeting fear that the darkness will not recede, that the Pantheon has been transformed into another dim cave, cloaking its exquisite vastness in obscurity. But then I see the sun-stain that terminates that vast and yet ethereal pillar of light. Through this column a million dust motes, citizens of Rome school, climbing hot currents upward. It seems like it might be made of some other medium than atmosphere. That one might be able to swim upward through the thick sunlight. The dust motes become tiny bubbles.
The hordes have come and now their cameras blaze. Are they afraid that their memories are weaker than their external hardrives? In the blurry confusion of echoes I cannot hear my footsteps any longer. Somewhere in the dim crowd a child is testing the strength of his shrill voice. That echo I do hear.
In the afternoon I believe that I am in a pagan temple. The same light that illuminated a circle of stone has seemed to suck the light out of the rest of the Pantheon. The Christian symbols have been veiled in shadows. The gloom the golden altar wall has turned to the color of urine. The wooden Christ that had previously drawn my attention now has taken on a new meaning with the change of light. Shadows have slid down from the arch above him enshrouding his bent head. He has gone from triumphant victory to forgotten martyr. Jupiter has taken the day shift.
The color that dominates the Pantheon in the afternoon is purple, like the dried blood of the sacrifices that once happened here.
7:17 pm
It will be the first time during the day that the Pantheon seems just as bright inside as the sky is outside. Soft, yellow lights will be switched on above the niches. The dome will be dark now except for a faint ring of light around the oculus. The tourists will be beginning to thin, they will move faster, shuffling in, pointing their weapons, snapping, and then shuffling out again. I will look to the coffering and see that opposed to this morning it will look as if the dome is contracting, as if the oculus is shrinking. The flower will close for the night.
With the help of the luminous bulbs, Christianity will take back the Pantheon. The wooden Christ again hangs triumphant, gloriously enthroned in artificial illumination. I will be able to see his bent head and know his sacrifice. The gold of the altar wall will shimmer again as I walk from one side to the other.
The colors that will dominate the Pantheon in the evening are blue and gold.
A Journey into the Crypt of S. Maria Concezione (Creative Writing Assignment #4)
Emerging from the threshold we are again in Rome. Cars and buses slide past in the mild morning air. Down on the steps below a gypsy woman with a sleeping infant begs for coins. A group of muttering tourists pick their way along the sidewalk. These are the objects of every Roman day, they are comforting in their ubiquity. But the paint has begun to flake on the images before us, just as it has from the massive green doors that stand as sentinels on so many Roman streets. Already looking at the gypsy woman we can see something that we had not noticed before. Below the skin, beyond in time. Our eyes will not show us this future, this continuity. But after the crypt we know that the eyes hide and distort a great deal.
Hallucination differs from other types of vision in that it is necessarily a product of the mind. It is a trick that one plays upon oneself unconsciously. In the crypt of Santa Maria della Concezione there are no hallucinations. Could our minds have dreamt up these contortions of the senses? Like the vertebrae that swirl about its ceiling, this place has a way of twisting around and through every expectation. We walk forward and back while chandeliers of tailbones hover above our heads. We observe the piles of femur bones stacked meticulously. On the walls ribs sprout into blotched ivory flowers, walls of skulls play with the light to create delicate patterns. The dried monks continue to penitently pray as they have for so many years now, their brittle-skinned hands wired tightly together.
Here there are no hallucinations for there are only two elements whose existence is undeniable: death and beauty. This space is a crypt but it might also be a temple to the two essential qualities of life. The medieval mind would have approved of this place. We may try to believe that these countless fragments of so many humans are only a hallucination, but what they say to us cannot be called hallucination for both will eventually assert themselves onto us. When we see the frail skeleton of the Princess, holding her bone hourglass, we see a matrix of calcium deposits, but we also see through to death and beauty.
The monks who made this place made it as a “memory palace” of the simplest sort. There are only two memories that this subterranean complex preserves. They are present in the tailbones that weave their way across the ceiling, in the distorted and hollow faces of men who knew that eventually they would contribute the fabric of their existence to creating a memory for someone else. Here we are, surrounded by the dead, imposed on by the dead.
This place cannot be left to words. The word “human bone” is so common and the experience so rare that the word and object no longer mean the same thing. We read “bone” and picture a Halloween decoration, we see a cross formed from finger bones and we experience something very different. The monks must have known this, known that when we left the crypt, we would be able to see, if only for a short time, the death and beauty in the outside world.
Leaving the crypt feels like returning to a hallucination. The gypsy woman’s infant has woken and is crying. The cars and buses slide past, dragging with them the cares of the day. Yet if we are careful we may be able to sway to one side of this mixture of hallucination and reality, to see what the medieval mind could have seen, to see what it already knew existed beyond the sight of our everyday eyes.
Hallucination differs from other types of vision in that it is necessarily a product of the mind. It is a trick that one plays upon oneself unconsciously. In the crypt of Santa Maria della Concezione there are no hallucinations. Could our minds have dreamt up these contortions of the senses? Like the vertebrae that swirl about its ceiling, this place has a way of twisting around and through every expectation. We walk forward and back while chandeliers of tailbones hover above our heads. We observe the piles of femur bones stacked meticulously. On the walls ribs sprout into blotched ivory flowers, walls of skulls play with the light to create delicate patterns. The dried monks continue to penitently pray as they have for so many years now, their brittle-skinned hands wired tightly together.
Here there are no hallucinations for there are only two elements whose existence is undeniable: death and beauty. This space is a crypt but it might also be a temple to the two essential qualities of life. The medieval mind would have approved of this place. We may try to believe that these countless fragments of so many humans are only a hallucination, but what they say to us cannot be called hallucination for both will eventually assert themselves onto us. When we see the frail skeleton of the Princess, holding her bone hourglass, we see a matrix of calcium deposits, but we also see through to death and beauty.
The monks who made this place made it as a “memory palace” of the simplest sort. There are only two memories that this subterranean complex preserves. They are present in the tailbones that weave their way across the ceiling, in the distorted and hollow faces of men who knew that eventually they would contribute the fabric of their existence to creating a memory for someone else. Here we are, surrounded by the dead, imposed on by the dead.
This place cannot be left to words. The word “human bone” is so common and the experience so rare that the word and object no longer mean the same thing. We read “bone” and picture a Halloween decoration, we see a cross formed from finger bones and we experience something very different. The monks must have known this, known that when we left the crypt, we would be able to see, if only for a short time, the death and beauty in the outside world.
Leaving the crypt feels like returning to a hallucination. The gypsy woman’s infant has woken and is crying. The cars and buses slide past, dragging with them the cares of the day. Yet if we are careful we may be able to sway to one side of this mixture of hallucination and reality, to see what the medieval mind could have seen, to see what it already knew existed beyond the sight of our everyday eyes.
Light, Movement, and the Story in a Statue (Creative Writing Assignment #17)
Pauline Bonaparte reclines on her mattress, a cloth is loosely wrapped about her waist. In one hand she delicately holds an apple, suspended in front of her shapely thighs. Her other hand rests in her hair. This arm does not show enough strain to be truly holding her head; it is merely a pose. Her face supports this sense of confidence. Her eyes wander off beyond us. She feigns disinterested in her observers. But the viewer knows that vainly she wishes for them to look upon her exposed form. However, in the morning light the sculpture is bare, there is an overabundance of smooth marble. Her form lacks the shadows and crevices that animate other sculptures. One wanders on in the museum, craving the energy of something different. The story here is too simple. One almost feels sorry for this sculpture that seems proud without reason. How would a mere candle change the work?
In the light of the candle that sits before her stomach, Pauline’s form takes on new shapes. Shadows intensify the voluptuousness of her supple breasts. The apple gleams, the candlelight being intensified into a single point that draws us toward the bed. She is now a temptation. Looking at her body one notices how the light has accentuated the wrinkles on the mattress caused by her fleshy, corporeal body. But it is when one returns to Pauline’s face that the story begins. The viewer realizes that they are watching Pauline as she waits for Camillo. She plays with her apple idly, dipping it toward the open flame. Gazing beyond us out the cracked door she listens for the sounds of foots on the steps. She does not look toward the viewer, but it is no longer out of pride. She has forgotten that she is being watched. This has become a private view in an intimate night setting. The viewer has been transformed into the voyeur and is hidden in the darkness.
A breeze catches the flame, scattering the shadows on Pauline’s body and giving the illusion of motion. Has a door been opened somewhere? She appears to have shifted her weight in expectation, trying to catch the sound. Perhaps she has heard the clip of boots on marble or the echo of a servant’s voice, welcoming the returning master. The sculpture has grown in complexity. The viewer now must hesitate before moving on.
In another room, out of the candlelight stands Bernini’s David. The viewer approaches it from behind and immediately and without any change of light we are drawn into a story. This story begins, as many do, with a question. What is this figure doing? We see him bent over some task. The muscles of his back seem taut. His skeleton is visible, stretching the marble as if beneath it there were smooth titanium vertebrae and ribs. Splaying his legs we can tell that he is preparing himself for some change in momentum. A sudden action is imminent.
As the viewer walks around the statue clockwise the story progresses. The viewer sees that David holds some sort of stone with rope wrapped around it. As his left arm becomes visible, it reveals enlarged veins. The gleam of marble here becomes the gleam of perspiration. The profile of a rutty face appears, but this is no surprise for it seems an inevitable outgrowth of the tense, straining body. Armor and a harp have fallen to his feet. This must mark a final commitment to his present action. Now the viewer is determined to see what David has been preparing.
Finally the device’s purpose is revealed, it is a slingshot. With the observer’s final rotation, David’s body begins to shift its weight. He is in the act of winding the up for a triumphant fling. The climax arrives when the face becomes fully visible. Now David bites his lips with the strain of the slingshot. All energy is now directed into his arms. And then it ends. There is no conclusion.
In the light of the candle that sits before her stomach, Pauline’s form takes on new shapes. Shadows intensify the voluptuousness of her supple breasts. The apple gleams, the candlelight being intensified into a single point that draws us toward the bed. She is now a temptation. Looking at her body one notices how the light has accentuated the wrinkles on the mattress caused by her fleshy, corporeal body. But it is when one returns to Pauline’s face that the story begins. The viewer realizes that they are watching Pauline as she waits for Camillo. She plays with her apple idly, dipping it toward the open flame. Gazing beyond us out the cracked door she listens for the sounds of foots on the steps. She does not look toward the viewer, but it is no longer out of pride. She has forgotten that she is being watched. This has become a private view in an intimate night setting. The viewer has been transformed into the voyeur and is hidden in the darkness.
A breeze catches the flame, scattering the shadows on Pauline’s body and giving the illusion of motion. Has a door been opened somewhere? She appears to have shifted her weight in expectation, trying to catch the sound. Perhaps she has heard the clip of boots on marble or the echo of a servant’s voice, welcoming the returning master. The sculpture has grown in complexity. The viewer now must hesitate before moving on.
In another room, out of the candlelight stands Bernini’s David. The viewer approaches it from behind and immediately and without any change of light we are drawn into a story. This story begins, as many do, with a question. What is this figure doing? We see him bent over some task. The muscles of his back seem taut. His skeleton is visible, stretching the marble as if beneath it there were smooth titanium vertebrae and ribs. Splaying his legs we can tell that he is preparing himself for some change in momentum. A sudden action is imminent.
As the viewer walks around the statue clockwise the story progresses. The viewer sees that David holds some sort of stone with rope wrapped around it. As his left arm becomes visible, it reveals enlarged veins. The gleam of marble here becomes the gleam of perspiration. The profile of a rutty face appears, but this is no surprise for it seems an inevitable outgrowth of the tense, straining body. Armor and a harp have fallen to his feet. This must mark a final commitment to his present action. Now the viewer is determined to see what David has been preparing.
Finally the device’s purpose is revealed, it is a slingshot. With the observer’s final rotation, David’s body begins to shift its weight. He is in the act of winding the up for a triumphant fling. The climax arrives when the face becomes fully visible. Now David bites his lips with the strain of the slingshot. All energy is now directed into his arms. And then it ends. There is no conclusion.
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