teresa_cutler
10-13-2006, 06:14 PM
Ciao a tutti!
I have been posting various things on this Forum for a few weeks now and I am enjoying the discussions and the many posts very much. I wanted to talk a bit about just why Italy is such a huge part of my life.
I discovered the Roman Empire in grade school, in my world history class. I slept with dreams of Julius Caesar, Marc Antony and others running through my head. I named my cat Minerva and my dog Juno. I could practically feel the rough stones of the Coliseum under my hands, and I ached to see the ruins of Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli, the dome of the Pantheon, the soaring ceilings of St. Peter's.
I was 38 years old before I actually got to Rome, and I remember the combination of fear and anticipation that filled me as I boarded the train from Leonardo da Vinci airport to Termini station. There, I changed trains and, still underground and still not seeing anything, got on the Metro that would take me to the stop by the Coliseum.
I was terrified that the city of Rome would be smaller than my 30 years of imaginings and dreams had made it. I was afraid that in my heart and mind, ROME was a magic place that would never be matched by reality, and that I would be devastated by the normalcy of it.
Then I stopped out of the Metro and stood in the shadow of the Coliseum. It was everything I had imagined, and more. I walked around it in a daze, my heart expanded, and I began to trust that Rome would never let me down.
I spent three weeks in the city, exploring every site I'd ever read about, and each time I walked around a corner, entered a building, crept through a doorway, walked on stones along 2000-year-old streets, I once again felt that magic I had dreamed of as a child.
Rome, and then Pompeii, and then Venice, and then Siena and Chianti... each place filled my heart anew, and I began to trust that Italy was exactly what it seemed to be -- everything.
I have been back three times and at the beginning of each trip I am trepidatious that this time Italy will not be as lustrous, will somehow be less than my memory and dreams tell me it is.
And each time I step out of a Metro station into the vibrancy and excitement and age-lessness and ancientness and modern-ness and endless motion of today's Rome, I once again realize that I have come home. It might not be the home of my ancestors, but it is the home of my heart.
Teresa
I have been posting various things on this Forum for a few weeks now and I am enjoying the discussions and the many posts very much. I wanted to talk a bit about just why Italy is such a huge part of my life.
I discovered the Roman Empire in grade school, in my world history class. I slept with dreams of Julius Caesar, Marc Antony and others running through my head. I named my cat Minerva and my dog Juno. I could practically feel the rough stones of the Coliseum under my hands, and I ached to see the ruins of Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli, the dome of the Pantheon, the soaring ceilings of St. Peter's.
I was 38 years old before I actually got to Rome, and I remember the combination of fear and anticipation that filled me as I boarded the train from Leonardo da Vinci airport to Termini station. There, I changed trains and, still underground and still not seeing anything, got on the Metro that would take me to the stop by the Coliseum.
I was terrified that the city of Rome would be smaller than my 30 years of imaginings and dreams had made it. I was afraid that in my heart and mind, ROME was a magic place that would never be matched by reality, and that I would be devastated by the normalcy of it.
Then I stopped out of the Metro and stood in the shadow of the Coliseum. It was everything I had imagined, and more. I walked around it in a daze, my heart expanded, and I began to trust that Rome would never let me down.
I spent three weeks in the city, exploring every site I'd ever read about, and each time I walked around a corner, entered a building, crept through a doorway, walked on stones along 2000-year-old streets, I once again felt that magic I had dreamed of as a child.
Rome, and then Pompeii, and then Venice, and then Siena and Chianti... each place filled my heart anew, and I began to trust that Italy was exactly what it seemed to be -- everything.
I have been back three times and at the beginning of each trip I am trepidatious that this time Italy will not be as lustrous, will somehow be less than my memory and dreams tell me it is.
And each time I step out of a Metro station into the vibrancy and excitement and age-lessness and ancientness and modern-ness and endless motion of today's Rome, I once again realize that I have come home. It might not be the home of my ancestors, but it is the home of my heart.
Teresa