incidents and accidents

Mere Ornithology.

A hospital story, not really about anyone but me.

Un ange par ci, un ange par là
Un diable aussi, quand tu es là.
Et rien ne va mieux qu'ici bas.

The day came when I lost phone privileges. It happened because of a phone call, and it's going to be hard to put this call into context. You see, I called my priest. I didn't want absolution. I didn't want Communion. I didn't have anything profoundly spiritual to say. I think - and this is hard to admit, and if I were feeling generous with myself I would also say it is far too simplistic - I wanted someone to yell at. Wanted that same someone to hear what lay behind the anger, that desperate longing to be forgiven, not as an abstract soul but as a human who had been a bad friend. That longing to be told I was worth his time, and God's time, in spite of it all, in spite of myself.

I would probably be a better writer - and more certain of my own healing - if I could take myself to the place I need to go to recreate what we said. But I can't replay this conversation. It was the worst thing that happened during the weeks I stayed in the hospital, including the sheer fact of being in the hospital. There were accusations on both sides and a great deal of shouting. He ended it, saying "I will pray for you," and it sounded like a spitting flame from a catapult, and I ended it back, with a venimous "Don't bother." Then we hung up on each other, and I sat shaking, staring at the heavy beige phone receiver. I don't know how long I sat there without moving. Somewhere between "moments" and "minutes." My skin felt cold all over. Sabrina was gone on a weekend permission and evening rounds wouldn't start for another two hours. I went into the bathroom and locked the door.

I closed the toilet cover and sat on it. My hands shook as I opened my toiletry case and pulled out the safety razor. I knew what I was doing but black disgust and despair with myself welled up in my throat at the knowledge that I could do it again. I thought about the bleak night I'd been taken to the emergency room the first time, and then the bleaker night when I'd been taken in the second time. I thought about the skin that was still pink and sore at the edges of the new scar, a ribbon of tender seam that held my veins beneath the surface. I thought with brief wonder what it would be like to let the wound heal completely, and that thought blossomed into a violent flower of bereavement. I stared at the safety razor dumbly for a few seconds, then broke the slanted plastic hood, snapped the handle off, tore it apart into its elements. I used a corner of the hood for leverage. The blades, once freed, danced between my fingers. They knew they were home. I looked at my arm. The veins were a curious color of blue underneath the skin, somewhere between teal and slate.

A new scar separates more easily than a place with no scar at all. I drew a line, and red beads rose to adorn it. I drew the same line over and over until I had dug deep enough that the blade stood upright in the cut, level with the skin. I took the blade out, rinsed it carefully at the sink, tucked it back into my toiletry bag. Then I slid my facecloth under the bones of my wrist, closed my eyes and curled my fingers into a fist.

Across the hall Francisco played his new Isabelle Boulay CD. The last track was a melancholy love song of unbearable poignancy. There was something about it of wholeness in the midst of rubble, sweetness in the midst of the most dire passions. Violins subdued in a descant, simple piano chords inverted. A minor chord in a major cadence, the silhouette of a bird in a high wind. You knew it would fall, but it was too beautiful not to watch. And so you saw it happen, you couldn't close your eyes before. And somehow that made you ache, and made you guilty, and made you want to hear the song again and again : Francisco had it on repeat.

A while later, gluey carmine stained the thigh of my jeans, a dark viscous spill like a pool of nail varnish. I sighed and stood, knees watery, but otherwise curiously calm. I wrapped my facecloth around the wound and pulled my sleeve down, and stumbled down the hall to the nurse's station, wishing I could be invisible, porous. I gave the wall a dull kick with the side of one foot, remotely hoping my foot would disappear. It didn't work. It rarely does. I knew how to bandage a cut, even knew how to sew my own sutures, but I also knew better than to try to hide something like this from Our Nathalie or Our Daniel.

The only nurse at the station was Our Stéphanie, a fact that brought me to sudden stillness full of anxiety. Our Stéphanie had a sort of efficient brusqueness, a no-nonsense authority about her that clipped the wings of her words and gave her footsteps an extra snap when she strode down the sea-green Upstairs hall. She intimidated me and usually I didn't find anything to say in her presence. I would have turned around and gone back to my room but she had already seen me standing there, so I gave up and said "je suis désolée. J'ai fait une bêtise." And then I started crying, and slumped into a chair next to the nurses' desk and couldn't find my voice to explain myself when Our Stéphanie scolded me.

Madame Peters, you are no longer a child. This is not a "bêtise," this is an injury. What are you trying to accomplish by doing this here? What do you think we can do to help you if you treat us like this, if you treat yourself like this?

She said more. I didn't hear it. I threw up. Then, in shame and unfamiliar pain, I closed my eyes and leaned back. My lips felt numb, my consciousness heavy. Somewhere in the distance an angry voice buzzed. It seemed my universe was nothing but angry voices. And they were right, and I deserved all of them, but I didn't want to hear them anymore. I just didn't want to hear.

The world came into blurry focus when Our Stéphanie slapped my cheek. She held my left arm over my head, squeezing the tips of my fingers in a shamrock shape. I blinked at her until the haze around my peripheral vision faded. When she was sure I was fully aware she slapped me again. Then she said "Hold this arm here and don't move." She stabbed her legs across the room toward a cart with medical supplies, pulled out some gauze and alcohol pads and a roll of white medical tape, then came back and cleaned and dressed my cut, not gently. Then she said "Now we're going to have a look at your room," and propelled me down the hall. I shuffled along behind her, trying to keep up with the slap-slap-SLAP, slap-slap-SLAP of her angry nurse's shoes on the tile. She sat me on the bed and went through my things - opening the night-table drawer, my backpack pockets, all the pouches of my computer bag, my half of the closet, my clothes and the small stash of personal effects in my possession - and piled dangerous items on a chair next to the bed. Then she steered me into the bathroom and did the same with my toiletry kit and the drawer under the sink. In the pile of dangerous items : the Swiss Army knife I'd bought during a trip to Italy, my nail clippers, my metal nail file, a sewing kit from my backpack, a pillbox with a couple Xanax in it, my knitting needles, a safety pin that held my overalls together, and of course the razor blade and broken plastic handle from the bathroom. Our Stéphanie swept all of these things into an ecru plastic tray and promised me it would all be labelled and kept in the nurse's station for me. I could reclaim it when I left Jean Delay. "Le docteur vous en parlera à votre prochaine rendez-vous," she informed me. I was sure the doctor would talk about this the next time I saw him, but I had no energy to begin dreading it. And after all, I must have known these consequences waited on the other side of that safety razor's plastic hood. Our Stéphanie's gestures were swift with no wasted motion. She told me to notify a nurse when I wanted to shower ; one of them would accompany me. I didn't bother arguing. She asked if I wanted a Doliprane. Then she unplugged my phone and took it and the tray of my contraband away.

She left my room and the door swished closed behind her. It was the end of the afternoon, that time when light in a room gives the dark a more definite shape outside the window. I didn't bother turning on the light. I lay back on my bed and stared at the stained green-yellow ceiling, wishing I had tears to blink back. A moment later, I heard the door swish open again. "Rose-mah-REE," a voice whispered, "ça va?" No, it wasn't ok, but I didn't answer. The door swished closed again ; I heard its latch click slowly to. Across the hall, Francisco turned up his music for the space of a song, the perfect, awful love song he'd been playing earlier. Then he turned it off.

Comme tout est fait pour prendre l'eau
Les îles, les îles ont des bateaux.
Comme tout est fait pour faire des mots :
Je t'aime tant, je t'aime trop.

I started thinking about this incident today because I was making a mix for my friend Greg and decided I wanted him to hear an Isabelle Boulay song, and I scrolled through the tracks trying to decide. As soon as I heard the opening chords my mind flew - like one of Isabelle's prosaic birds hiding behind angel's wings - back to Jean Delay and the way the song sounded, muted, from behind Francisco's door and behind my own with the dusk-lit hallway in between. I've been wanting to talk about the music we all listened to for a while now, because I could make a soundtrack for those 9 weeks and it would be as varied and eclectic as the collection of people in the unit's 16 rooms. I thought about transcribing and translating the lyrics, and started trying to write a poetic version of them in English ("An angel here, an angel there ... I love you too, I love you so ... and everything is fine down here"), but the song has many nuances that require explanation. "Rien ne va mieux qu'ici bas" means "everything is fine down here on Earth," but it also means "nothing is better anywhere else." How do you fit all that into seven syllables? I closed the document, clicked "Do Not Save."

At about the same time, I was reading a blog I've been haunting the past few weeks, and noticed that he had updated his links and included my site in the category "Meat and Potatoes Catholic Blogs." I like being linked to, and it's rewarding to know that people whose sites I enjoy might also enjoy mine. (Big thanks! also to Brandon.) Sometimes it gives me pause : when I write, people actually come here and read. The thought makes me work harder at what I post. Occasionally, in the presence of fine writers whose skill and dedication and wit and finesse with language shames me, I feel very unworthy indeed. Sometimes I get overwhelmed by my own history and feel I don't belong among the good people of the Internets. My own blog-roll is pretty evenly divided between coastal (East or West) American liberals and that new American catch-phrase, "people of faith," some international, who tend toward conservative traditions. Most of them are Catholic. This balance means I read a lot of specifically differing points of view.

I do my own little Internet dance somewhere between those points. A few weeks ago I posted a conversation about language with my Italian friend, and one commenter mentioned that I had gone from the sublime to the ridiculous. It's true - I live my life on that tightrope. With a weighty set of bleak memories and soul-felt horror at all I have been capable of inflicting on myself and the people I love - and occasional swearing in foreign languages, and the mention of feminine hygiene products - well. Let's just say I have trouble classifying my blog as "Catholic." Using the word feels presumptuous, as if I'm ranking myself up there with people who have renounced worldly goods and concerns and given their entire beings over to the service of the Lord. And though I feel frequently (and more and more) drawn to just this sort of service, my life doesn't allow me to do more than tithe myself just now, and that's frustrating. I bring all these memories into the confessional with me, and up to the Communion rail, and line them up like disobedient children beside me on the kneeler. Sometimes it seems I have only my brokenness to carry into the sanctuary. An off-white plastic tray of forbidden household objects : some offering.

Et rien ne va mieux qu'ici bas,
et rien ne va mieux qu'ici bas.
Mieux qu'ici bas ... rassure-moi.

When I left the hospital I avoided my priest for a few weeks. Then, one Tuesday afternoon when I went in to the church early before Mass, he was the only priest there, kneeling by his confessional with his Breviary open before him. I stammered my way through my confession, awkward and shamed, and at the end he said the required formula, Dominus noster Jesus Christus te absolvat ... et ego te absolvo a peccatis tuis - Jesus Christ our Lord absolves you, ... and I absolve you of your sins. And I whispered "merci" through the grille, and he turned to look through it at me and said "Je prie pour vous tous les jours, tous. les. jours" (I pray for you every day, every. single. day.). The enormity of what he'd had to forgive, the generous acceptance of his love and friendship, in contrast to the limitations and smallness of my own, hit me all over again, and I bowed my head.

And when a stranger from across the blogosphere makes a gesture, shows such graciousness and kindness to my little broken things, the same kind of feeling hits me. Their very generosity can make me feel even more helpless. Like turning on a light in a dim room at dusk : the darkness encroaches. He can't have read enough of my blog to know what it is he's including. If he knew my whole story, he would never want me on his blogroll. This is how the thoughts go, and it takes every ounce of strength and compassion within me to stop following them down that weathered path. I know that path : it's lined with bright red beads, like the lights in a plane aisle that lead to the exit doors : and I am not going out that way again.

Years on, part of me still quivers when I hear Isabelle Boulay's song. The darkness of it sounds sweeter now, the melancholy contrasts more positive. "Since everything here is made to sink, the islands come equipped with boats" : a rough translation, a kind of poignant pragmatism. You have to see the magic, the beating wings in the air, but you also have to be ready to recognize mere ornithology in the place of angels. Years on, I'm finally beginning to understand that grace comes in many forms, some natural, some supernatural, all of them divine. They are all envoys from God : those that announce themselves as such and those that would resist the classification ; the swells of sublime and breathtaking wholeness, and the ridiculous bits of daily life fractured into a few more or less readable paragraphs. Sometimes the blessing is the annoyed efficiency of the person taping you together, largely against your will. Sometimes it's the kindness of a shy baker with a CD that breaks your heart. Sometimes it's the humiliation when you realize the person you've been yelling at has heard your deepest heart after all. Sometimes it comes when people you respect accept you as a whole, swear words, intimate wash, scars, contraband and all. When you realize there is beauty in everything, including the dim mirror along the side of a razor blade. Once you get there you don't need the emergency exit. And everything is fine down here on Earth. Nowhere is better than down here on Earth. Be reassured.

Lost (an Apologia of Objects).**

There are a few moments when you never ever want to see me, and one of those moments is when I'm really stressed. Especially if I also happen to be working on 3 hours of sleep. Aside from the fact that I may snap at you with totally inappropriate observations about the poor state of the world AND YOUR RESPONSIBILITY FOR IT, I also have a humiliating tendency toward distraction in the midst of desperation, and also vice-versa.* Not infrequently, the combination of all these things leads me to a kind of giddy laughter best described as "hysterical" and then, a few hours after I start laughing, to completely uncontrollable tears.

Last week I was scrabbling around my apartment at 4 am trying to leave for a conference in Kentucky, and I was very grateful to my own anal-retentive training that I had chosen all my clothes the night before and laid them out over a bookcase (for want of a chair, you understand). But I hadn't chosen earrings, and when you're presenting research at an internationally renowned conference you really want to have the right earrings. After all, clothes may very well make the man, but accessories make the wannabe female academic. So after I'd had a shower and dried my hair and put my computer into the carry-on and then decided not to take the computer because it is too heavy and requires an external keyboard as well so taken it out of the carry-on again and double- and triple-checked my slides and notes and transparencies, and ticked items off my do-NOT-forget-to-take-to-the-conference-you-distracted-amnesiac list (toothbrush, socks, umbrella, scarf ...), anyway AFTER all of that I opened my little stained-glass-patterned jewelry box and took out my favorite antiqued-gold earrings, the ones with the green stained-glass inlays.

The earrings have a somewhat bittersweet history. In 1994 I went out for a birthday dinner with my best friend and my then-boyfriend. After we'd eaten a pound of pasta each in Boston's North End, Lissie (the best friend) said "Time for presents!" and I grinned. I love presents. And I mean, really, who doesn't love presents? But then I realized, from certain mutterings and shifting gestures on his part, that Chris didn't have a present, and I felt both snubbed (for me) and awkward (for him). Lissie stared at him, and I couldn't look at him, so focused a too-wide smile on her instead.

It shames me to admit how big a part of me was hurt and petty about not getting a birthday present from my boyfriend. I took it very personally. This was our first year together and my first birthday with him. I come from a big birthday-celebrating family. My parents had bought, circa AD 1979, a bright red ceramic plate with white calligraphy around the edges that said "You Are Special Today," and that became part of our family tradition : on your birthday, you got the Special Plate. It was something of a shock to spend the Special day with a guy who could say "I have never been so much in love in my life" in one breath but look me up and down - as you might do with a creature from one of Jupiter's outer moons - in the next. It took me years, and many heartbreaking birthdays without presents, to realize that Chris was such a perfectionist that the very process of celebrating someone crippled him with anxiety. It took me time as well to understand that my own family's traditions, even born of love and generosity, put tremendous pressure on him. It has taken me even longer to come to a place of greater comprehension about gestures of love, and to stop needing things as proof. But that evening I was shocked and hurt, and yet protective. So when Lissie pulled out a small silver box I said "Noooo," as if the very idea of birthday presents were foreign to me. She looked at me strangely and said "Um, yeeesss," and I opened the box, and inside lay a pair of beautiful earrings with a dusky gold sheen to them, their glass centers the shape of teardrops a perfect shade of green, somewhere between bright emerald and mysterious glade.

That night I told Chris my feelings were hurt that he hadn't given me a present, or even a card. I thought it was important to be very honest with him about my hurt feelings and sense of disappointment. We fought until the wee hours, under our breath, the way you do when a couple is still sort of new and you're sharing a flat with a friend, and finally fell asleep from sheer emotional exhaustion, and when I woke up just after dawn I saw him looking at me strangely, and my stomach thudded in that peculiar doom-portent way it does when I've missed a flight or forgotten a meeting or screwed up an application or misfiled a student's record and it means horrible consequences that I can't change or undo. And at 7:10 a.m. on 7 October 1994, Chris lay next to me in the bed by the bay window of the apartment I shared with Lissie, and he turned and said "Will you marry me?" I've never been so ashamed to say "Yes" as that morning, when I felt I'd badgered and coerced him into this declaration that neither of us was ready for. But I did say "Yes," and in some ways that was the beginning of one story. A few days later we went into Boston together to find an engagement ring, and when we came home with it - to the same bay-window bedroom, in the same Beacon Street apartment I shared with my best friend - Chris undressed me, removing article by article, including the jewelry from each and every piercing, until all I wore was the ring we had chosen together and my earrings from Lissie. I had never felt so naked. To this day my father talks with great affection about Chris, and the only flaw he ever mentions is his inability to celebrate birthdays.

Eleven years on I am a divorced convert, and I hope a very different person from the anxious, insecure soul I was back then. I have a lot of good memories and a lot of less-good memories, and I feel blessed for all of them. When I rooted through my jewelry box at 4:25 a.m. last Thursday, the birthday earrings from Lissie were the only ones that seemed remotely appropriate for this conference. They had the right balance of elegance and funkiness, a touch of a different age and a patina of timelessness. I pulled them out of the box and carried them in my fist to the bathroom and the kitchen as I continued in my routine of getting ready, that nervewracking early morning before the light.

Apparently one of the things I do, when I'm incredibly anxious, is forget that the objects I have picked up from surfaces or containers remain in my hands. As I was waiting for the taxi to arrive, about 10 minutes later, I thought, "Oh! the earrings!" and opened my clenched left fist, to see nothing but creases criss-crossing my palm. I dashed from room to room certain I would see them on a bookshelf or a pillow or the lip of my bathroom sink - and indeed, I found one in the bathroom, filigree-side-down next to the baseboard heater. Apparently another thing I do when I'm anxious is pick up accessories that I love, AND THROW THEM TO THE FLOOR. This realization has caused me more than a little bit of worry in the past week.

What has caused me even more worry, though, is the fact that I have only found one earring (the one on the bathroom floor). I have searched in cupboards and under the bed, in between sock piles and in the pockets of jeans, in the kitchen and the computer desk and the backpack pocket and even my shoes (this last is not so outrageous as you might think : I once found an entire undeveloped role of film in a shoe, while cleaning a closet. It turned out to hold pictures of a trip to Spain). And still, no earring. The pair is broken, its integrity compromised. And though part of me remains hopeful in the ongoing sporadic search, part of me has already despaired of finding that second earring. Perhaps it has finally joined so many other dimly gleaming promises from that long-ago birthday night, and disappeared into a place that I have forfeited through self-absorption or ignorance - closeby, but out of my reach.

*The most notable example of this is probably the day of my Ph.D. qualifying exams when, freaked out beyond belief at the prospect of answering 4 hours of questions about French literature from the Serments de Strasbourg to last week's issue of Poésie, I ran to the restroom on the floor below my exams, and found myself locked in the stairwell and unable to get back to the exam itself. I had to run down 5 flights of stairs and out to the street, then take the elevator back up and pretend NOT to be hyperventilating as we moved into the Renaissance period. What wheezing? Je respire. Naturally this gaffe was the fault of the professor who had asked such piercing and polysyllabic questions about Villon.

**Found. In the bathroom, stuck in a bottom loop of the laundry-bag webbing.

Arrivederci Roma (Rome 3 : Sabato)

(The first post about Rome is here. The second one is here. Most hyperlinks below are to specific photos, either on Flickr or in my own archives. Thanks for reading.)

Saturday morning I got up early and was at the Vatican by 7h15. The Piazza San Pietro was a different place, at that hour - sanitation crews, working in a light rain, swept up piles of leaflets, newspapers, bottles, and all the other detritus a crowd of three million leaves behind. I went through the metal detectors and entered the Basilica. Large parts of it were still cordoned off, including the Sacristy and the Grotto. I asked a guard when the tomb of Jean-Paul II would be "visitabile" and he said "fra due, tre giorni." So no tombs for me. My moment of disappointment dissolved in the splendor of the place. I walked through the Basilica several times, took a few pictures, and attended a Mass in English. Then I went back to my hotel, through rain which had grown heavier and the muttered "ombrello" from olive-skinned vendors at nearly every street corner. Finally I gave in and bought a bright-red ombrello from one of them ; I named it my Rombrello, which title gives me a happy little smirk at my own cleverness to this day (get it? Rome-brello! Get it?).

(I took this picture because the feast of San Bruno, founder of the Chartreuse [Carthusian] Order of monks, is the same day as my birthday. I used to make fun of the fact that "my" birthday saint was Bruno, which seemed sort of like the patron saint of the Village People. Now, of course, I am better informed and honor and venerate Bruno. I'm still not reconciled to the saint of 7 October, Serge.)

*

I went back to the seminary where I was staying long enough to write in my notebook for a while and eat some cookies, then headed back out. (Have I mentioned, by the way, the treasure that is Italian store-bought cookies? Goodness. In a bag.) I took the metro to Termini and changed to Linea B for Colosseo. Of course, so did EVERYONE ELSE. Che macello. I didn't go into the Colosseo but took a couple photos from outside, then walked through part of the Fori Romani and found myself going up a hill toward la Chiesa San Bonaventura, a small church with some nice nineteenth-century paintings and a memorial to a French Franciscan monk ordained priest six months before his death. Fr Jean-Baptiste de ___, declared Venerable, has not been canonized and the French community still leaves offerings and prayers for his intercession and sanctification. (And by the way, if anyone knows Fr Jean-Baptiste's last name, I would be so appreciative for the reminder ...) The extraordinary thing about this small tucked-away church is the Via Crucis that lines the street leading to it. Each icon was sculpted in the eighteenth century and they are now protected by metal grilles. Across the length of the street and facing the church, another icon : Santa Maria Addolorata, a sort of Stabat Mater in limestone. Very striking and vivid sculptures.

I returned down the hill and wandered through the paths of the Forum. Again, I didn't go into the Palatino museum and garden, but walked through all these ruins and excavations and reconstructions, and marvelled at the antiquity of it all, and the density. Civilization here must have been a kind of palimpsest - one layer built right over the preceding one, and sometimes appropriating its shapes. At the same time, looking at these pillars and columns - some crumbling, some intact - and piles of rubble and ruined marble, I found myself thinking about how temporary things are, constructed for human glory. Oddly paired lines from "Ozymandias" and Sting's song "All This Time" chased each other through my head. The layers of stone around the Roman Forum do seem "boundless and bare," especially in the rain, as you step around puddles that reflect a grey metallic sky. And the Empire crumbled, till all that was left were the stones the workmen found ...

*

I emerged at the opposite end of the Fori and found myself facing the Museo del Risorgimento, which is currently hosting an exhibit on Münch. I thought about going in, if only because I have no idea what Münch's paintings contain besides The Scream. I got sidetracked from Norwegian angst, though, and went into the Carcere Mamertino where Saints Peter and Paul were held, and where a miraculous spring came out of the stone that they used to baptize their fellow prisoners and gaolers. After seeing this, I went into the chapel above it to pray. There was a gorgeous and very vivid crucifix. I meditated some on images and how seeing an obvious representation of physical suffering, in wood, plaster, or metal, makes us consider more intimately the real sufferings of the body, of Christ.

*

I had lunch at Vecchia Roma, a charming and cozy bistro at Via Leonina, 10 (near Metro Cavour). Lunch was bruschetta semplice, bread with some baked-in butter (YUM), then spaghetti all'ammatriciana (tomato-and-bacon sauce). This dish was very salty but oh so good. I don't think I've eaten so many bread products in a row in about five years, so I had some serious carbs to make up for, and I made all five years of them up during two days in Rome. I had some acqua gassata and a caffè to finish, then continued my afternoon - took the Metro back to Termini then Linea A to Barberini, to see the Fontana di Trevi in the light before meeting up with Zadok the Roman again. I also stopped along the way and bought some gifts and had a chat with the shopkeeper, talking about the funeral and the Holy Father's legacy. I explained, quite awkwardly, the expression about "big shoes to fill" - piccoli piedi, grande scarpe ! - for the successor, and we wished each other well. I found Trevi and took - say it with me - a couple pictures, then found a farmacia where a HUGE bottle of Lactacyd was only 5€30. 5€30! I bought two bottles. My sister will be so happy. And then (armed with feminine hygiene products, a fact which probably both he and I are glad he didn't know at the time), I met Zadok.

We went quickly into San Luigi dei Francesi to look at the Caravaggios (three tableaux depicting the life and vocazione of San Matteo). Then we headed to Santa Maria Maggiore, because I had mentioned the previous day that I didn't want to leave Roma without seeing Santa Maria Maggiore and San Giovanni in Laterano. A Mass was going on at Santa Maria Maggiore, so we headed down the street a block and around a corner to the Basilica Santa Prassede. What an amazing church, with Byzantine mosaics and a fragment of the colonna della flagellazione del Cristo. The crypt houses the remains of Saints Prassede and Pudenziana and another mosaic made of marble fragments. (More mosaic images are here.) When we walked in I had to keep taking deep breaths - the air was fragrant with soapy-smelling incense, if soap were made of sandalwood. It was the least touristic church I'd been in so far, and the most solemn-feeling : something of the most recent Mass hung still in the air, and when Zadok said he would like to be ordained there I told him without missing a beat that if that wish were granted I would be at his ordination, no hesitation. (Provided, of course, that he would want me there. Ordinations are such glorious occasions and it would be an honor to witness one in an atmosphere of such total sacrality, so I kind of thoughtlessly invited myself.) It was that kind of church, that kind of connection.

Then we headed back to Santa Maria Maggiore, just in time to do a whirlwind tour before the next Mass started. The ceiling is inlaid with the first shipment of gold from the New World, and the effect is this warmly otherworldly glow over the white marble. We stayed just until the Mass's procession had passed - an impressive procession, with the Cross ahead, two altar boys, eight canons, and a bishop who gave us his episcopal blessing as he passed. The organ played some prelude chords, then the choir (all male) began singing "Jubilate Deo, omnis terra" - a confusing Introït which belongs in the following week by rights, but which was beautifully intoned and discreetly harmonized by the accompaniment. I was sorry to leave! even though I'd already been to a Mass that day. This one was promising and, well, sumptuous. But we did leave, and headed down the long via Merulana to San Giovanni Laterano. Along the way we stopped in the Chiesa Santa Maria del Perpetuo Soccorso, where the original icon of Perpetual Succour hangs behind the altar. I of course wanted to take a photo, especially as the altar was gorgeously decorated with red and white flowers, a series of flickering candles, and an image of a younger, smiling Papa Giovanni Paolo II - but there was a Rosary in progress, and photography felt a bit gauche. So I took a picture of the Church exterior instead, where the icon is over the main door in mosaic-style, glinting blue against the white stone of the building. We stayed for two dizaines then went on to Laterano territory, stopping again at the Scala Santa - 28 stairs transported here from Jerusalem, the stairs Christ is supposed to have walked up in Pilate's palace. The site is an important pilgrimage destination, and people climb the steps on their knees in penitence. At the top of the staircase is a fresco of the Crucifixion, of which details become visible as you climb : first just Christ on the Cross, then gradually a dome-painting of God the Father and finally the people at Christ's feet, who the climbing pilgrims join when they reach the top. The building is currently occupied by some Passionist fathers. I took a photo - complete with pilgrims - for the Passionist fathers of Brighton.

And finally, ci siamo arrivati - a San Giovanni in Laterano. The most impressive detail to me was the series of apostle-statues lining the nave up to the altar. Each one, as Zadok explained, is depicted in some singular way, some according to how they died : Peter of course has keys and John a book, eagle and quill ; Paul has a sort of lance ; Bartholomew is holding his own skin, including an eerie mark-like face ; Matthew has a book, and he stands on a pile of bags of money - trampling his former publican life. The baptismal font is huge, and there's a private, princely chapel belonging to the Corsini family - gorgeous decor and detail, and only opened for use if a Corsini married or dies (which makes me wonder which century we live in, and then makes me love the anachronism in our time with its presumption of instant 24/7/365 access). And finally, an impressive statue of Cardinal Gabarri, who helped with the 1912 Code de Droit Canonique. The statue shows him kneeling on a cushion in prayer, and the cushion even looks like you could squeeze it. (By the way? I tried. You can't squeeze it. But you will keep looking at it, and wish you could.) I wish I could remember all the art Zadok showed me, and the names of each and every church. I would have to go over a highly detailed map and do a lot of research to come up with all the names. Or, of course, go back to Rome.

San Giovanni in Laterano closed, so we left and went to a pizzeria. I was still mostly full from the ammatriciana at lunch, but a pizza margherita (or most of one) went down nicely. And we had a great talk - about being a quiet apostle, and about certain disaporas of the soul. And feeling called yet quietly so. We talked about Sainte Thérèse de l'Enfant Jésus and her "little way," about her unfortunate (for a literary critic, or a modern reader) flowery style and about her letters with the seminarian Maurice. I told Zadok about the very sensuous Introït for her feast day, that Veni-i-i de Libano" with its sultry repercussions and insistent invitation, and about singing it with my choir and blushing, and understanding for the first time that divine love takes on the same language as human passion, but exists on a whole different plane. And how we have to learn to sing that, as humans, using our physical means but getting beyond the pettiness of bodies and sentimentality, getting into a realm of communion. Oh we spoke of many things, and then it was time for Zadok to head back, and I got on the Metro at a stop near Laterano and headed home - realizing I was thinking of my stop as "home."

*

But as it was my last night, I didn't go directly back to Cornelia and the Casa La Salle. I had an urge to see San Pietro one more time, and say a truer goodbye. I got off the metro at Lepanto and walked in silence along the Tevere, passing one bridge after another under light rain. My heart felt strange - both heavy and light, and still. It was oddly quiet along the river - I think I only crossed about 3 or 4 people, and the car traffic too seemed distant enough to be not just from but in another world. I had eight photos left and wanted to shoot the Vatican by night, and I could feel my steps quickening as I got closer and the magnificent dome came into view. On the Lungotevere, at various intervals, stood small groups of red candles, covered votives, and images of Jean-Paul II, and sometimes messages. I took pictures from the Ponte Sant'Angelo, and made my way across, then down the next lungotevere and back across the Ponte Vittorio Emmanuele, and up the street to San Pietro. A few other pilgrims were walking in the same direction, also snapping photos from time to time. A group of red lights strung on a rampart guided us toward the center of the square.

Once I got within the square itself I knew I'd had to come there again specially. A small group - maybe fifty people - was gathered around the obelisk, praying, paying hommage, standing in silent or hushed groups. And of course holding vigil : candles, flowers, rosaries, prayers, flags ; messages handwritten in Polish, Italian, French, German, Spanish, English, Chinese, Portuguese ... ; photos of Jean-Paul II, of Jean-Paul II with Mère Teresa, of Jean-Paul II with the Dalai Lama, of Jean-Paul II young priest and Jean-Paul II old and suffering, deep in prayer and leaning on his staff, of Jean-Paul II with children and adults and with Cardinals and priests and nuns, and Jean-Paul II in 1979, 1984, 1989, 1992, 1995, 1997, 2000, 2001, 2004, standing triumphant and joyous, welcoming the world with his amazing charism, stirring the world to greater depths with his deep and glorious faith, his energy, his love. Oh, the love. I took pictures of the candles, and the vigil, of the obelisk glowing in the steady red, yellow, white, blue candle-glow. A group was singing off to one side, and I recognized the song as "Les Saints et Les Anges" but in Polish, and I sang with them, in French, the only verse I have memorized : "Les Saints et les Anges, en choeurs glorieux,/ Chantent vos louanges, Ô Reine des Cieux." And then the melodic and soothing chorus : "Ave, ave, ave Maria ! Ave, ave, ave Maria." Just sang it over and over as they went through verses in Polish. I stepped up to the barrier and said some Ave Marias quietly, thinking about Jean-Paul II and what it has meant for me to be able to be here in Roma, with the crowds and the simulcast and the crush and the incredible, magnificent feeling of solidarity in heart and soul, in grieving and celebrating and in coming back and back and back to this Square as the crowds have dispersed, each of us holding whatever we had to offer to Jean-Paul II's huge memory and inspiring love. And then, standing in the candlelight and full of echoing songs, there, at the base of the obelisk in Saint Peter's Square with "Ave, ave, ave Maria !" still ringing out quietly behind me, I wept.

I began to leave about twenty minutes later, and as I was walking back toward the arches and pillars that make a doorway to the via Ottaviana, I overheard four priests speaking with a couple American women, and it seemed to me I recognized their accents. I apologized for listening in and spoke French with them for a few minutes, and said how wonderful it was to see priests en soutane! They explained their seminary was in Germany, and I blurted out, "Vous êtes à Wigratzbad? La FSSP?" ... which, of course, they were. We chatted for a few more minutes - I told them about my baptism, about directing the choir at Saint Georges, about Abbé Leroux ... and we talked about the two seminarians I know who have gone to Wigratzbad, and then one of them said "C'était Providentiel de vous rencontrer" and I had to agree. I got their names and told them I would keep them in my prayers, and so I will (and do). I'd had many doubts about coming to Roma but this meeting dispersed the last of them completely. Leaving, I finally understood I was meant to be there, and a little piece of why.

Finally I left Saint Peter's Square, feeling touched by both Providence and by nearer forces, human ensemble and compassion, and an immense charity focussed and shared in this sacred space. I walked back to the Metro, stopped for some last souvenirs, and went back to Casa La Salle with "Les Saints et Les Anges" echoing in my head - and that was my goodbye to Pope John Paul II. Thank you, Holy Father, for these choices and these graces and for calling us all together in your honor. Bless you.

*

Sunday morning I got up and went to Mass at 7h30 in the Sala Giovanni Paolo II, then went for breakfast and checked out. I took the Metro to Termini once again and went back to Santa Maria Maggiore, because I wanted to see Santa Prassede again and make a donation to the fund to restore the organ. I entered in the rain, closed my Rombrella, and realized Mass would start in just a few minutes and that this parish distributed handy leaflets with the proper prayers and responses. So I stayed until Communion, responding (in Italian!) with the crowd, then ran to Termini and got on a train for Fiumicino, and waited for the shuttle to get to my gate, and used my last picture on the airport-shuttle sign that read "Arrivederci." And that was my goodbye to Roma.

*

A few hundred dollars poorer and a bit weighted down with prayer cards and medals, rosaries and postcards to send or give away once back at home - oh yes, and Perugina Baci -, I am on the plane headed back to Boston. I am tired but not sleepy, half-watching and listening to the Italian dubbed version of Around the World in 80 Days. My trip has been shorter in both time and distance than Verne's imagined voyage, but I feel infinitely richer for having gone.

E domani al lavoro. Because we continue.

I'm PMSing, highly emotional, have had a rotten day, and am about 2 years out of vogue, but ...

I'm watching the Sex & The City where Smith shaves his head in solidarity with Samantha's hair loss from chemotherapy, and I am crushing, crushing, crushing, on this blond actor ... and crying, crying, crying for the lengths people can go to for the ones they love, and for the unexpected moments of grace in the midst of reality that is so baldly unkind.

A meme while I get my bearings ...

(I'm working up the final part of my Rome adventure (or Romadventure, if you're feeling clever). In the meantime, Brandon has an amazing post up today. Go read that.)

Answer the question "If you could be ­­­____ …. Choose five titles from the list [below] and answer the question for each of them. Add a job title to the list when you are done, if you would like, but you can't choose your own newly added job title.

Here is my answer:

If I were an Athlete, I would never get over the beauty of the human body with its many forms and stages and possibilities for movement, expression, and change.

If I were a Doctor, I hope I would give each patient a hundred and eighty-nine percent of myself, every time, and never forget the uniqueness and sanctity of each one's individual self.

If I were a Linguist, I would work on developing a model of people who adapt to two cultures, and try to help them figure out how to manoeuvre through the language issues that adaptation brings up.

If I were a Missionary, I hope I would do honor to the fervor of my faith while honoring the people I was called to share it with.

If I were a Musician, I would sing in jazz clubs and Gospel services, in Bach choirs and on strobe-lit stadium stages, with rock bands and period instruments and Big bands and acoustic piano, raising my voice for the glory of my voice, and the glory of the composer, and the glory of the Lord, and the beauty of all things. That is how I would sing.

Here is the list:
Scientist - Farmer - Musician - Doctor - Painter - Gardener - Missionary - Chef - Architect - Linguist - Psychologist - Librarian - Athlete - Lawyer - Innkeeper -Professor - Writer - Llama rider - Failed actor gone political - Moonbat-Street Performer

I was tagged by Amanda. I tag Anna, Cacoa, Peg, and P-tricia.

All roads lead to San Pietro (Rome 2 : Venerdì)

08 April 2005 - Over Roma.

We land soon. Then - the treni straordinarii (or Leonardo Express if it's running) to Termini, then the metro to San Pietro or as close as I can get. There are maxiscreens all over the city to broadcast the funeral.

The cloud cover here is extraordinary. Jesus lighting from below is always a sight - I've never seen it from above before. Breathtaking. Light pushing through light in rays like splayed fingers, as if the sky itself were reaching down into Rome, to be as close as possible.

One thing has so reassured and heartened me, the past hours : having Melissa, and Elvira, call me courageous for coming here. Reading the comments from people I've never met in person, feeling their support. Thank you, my friends, for giving my heart that credit, that gift. This morning I feel blessed indeed.

Time for the Glorious mysteries, then a very fond and soul-felt farewell.

The plane was delayed taking off from Boston. I sat fidgeting at the gate in Logan airport, knowing how close I was cutting my arrival in Rome (which, if Fiumicino airport was anything like Charles de Gaulle in Paris or Saint Exupéry in Lyon, meant I would get to the funeral late as it was). We'd been told we would board at 17h40 and by 18h10 we were still sitting in hard blue chairs looking uncomfortably at each other. A man pacified his five-year-old by initiating a totally inappropriate game of catch that involved a serious throwing-arm on both sides. I kept wondering when one of them would bean someone with the ball - which was not a Nerf or something soft that would be a bit forgiveable in a crowded airport, but a hard thing, about twice the size of a Ping-Pong ball and weighted with something rattly. Another man was so anxious to get on the plane with his father and baby that every time a boarding announcement crackled over the loudspeaker, no matter what destination or flight number was announced, he jumped up with armfuls of baby gear and strode up to the gate, then stood there looking lost when they told him it wasn't time yet. I called my mom and left flight information on her answering machine. I called my sister and told her about the throwing, and reassured her that yes, I had already put Lactacyd on my list of things to bring back from Europe. I explained the Motu proprio as well as I could, that letter which had affirmed the schism between the Fraternity of Saint Pius X and Rome, and generated the separation of the FSPX from the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter (FSSP), the organization to which my own priests in Lyon belong. The throwing stopped (unsurprisingly, in conjunction with the return from the Food Court of the five-year-old's mother), to be replaced by extremely creepy double-bass singing from a man behind me. Hello? Do people not know how to behave in public anymore? I shot a quick look at the creepy singer (red face, long legs, white hair) but looked immediately away, not wanting to be rude. After all, my mother taught me manners, and these do not include staring at strangers, even when said strangers are indulging in wholly inappropriate public behaviors - like DANGEROUS THROWING or CREEPY SINGING. Finally we boarded the plane, and I found myself in a window seat (bonus!), one row ahead of a man who was regaling his seat-buddy with stories about his plans for the weekend, and how he was going to Rome for the funeral and just hoped he could get to see it somewhere, somehow. My own seatmate, who turned out to be a cynical businessman with bad taste in airplane reading (Fern Michaels??), asked the inevitable question "What are you going to Rome for?" He then actually said "Oh, God," when I told him I was going to Rome for the funeral. "Just for that?" he said, and I paused for a long second, thinking. Then I found myself smiling hugely. "Yes," I said. "Just for that."

And I realized, at that moment, that it was true. That I didn't have a huge touristy agenda - people had given me restaurant and gelateria recommendations, and I had a book full of walking routes around the city's ancient and timeless landmarks, but I didn't really need any of the rest of it, as long as I could be there for the funeral. Grammatical cringing aside, that's what I was going to Rome for.

*

Inexplicably, after taking off 30 minutes late, we landed at Roma-Fiumicino about 20 minutes early. I sped off the plane as fast as decent behavior toward my fellow passengers would allow, sped through customs with a giant grin on my face, got down to the train station, bought my ticket on the Leonardo Express (and don't think I didn't get a huge kick out of that title), arrived senza problema at Termini, ran down endless Kafkaesque rampways to the metro, bought a ticket, got on Linea A, direzzione Battistini, climbed from the belly of the city at the Ottaviano/San Pietro stop, and joined the crowd.

On the train into the city I found myself across from a young couple from Christchurch, New Zealand. They had made last-minute arrangements to come to the funeral, as I had, and everything had fallen into place for them as well. It seems the more stories I hear about this event, the more I understand these people were called together here. There are divine reasons why so many people had to be here, to celebrate the life in Christ and the legacy, and to honor the dignified death, of an amazing man and spiritual father. We were called here to offer our prayers for him, and for the Church, together. It was about 10h10 when I left the metro, 10h20 when I found myself at the intersection of the via Ottaviana and the via Cola Di Rienzo. All around me were people holding flags and banners, some with the Papal Seal, some with national flavors (Spain, Portugal, Germany, France, England, and most of all Poland). The Mass had already begun, the crowd was pulsing, and the choir was just finishing the first part of an elaborate version of the funereal Kyrie Eleison. I was a bit disappointed to have missed the Introït ("Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine ..."), but all things considered I couldn't complain, and so didn't.

During the funeral, the feeling in the crowd, even on the street-around-the-corner where I was standing, was one of incredible solidarity. There was no pushing. There was no shouting. There was no bad behavior. (In fact, as a Roman newspaper reported the following day, there was not a single incidence of theft or violent crime in the whole city the day of Jean-Paul II's funeral.) More than three million people were there, standing in throngs, and largely silent. At the moment of the Consecration [between the Sanctus and the Agnus Dei, the holiest moment of the Mass], I knelt, and when I raised my eyes and started to get up, I realized I was not the only one kneeling : the whole street flickered with movement. I don't know if the entire three-million-people crowd knelt for the Consecration, but nearly everyone on the via Ottaviano went to their knees for this sacred moment, for the miracle and mystery it contains.

The funeral ended with clapping that went on for minutes. After the Mass - with its beautiful, touching homily, gorgeous music, and spontaneous applause and cries in various languages of "Subito Santo!" - the crowd quite literally thinned to a fraction of its size, and I made my way up to St Peter's Square itself. I wandered aimlessly through the remains of the crowd and noticed a general mood change. The solidarity had given way to desolation. Some people stood around the obelisk in the center of the Piazza and wept openly as they lit candles or anchored pictures of the Holy Father under stones they had scooped up from the road on their way in. Or under medals, or votive candles. Lonely pilgrims weaved through the pillars and changed direction with no warning, boats unmoored. Without an official ceremony to focus our energy, our warmth and memory and love, we didn't have a reason to be kind and patient with one another. And so people weren't. The incidents were minor (shoving as the crowd surged away from St Peter's, harsh words) but rending.

I wandered from pillar to pillar myself until I just couldn't stand up anymore, then I made my way back to the metro and walked down the via Aurelia to find my hotel five hundred metres from the stop Cornelia, where I had a fabulous shower. Oh thank God for things like water and soap. I thought about taking a nap but got dressed and headed out again instead. When I got back to San Pietro, I could actually walk in the Square and take photos. It would take a lifetime to photograph this city, all its religious monuments and history ; I focussed mainly on testaments to Jean-Paul II and Maria, the mosaics around the Square and details in churches.

By myself I walked across the Ponte Vittorio Emmanuele, then wound through some streets to the Piazza Navona. I went to the store (!) and did a lot of window shopping. Then I met Zadok the Roman at the Pantheon, and we started a mini-artistic-and-liturgical walking tour. He showed me the Chiesa Santa Maria sopra Minerva with the tomb (and saintly relics) of Santa Caterina di Siena, and the Chiesa San Ignazio di Loyola with its amazing, perspectivally-frescoed ceiling that looks like a dome (but isn't). He also showed me several monuments which I should have written down (but didn't), and then led me to a chapel where the FSSP celebrates the Latin Tridentine Mass (and in case you're wondering, I might have noted the name of the chapel and/or street, but didn't. Fortunately, the Internets exist for precisely this kind of oversight). For the record, when you want a thoughtful and aesthetic church-history overview of Rome, plus just plain great conversation and a friendly companion to walk through a beautiful city with, you want Zadok the Roman as tour guide. And when you want a somber Low Mass in delectable Latin, you want to look up Father Valauri of the FSSP. O the beautiful Latin, O. Then we went to dinner at a restaurant with about 120 kinds of spaghetti (and O the spaghetti alla gregoriana, which I had to order because, well, I can't resist anything Gregorian, especially not when pasta is involved, and spaghetti alla gregoriana means con funghi e carcioffi, O), and then he showed me the Trevi fountain and the Spanish steps by night. Then I went back to my seminary, had some lovely Italian cookies, and went to sleep.

(to be continued ...)

Habemus papam !

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany, Pope Benedict XVI.

ROME if you want to (Rome 1 : Prelude)

Si quelqu'un n'a jamais été stimulé par le désir de voir Lourdes, c'est bien moi. D'abord, je n'aime pas les foules qui processionnent, en bramant des cantiques ...

If anyone has never been moved by the desire to see Lourdes, it is I. First of all, I dislike crowds, especially when they crawl along in processions bawling out hymns ...
(Les foules de Lourdes, 25)

My father hates Disneyland. Not because of the saccharine hard-plastic faces with their perpetual smiles, not because of the insipid and incessant music piped in all over the park to remind you that it's a Small World After All, but because of the crowds. I am indeed Rosemary's granddaughter and the spitting image of my father, and when I started reading a new book on the bus, last Monday morning on my way to work, I found myself smiling. Joris-Karl hits it on the head again, I thought. This is why I never did make it for the Pèlerinage des Malades every August, while I was living in France ; this is why I never tried to go during the winter afterwards. This is why I've never been to Chartres, or Rome, or any number of holy sites. The crowds just never thin. And so I followed along in my cocoon, five hundred kilometres away, then, and follow along in my cocoon, five thousand kilometres away, now. Safe in my cynicism, my little bubble of personal space.

I'd spent the weekend staring at the images on CNN. I didn't want to leave my apartment, because of this black wire that connected me to the happenings in Saint Peter's Square. I'd watched the crowds come with the light, and go with the dark ; I'd watched, late night my time, as they came back again. With candles, and strings of rosary beads, and songs here and there that the CNN microphones picked up like echoes. Sometimes I recognized the tune but not the words. "Les Saints et Les Anges" in Polish, with its universal refrain : Ave, Ave, Ave Maria ! I sang along with them, or hummed, wrapped in my quilt, waiting for ... something. The crowds came. The crowds left. Delia Gallagher talked about the mood of Vatican officials. Joaquin Navarro-Valls made a very emotional statement. Cathedrals in Washington D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles, and Boston held special Masses on Friday evening. The crowds came back. CNN reported the Holy Father's loving words : "Vi ho cercato, ed adesso siete venuti, e vi ringrazio." (I looked for you, and now you have come, and I thank you.) Saturday I turned the TV to "MUTE" and put on a CD, the one I listen to most often at night, the one that has come to mean night : Gregorian chant for the Solemn Feast of the Mother of God, sung by the monks of Fontgombault. I was typing. I was thinking. I was reading blogs. It was afternoon in Boston. And something caught my eye, a sudden unmoving flash of red and white, the colors of breaking news. Pope Jean-Paul II : 1920-2005. I felt stunned. I turned off the singing monks. I reached into my purse for my rosary. And went down on my knees, on the floor of my flat, and said "Ave, Ave, Ave Maria. Ave, Ave, Ave Maria."

By Monday morning the sense of bewilderment had passed - I told a friend it was hard to know how to feel. This was not an unexpected, tragic death. It was the culmination of months of weakness, an end to years of suffering, a triumphant moment of union with the faithful and the Lord. But in the place of bewilderment came bereavement. Speaking from a purely selfish standpoint - Jean-Paul II was the only Pope I had known. I don't remember Jean XXIII or the short-lived Jean-Paul I, and for all of them it still feels awkward to me to speak their names in English. An Italian woman told me, with gesticulation and that particular lilt in the words, Jean-Paul II had been Pope so long he felt like part of the family. Era da casa. He even felt like part of my family, one of the few public names we all recognized and respected (even from vastly different perspectives). And the thing about this particular Pope was that, over the years, we got the sense that he would be at home in our families, or rather, that he would make us feel at home with him. It was his special charism, that ability to reach out and bring people together. Generous people stopped me in the halls, or sent little IM bubbles, to ask How are you? The answer : I'm fine. I was. Sad, but fine. But I was in the wrong place.

I'd started looking at my usual cheap-ticket sites Sunday afternoon at home, with a little thought at the back of my mind, rife with conditions and expecting impossibility. If I find a ticket under X $. If I can find a place to stay. If I can leave Thursday after work. If I can get there in time for the funeral. It all seemed very remote and improbable, and that was somehow reassuring. And the ticket prices began climbing. Monday morning at work I checked again, and the dollar amounts had risen. Over the weekend the lowest tickets had been around 500 ; by Monday evening they were over 1500. I wrote to a few convents that I knew had guest rooms, expecting them to say they were all full for the days around the funeral. I gave up and went to sleep. Tuesday I checked again : ticket prices had kept going up, and now even the cheapest of cheap seats would cost well over 2400 U.S. dollars. And I had 10 emails from convents, saying that indeed, they thanked me for my message, but indeed, they were full. I resigned myself to waking up Friday morning at 4 a.m. to watch the live funeral coverage on CNN. But all morning I kept coming back to the sites. That evening I was chatting with a friend, and joked that I had nearly bought, that afternoon, (a) a digital camera, (b) a printer for home, and (c) a ticket to Rome, but had held back because one shouldn't spend 2500 $ on an empty stomach. She responded : "b. wait. b and c." Then she must have logged off, because even though I asked for clarification no answer came. And I went back to a site and put in a ticket bid, an impossible thing, knowing it would never be accepted. Five minutes later I had an answer. And five minutes after that, I had another answer.

Your bid, which was initially rejected, has been accepted, the email read. I had to grip the edge of my desk as I stared at these words. I'm going to Rome, I thought. And then, my God. I just bought a non-refundable non-transferable non-exchangeable ticket to Rome. What am I doing? What have I done? I stood up and my vision blurred : I was dizzy, and beginning to panic. I'd been cooking, but crossed the room and turned off the burner. I'd lost my appetite. I stared at the screen. I went into my bedroom and automatically packed a bag, the trusty backpack with rollers that can hold an entire 6-week wardrobe and still fit under the seat in front of me. And I came back to my computer and checked the email again. It's not possible, I remember thinking. I don't have a place to stay. I don't even have a sleeping bag, to stay on some bench with the Roman homeless. Fear poked through my dazed consciousness with an icy finger. Ancient fears about being lost and tired and incapable, about not having the strength or the werewithal to live out my own decisions, came flooding back. My worst self-criticisms followed soon after. Hasty, impulsive, thoughtless, sentimental, ridiculous ... A tidal wave of negative words, and all of them felt true. I started to cry. Again I reached for my rosary beads and said a selfish, panicked prayer. I said, I've just done something I think is probably really stupid. Please intervene. Please help me. Let me cancel this ticket. Or help me understand how to work it out. Please help. I didn't sleep well that night.

Wednesday morning I checked my email, just in case the ticket had been re-rejected. It hadn't, but I had an email from one of the places I'd written to before, that hadn't had any available rooms. They'd had a cancellation. My fingers typed the reply before my brain actually realized what was going on : Vi prego di notarmi questa camera. Grazie, grazie. I had an email as well from Zadok the Roman, giving information about the city and offering to meet during my stay. That day at work, when I told friends and colleagues I would be leaving the following afternoon for Rome and the Pope's funeral, they gave me nothing but support and understanding, and love. One by one people told me they thought it was courageous. Brave. M the Spanish teacher said she admired me for going, and that she thought my reasons were beautiful. Friend F got tears in her eyes and said, simply, "Of course you are. You have to be there." My sister and I had a long talk about doing great things alone - travelling, making scary decisions, trying something new - and how those are the times when you learn the most about yourself, when you define yourself, even if your reasons aren't yet things you can articulate or explain. The Eternal City, which in my fear and doubts had blossomed into a grey cloud of unfamiliar landmarks and isolation, resolved into a real shape. I bought a book with maps. I realized I was the only one labelling this trip "stupid," and "crazy." And I started to wonder why. I also realized that behind, or beyond, the tidal wave of awful words I'd been directing at myself, there was something gleaming, harder and stronger than anything those epithets could bring. Everything about the trip was falling so Providentially into place. How "crazy" is a crazy thing, when it all works out?

(to be continued ...)

All roads lead to Romy ...

... or something.

The weekend a Roma was extraordinary. Lately I've been overusing that word, but honestly I have found no other way to describe the experience of being in Rome, and the city of Rome itself, during those specific 2-almost-3 days. The word is apt both literally and with all the figurative meanings we can give it.

I haven't been able to bring myself to blog about it yet. My soul is still in some quiet place, waiting for the words, the right words, to come.

In the meantime, here are some images. More to follow. I promise. Thank you for your patience.

(oh yeah, that's my GIANT FINGER across the bottom right side of this one ...)

I'm going there to say some things ... like thank you, and goodbye ...

Nescafé.

The other day I opened the cupboard over the stove and took down my trusty jar of Nescafé. There was only a spoonful or so left at the bottom of the jar ; the crystals made a clinking sound against the glass, rustling, almost metallic.

Like the Nescafé, like the CD, the hospital is a place I haven't touched in a while, but the stories are still whispering around in their own jar. I invite you now, to pour yourself a mug of whatever warms you, tuck your legs under, and take this interlude at the horizon with me.

*

Every morning began the same way. The morning nurse went down the hall and opened all the doors wide, turned the hall lights on bright, called each patient by name. As my mother can testify, I have never been a good waker-upper, and in the beginning I tried to fake myself out during the routine, trick myself into going back to sleep despite the light and the voices, despite the melodic but totally un-sugar-coated "Madame Peters ..." with its threat of less tolerant repetition. The first three days don't really count : I slept through most of them anyway. Most of us did, and they let us ; we had systems flooded with alcohol or sleeping pills, or painkillers that couldn't touch the places where our real pain lived, but did at least numb our reaction time and slow our heartbeats. We were sleeping off our self-medication, our bleak despair, and whatever antidotes we'd had crammed through our unconscious lips or injected into the veins at the backs of our hands. The human body can adapt to nearly any regime we give it, whether that means a dinner of whiskey and percocet or a breakfast of strangers' staring eyes from an unfamiliar hallway. And after the first week, I stopped fighting. The routine started feeling natural, and my eyes opened for a starting silent second before my brain registered any conscious awareness of time, or noise - like waking up one minute before the alarm. I got up and washed my face and went down the hall to the dining room.

Six tables with four chairs each. Plastic wood-colored tables, plastic orange-red chairs anchored to the floor but allowed to swivel ninety degrees to either side. On each table, two baskets. One with bread, the measured-by-eye rounds of baguette; one with the table's portions of butter, jam or honey, and the coffee. Two metal pitchers : one with cold water, one with hot milk. The water we could refill ourselves, from a metal cooler. There was never enough hot milk unless you asked the nurse on kitchen duty for more. They didn't like us to ask.

Blue touches blue touches grey, touches brown
I look down at my feet, they've been with me for years
I take one step for you, and then two for myself
Oh I need to be stronger ...

The tables didn't have "assigned" seating. I learned, on my first day, that they had "understood" seating. You could sit wherever you wanted but you might be in someone's spot. That person probably wouldn't make you move, but you would make an enemy or even three, including the other people from the table, thus ensuring yourself days, possibly weeks, of mealtime snubbing. Who you sat with at meals was part of the currency of l'Unité Jean Delay, it was how the patients organized themselves into quiet networks and expressed their tiny measures of power. If Armelle liked you she would save your seat. If she didn't, it didn't matter that you'd been at her table for 8 full days, morning, noon, and night; arrive five minutes late for lunch and you were at the back table with Marie-Eve and Rémy, and you knew if you griped at all about losing your spot our Nathalie would make a little moue and say, "but why does it matter where you sit? Venez, mangez, you'll get to know someone new today." They - the nurses, the staff, the doctors - liked to pretend there were no special friendships on the Upstairs floor. As if we could all come there with our suitcases full of underthings and illnesses and leave with everything intact, without bumping each other or having anything brush off.

At the table in the top left corner of the room sat : Martine, Christian, Francisco, and Armelle. At the second one back on the left : Nadjet, Francine, and Geneviève, and eventually Claude. Across from the top table but turned perpendicularly to it : Abdel, Angela, and Nicolas. Rémy, Pascal, Chantal, Sabrina, Cathie, and Marie-Eve hadn't arrived yet. In the same line, a table reserved for the mothers of the clinique maman-bébé that shared our floor from Monday to Friday. At the back table on the left, Stéphanie, Paulette and eventually Rémy. This last table sat just outside the pool of light from the yellow lamps overhead the forward tables, and before the next batch of lamps behind it. It was also closest to the door to the hallway and the heavier door to the world, and a draft came through to make its slight dimness feel chill. I sat there for the first few days ; there was nowhere else to sit. I didn't say much besides my name, and "le sel, s'il vous plaît" or "non, merci".

*

One day at lunch during my second week Geneviève stood up and announced she was leaving. Geneviève was an electroshock success story. She had been in the hospital for five months. I'd watched her leave for the shock treatments, twice per week - the shock people left in a single-file line, grumpy and nervous. Their empty and unmedicated stomachs made them snap sluggishly at our Daniel, always on shock-patient duty. They came back subdued. Sometimes they were brought back in wheelchairs or on guerneys, before the sedation had worn off : skin papery, eyes vacant, lips thick and mumbling unintelligibly for water. Geneviève was a woman transformed by the electric currents shot through her cerebral cortex. At lunch this day, she had rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes. She had styled her hair and put on a tasteful floral blouse, a powder-pink cardigan ; her glossed lips shone even in the yellow dining-room lamplight. "Je vous encourage, je vous promets que vous allez guérir ... fin, que c'est possible". (I encourage you all, I promise you will get better. Well at least, it's possible.) She smiled. I still had stitches in my left wrist and a vaguely puffy face from the things I'd swallowed and the things they'd given me in the ER to counteract them : her promises felt slim and distant, like day-old blades of grass between the fingers that you can't pull on too hard. They could break.

Blue touches blue, touches black, then expands,
All the tears and the years in the palm of my hand
Do you think you can tell me what's wrong and what's wronger?
I need to be stronger.
I need to be stronger ...

But the question of whether or not I could be cured was less important than the fact that a space had just opened up at a better table. One with light. One closer to the large double-glazed shatter-proof window that overlooked the courtyard behind the building, where the kittens lived, and the small field between our building and the next. I didn't know Francine or Nadjet, but I smiled hesitantly at them when dinner began. "Je peux ?" Francine shrugged, staring into her purée. Nadjet looked up bleakly, and bleakly nodded. They were sad about Geneviève's leaving, they'd eaten together for weeks, they missed her. The meal passed in silence ; even the food tasted pale and glum.

*

Paulette was upset that I'd moved tables. I'd already requested to change rooms because of her snoring, and the table was an added blow. I felt mean and petty. I stopped in her doorway after the move, to say "bonjour," but she turned her back and stared out the window, pretending absorption in the circular driveway down below. Stéphanie, sitting with her, waved me on, with a wry smile and a wink. Stéphanie was anxious to leave - she frequently talked back to our Nathalie and the other nurses, and answered the doctor in quick sharp retorts the rest of us didn't quite dare. When Paulette made a face at her plate of beans one evening, and said she wasn't hungry, it was Stéphanie who said, "Mais ne mangez pas !" as if it was the simplest thing in the world - which, come to think of it, perhaps it was.

"C'est juste qu'ils nous donnent tant à manger," Paulette had said. It was true. The portions were huge, especially of vegetables (unless, for some reason, the vegetables du jour were leeks. Then we got eight little bars of cold vegetables in pale vinaigrette, two narrow stalks of leek chopped with cartesian precision). There were always enough vegetables, and there was always enough bread.

But there was rarely enough coffee, especially for someone like me, accustomed to making - and drinking - at least two pots by myself every day. Coffee was a precious commodity. Each patient received one small packet of Nescafé at breakfast. The morning place setting included : one heavy white ceramic bowl, one spoon, one knife, one clear plastic water glass, one packet of Nescafé, two pats of prepackaged butter, one individual plastic pocket of jam or honey. The bread was communal at every table. If you chose cereal for breakfast instead of (or along with) bread, you used your bowl for the cereal and took your coffee in your water glass, stirring soluble powder into the steam before licking the melted brown crystals off the back of your spoon so you could use it for your cereal.

When I left the drafty dim back table behind, I realized what I was losing. Rémy didn't drink coffee, Stéphanie preferred tea, and Paulette had high blood pressure and could only have caffeine in moderation. So almost every morning I had three extra packets of Nescafé. I'd started a stash. I would collect the extra packets - dutifully asking if they were sure they didn't want theirs - set a second one beside my own, then put the other two in the pocket of the fleece robe my mother had given me the previous Christmas. Some days I helped clear the tables, and collected the extras from other baskets - Nescafé, preserves, even butter sometimes. The butter and jam I saved for afternoon - for the four o'clock goûter. The coffee I put in the front pocket of my backpack. At first I counted my packets of Nescafé after every breakfast, finding comfort in a solid integer. As the number grew, I stopped counting. About once a day I sank my hands into the backpack pocket, closed my eyes, and wiggled my fingers against the texture of the packets in their little mound, listening to the crackle from my knuckles denting crystal formations in the plasticky foil. It was a small pleasure, the kind you learn to value when you have to get permission to go outside.

*

About half a kilometer from our building, around a few corners on the formerly agricultural plot, stood the hospital cafeteria, a functional structure built and decorated, I guess, during the seventies. Inside its concrete walls were three long picnic tables with attached benches, and behind a high counter, a kitchen with a huge refrigerator, a deep fryer and a grill. You could order a croque-monsieur, or a beignet, or a cheeseburger. On days when they had fruit a special dry-erase board stood outside and announced : Les fruits, c'est pour aujourd'hui ! (A green apple or a bright Valencia orange cost 1€50, more than a can of Coke Light.) Around the corner from the kitchen there was a little one-aisle shop where you could buy biscuits, cans of soda, colored pens in sets of five, enveloppes, pads of paper, dress shirts, teddy bears, bars of chocolate, small bottles of unknown perfume. You could get cigarettes and stamps if you asked the bland-eyed attendant behind the counter. And you could get tins of instant coffee. The tins were blue or brown, labelled "Cappucino" in an exotic font, white letters against the colored metal. Blue was for coffee-flavor, brown was for mocha. Both were intensely sugary. All ingredients, product descriptions and explanations were in Arabic script ; the tins bore a "halal" symbol.

Francisco, the former baker from Bordeaux, had one of these tins on the shelf to the left of the window in his room, next to a picture of his family at his son's Première Communion. (His son, about age twelve, wore a white suit ; he had longish wavy brown hair and his father's sad hazel eyes.) Francisco always brought the tin out for goûter, and he and Armelle sat silently at a wood-colored table, taking hesitant sips from bowls of steaming Cappucino. Some afternoons I would curl into a red-upholstered armchair in front of the TV, in the small alcove that made an "L" of the dining room, watching M6 Musiques or the afternoon movie while waiting for Stargate, and listen to Francisco and Armelle. Armelle rarely spoke, except in reply, but Francisco, undaunted, talked to her. He told her about bread, in spurts of cautious speech. He burst into bright descriptive dialogue that took him minutes to prepare : the feel of dough in the palm of his hands as he worked a new bowl of batter. The smell of yeast. The sticky texture of brioche clinging to the creases underneath each knuckle. I would tuck my feet under my thighs in the uncomfortable armchair and fold myself as small as possible, listening with my eyes half-closed, learning about bread, and about Francisco the baker.

I want to twist in your arms like a snake that's been charmed
Like a baby newborn with his arms groping out
I would shout but there's always a song and I
need to be stronger.

One day I told Angela that Francisco was mignon. She reacted with a girlish laugh and an offer to set us up. He's not with anyone right now, she said. No, I laughed, I meant, he was kind. Friendly, generous, and simple. Francisco sincerely wanted to get better, yet was too humble to think he had made progress in the better part of a calendar year that he had spent so far at Jean Delay. When he had an afternoon permission he would offer to drive other people from the ward to Carrefour so we could stock up on chocolate, or maxi-pads, or Coke Light, or whatever it was we'd run out of that they didn't sell in the hospital's cafeteria store. If we didn't have a permission, or didn't want to leave the hospital grounds, we would give him our lists and some euros, and wait for him to return with an armful of white plastic carrier bags bearing Carrefour's blue logo. I went with him once. It was my fifth week, his seventh month. By this point my stash of Nescafé had grown, and made a crackling noise even through the backpack-pocket fabric. I had also moved tables again. Angela and Nicolas had left the unit ; Martine had fallen out with Armelle and Christian, and migrated to sit with Abdel and Nadjet. I took Martine's place, the top-left chair, my back to the wide window, and found a new little family. Christian and I talked about books. Armelle showed me pictures of her children, and shared her knitting patterns. We all talked together about hospital happenings - the skinny schizophrenic who streaked through the cafeteria one morning, the doe who had given birth to a foal. And Christian, who had a prostate condition, gave me his Nescafé rations. I've said before that each of us in the unit "woke up" eventually, that we found our ways to communicate with each other and make connections. For some it was in small gestures of kindness - sharing a gift of chocolates from a visitor. For others it was the idea of a game of boules or a walk around the hospital grounds. That table is where it happened for me. Even on bad days, I looked forward to the meals we would share, the conversations we would have. The sound of Armelle's voice at noon. Christian's meticulous attention to the choices of words in Balzac et la petite tailleuse chinoise. Francisco's stories of the bakery on the côte d'argent.

That afternoon Francisco and I had three-hour permissions and signed the register at the nurses' station. Francisco turned on the radio and we sang along with France Gall. "Ella, elle a, ou-ouh-ouh, ou-ouh-ouh, cette drôle de voix ..." Once we were belted into his black Peugeot, he told me to lean the passenger seat back and pulled an extra pair of sunglasses out of the glove box. He turned out from the hospital's front gate and took the traffic circles cautiously, then navigated us to a long straight stretch of semi-rural road between Bron and Vénissieux and punched the accelerator. We hit a dip and actually took to the air for a second that made my stomach jump into my chest. Time seemed to slow down. When the wheels landed on tarmac once again, sound came back slowly. I heard Francisco giggling, then he looked worriedly over at me. "Ça va ?" he said, and I nodded, still breathless. "Vrai ?" Yes, I told him, it's fine, I'm fine, it was even a little bit fun. "Alors ... On peut le refaire ?" he asked. And we did. He turned the car around and we took the dip in the opposite direction, and this time I closed my eyes when the back wheels left the ground, and felt laughter rise like bright soap bubbles in my throat.

At Carrefour we started in the electronics aisle, and Francisco dropped the new Isabelle Boulay album into his basket. "Parfois je me fais des folies," he said, almost flirtatiously. In the clothing section he tried on a pale yellow-green wool sweater that brought out the color of his eyes but made his skin look sallow. I shook my head and he tried on a slate-blue one instead. He explained he needed something new and snappy, he was going to visit his family in Bordeaux the following weekend. He had a four-day permission. The blue was like an early-morning October sky over the Saône, and Francisco's face took on a warm hue next to it, but he pulled it off and hung it back up. "Peu importe ce que je mets," he said. It doesn't matter what I wear. I looked down at my black jeans, the ones I had used for processing photo chemicals and painting a Christmas mural my first year in Lyon. I'd already consigned them to the closet, to be worn only for at-home days of chores or work. Why had I packed them for the hospital, chosen them to wear on today's expedition? How long since I'd put on mascara or a shirt with buttons, used a hairdryer? Francisco's eyes were sad.

Blue touches blue, touches grey, frothy white
Where my face is all blurred and reflecting the light
If I tell you I feel like a bird in the cold
And I need you to hold me ...

You promised you'd show me which brioche is best, I said, and tugged on his arm. He picked up his panier and we walked to the groceries, choosing bars of Côte D'Or, sleeves of buttery cookies (for Armelle), and a braided brioche with chocolate chips for that afternoon's goûter. Francisco grabbed a tin of instant cappuccino, Carrefour brand. We went through adjacent caisses, then Francisco suggested we stop for a coffee at the bar/café by the exit. We sat at a tiny round rickety table and sipped from opaque plastic cups. He stirred a full cube of white sugar into his ; the crinkly wrapper was decorated with a miniature Starry Night Over the Rhône. Why didn't you get some Nescafé ? he asked. Then you could have as much as you wanted, and not worry about the little packets. The coffee aisle sprang vividly to my memory, with its carefully arranged jars and cans, and its bricks of fine-ground espresso, packaged in blue, brown and red paper.

I smiled and smoothed the sugar-paper out on the table. A bolt of soft white cut through the sky of Van Gogh's tableau, where Francisco had torn the paper to shake the sugar into his coffee. "On ne peut pas avoir de l'eau chaude," I told him, and he nodded. It was true : Upstairs in the Unité Jean Delay, we were not allowed hot water during the day, except at breakfast and goûter.

*

What I didn't tell Francisco : I didn't want to have as much as I wanted. I'd been there. I'd had overflowing canisters and extra bags in the freezer. So much every day that I'd stopped tasting it. Lost what it meant to treasure anything at all. For a while at least, I wanted to keep collecting the single servings, hang onto each measured quantity. The way each one became an event, with a tentative beginning, a calm middle, a reluctant last sip. The way the stack of packets reminded me of mornings with faces - familiar enough, little by little, to be friendly. Christian's dimple and slight blush as he said he hoped Dai Sije would write another novel soon. Armelle coming out heavy-lidded in the morning, and gradually smiling if sun fell in slats through the windows. Paulette's wry face when she lost at Scrabble. Angéla's goodbye gathering, when we passed waxy boxes of orange-passionfruit cider around the smoking room with a tray of Kinder bars cut into squares. Sabrina's garish fuschia lipstick, the stunning smile that burst across her face to surprise us, her most of all. Rémy's earnest eyes behind small round glasses, asking me to pray with him. Chantal leading a group of us over to the window of the clinique maman-bébé and showing us her two-week-old infant, which we stared at with the awe of children ; "j'ai bien travaillé," she said. Abdel giving me two kisses and chocolate from Algeria when he learned it was my birthday. Francisco's soft voice describing how to braid dough and mix egg-white with butter to brush over the top five minutes before the end of baking, to make the bread golden. Cathie dancing and singing the first eight syllables of "Dini" in the TV room. Claude trying to get hooked on Stargate and asking, about every character, "c'est un Goa'uld, celui-là ?" Some of these stories I haven't told. There are more I'm sure I'll never remember. Each Nescafé packet represented a moment of kindness, from someone I barely knew, and didn't know if I'd see again. The generosity of strangers. The reassurance of routine. Being strong enough to realize I wasn't strong enough yet. Taking vivid pleasure in the smallness of a cup of coffee. The pile of them reminded me there was enough of all of it.

Dini, dini maak, ghir ana ou yak, dini maak
Dini, dini biid, dini win, wian ahouek

I left the hospital with no fanfare, a few weeks later. Nobody in France knew I was going home - not the neighbor who stacked my mail on the purple sofa inside my apartment. Not the girls who had taken care of my cat. Not the priests or the choir or my friends from the summer. Francisco was out on a family visit ; Christian was in a neighboring hospital having prostate surgery. Armelle was home on a two-day permission. Sabrina wouldn't say goodbye - "ça me perturbe," she said, turning her back. I didn't make a farewell speech, didn't promise to keep in touch. Two women who had been on the ward for nine and ten days, respectively, walked me downstairs to the outside, gave me kisses on each cheek and wished me well. We parted warmly. I don't remember their names. I drove away in the late afternoon, marvelling at the quantity of things I had managed to collect in nine weeks. When I got home, I found a miraculous parking place and carried only a few things up the spiral stairs : the case with my laptop and dissertation work in it, the jacket it was still too warm to wear full-time, my backpack. Once inside I felt lost. I sat down, stood back up. Opened the computer and closed it again. Put on a CD. Plugged in my mobile phone. And turned on the orange bouilloire, the one called Bob. I opened the bulging front pocket of my backpack and dumped the packets of Nescafé into a golden-beige wicker basket I kept by the kitchen window. I sank one hand into the pile briefly, closed my eyes, and wiggled my fingers. When Bob clicked off, I pulled one packet from the pile, tore it open slowly, stirred it into the boiling water in my pink mug, and started to think about being home.

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine ...

Pope John Paul II,
1920-2005.

Fidelium animae per misericordiam Dei requiescat in pace,
Amen.

Nigra sum.

Commentathon

Greg at The California Hammonds is hosting a memorial commentathon today, the anniversary of his wife's death from breast cancer. You can still pledge - and, of course, comment for a cause.

And ...

Terri Schiavo est morte.

That was the headline that greeted me when I opened my Internet browser this morning.

Fideliae anima per misericordiam Dei requiescat in pace.