How loving Roma helps me love NY too
A few evenings ago I got onto a crowded city bus to come home, and was pressed all the way to the front window, just another sardine in the can. It turned out to be the most amazing way to see the city, even the familiar commute home — from the middle of the street, a few feet up, gliding effortlessly like the swooping aerial shot at the beginning of a movie. It was kind of magic, and though I clearly wasn’t, I felt as if I were the only one there.
After a few minutes it seemed that a man squished next to me had noticed the beauty of it too. He asked me something, and when I answered he told me in Italian, “You have a strange accent, are you from the North? From Milan?” “No,” I laughed, “I’m from New York.” And with a smile, he switched to English: “Really? Me too.” He had been talking to a woman further down the bus, and he pointed out the coincidence to her.
It’s funny, how much it can mean, just running into someone else from New York here. Someone that, if you met there, you would have nothing in common with, maybe nothing to talk about. But because we both find ourselves here, it’s a whole shared perspective, shared background, some kernel of mutual understanding that’s immediately recognized between us. A compatriot. It’s an odd thing, when meeting a complete stranger can feel comforting somehow.
We just made your most basic small talk, but it felt more like talking to a friend. “I’m a camera-man. I’m actually going to work at the film festival later tonight.” ”Wow, that’s great. That must be really interesting.”
I thought to ask him his name or his phone number, but he was with a woman, and even if it was only platonic, it didn’t seem quite right. “Well, maybe I’ll see you around sometime,” he said, before slipping down towards the door.
“Yeah, it’s a small city. Well, compared to New York it actually is,” I answered, only realizing the ridiculousness of calling — and truly considering — a city of 6 million “small” halfway through the statement.
And that’s one of the things that I really like about living here — it makes me think about these questions of scale, of how we see things, based both on where we come from, and where we find ourselves now.
What is the actual value of experience in life? Keeping things in perspective and scale. Seeing what’s beautiful and ugly at the same time, what’s worth complaining about, what is so easily to take for granted but should really be appreciated, remarked about, held out at arms length just to actually look for once.
Something little, magnified (see also: my bizarre number of posts relating to coffee). Something big, made manageable, accessible, yours. I went to a few events at the film festival and it was a marvel for me: big enough to draw international names, but small enough that it was open to little peons like me, a chance to dress up, play elegant for a night. Sure, NY has Tribeca Film Festival, but believe me it’s much more of a big deal — which is to say big hassle. These things in Rome feel sort of like having the entire world in your back yard (not to mention an entire history of civilization). It’s a city that’s big and small at the same time, to a NY girl. Ancient and modern. It’s a city of a whole bunch of contrasts that NY, for all its diversity, has never made me experience so directly.
This week I’ll have a series of posts on these spheres of high culture in Rome that I’ve been getting to see in the past few weeks: film, fashion, art. Hopefully bringing some of these ideas together more coherently!
