Machete-Нежность

Translation stationnnnn. These lyrics are a roughly translated version of the song below. This is by no means a literal translation, etc, but it is inspired by. Enjoy?

Machete-Нежность
I saw you the first time and, it was funny,

you reminded me of everyone

I once loved,

and had once been with.

I was struck still.

I was struck silent.

…And could hardly believe it.

So, don’t take it the wrong way when I say,

we’re already together,

but I’m thinking about seeing you next.

I hear you breathing,

I smell your hair,

and I wonder:

will you stay?

We fell asleep

with hands held tightly.

I think we were afraid

of letting go.

Because when the world is manifold,

and our lives distracted,

anything that lets you fold it down
is sacred.

You’re all I need.

Do you understand?

*********

Dreaming we started

our way to success.

Our days were long,

and filled with laughter.

We lived without time

(no years, no minutes),

happy as kids

with stray coins in their bag.

We didn’t need gold

nor fame, nor lust--

just love,

to let us shine, shine like light bulbs.

When I talk about you,

it sends shivers down my spine.

And if you ask if I have a secret,
I'll say yes: 

I’m happy because I have you.

We’re not Bonnie, not Clyde

just two simple guys--

that live like little cracks

on one window.

You’re all I need.

Do you understand?

**********
Our first kiss;

Your name on my lips.

Simple words,

But I’m proud of them.

For, I’m so grateful to heaven,

I’m so grateful to fate,

because I’ve finally realized

who I am,

with you.

You are my love.

You are everything I need.

*********
Please, give me tenderness.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ED6exLkdQds

Today

Today I was walking around and saw a man listening to an iPod on his Vespa.

Today I was walking around and ran into a block party.

Today I was walking around and saw a woman with a newborn baby.

Today I was walking around and drank three coffees.

And then I looked up, saw the buildings bend into a dark alley, and thought about how this is Rome—peeled buildings tangling to some vine valley—and knew that I was going to miss this: spending my todays walking around, thinking as the day was long.  

Santorini

There’s ice crystals on the window and broken clouds below. I’m on a plane separated from the world beneath me, and divided light shreds the distance between us. When I look down I see the ocean as a giornata; flat, on God’s fresco of life.

Britney used to tell me that God painted your life as it went on. The paint would drip, the sun would fade, and finally dry when your skin was old and wrinkly. Then, hung in some endless peace, your time would be secure forever, plastered abstractly into eternity.

I used to think eternity was divided into levels. The first level was earth, and I was there all the time, influenced by the world around me.

The second level was the sky, and angels would cry and rain would fall, blurring the time of my two levels of belief. The watercolor watercolored to one. 

Above that, there was the moon and stars. I saw the moon as an old coin that watched and stayed sad for earth.

Above that, well, I knew there had to be something else. Some candy-land secret-level of life where time was technicolor, and the heart of reality thumped hard wherever you went, thump.

Now, I think it’s just more space or heaven or something. I don’t know.

The window’s hot, but I’m going to Greece so it doesn’t matter. Sunburn will turn to tan, and the tan will turn to freckles, creating a pattern of existence that means my painting is just a series of lines, struck every single day, thump.

God’s painted a routine, or my routine has painted a God.

And at the end of the day, the Pantheon is just an empty building that’s been there 2,000 years. At night it closes and just sits there, where, no matter how beautiful and amazing it seems, is still empty, like every other building in the world. I used to think I was a part of its history—an eternal irony that made me smile—but now I think I’m just a part of history, with life being time and time being all there is.

The plane swings back and forth.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we are now approaching the Santorini airport. Please fasten your seatbelts, and stow your tray tables—prepare for a landing.”

The times passed from ocean to runway and it looks the same as every other landing I’ve seen. The airstrip sets my stage, all exits two lines, painted the same. 

Eri solo da incontrare ma tu ci sri sempre stata

It’s been sunny lately and Corrine, Amy and I had a picnic in the park, and when we walked in I saw the trees stretching their branches like fingers or fingers stretching their branches like trees and the sky was separated from the ground and everything was good and evil and I thought about that.

Like, the view took my breath away. Rome is so beautiful I don’t even know what to do when I see it. Can I even accept this—all of this? I look over the deck and see a panoramic view of life: the Campidoglio, Colosseum and mountains, everything growing from the ground, marble glowng. I could never know any of it.

But, it’s beautiful. When you visit one church there’s another underneath it, and columns stand next to each other, each a dusty books written in a foreign language. Today and yesterday fade with the mountains, while I dissolve in the sun. We’ll never know what we created. 

The mountains were here, though, and so was the Tiber. There used to be a hill where the wreckage of the Roman forum stands, but man wore it down. Too much walking, too much wandering, too much “wisdom”? Everything in excess and the ground fell beneath us. I guess.

The Tiber stayed here, though, and runs through Roma. It’s like a green snake that sometimes overflows and creates tension in the streets that, even though it’s still beautiful, means that good cannot exist without evil and life cannot exist without death.

And while I was walking by the Tiber I looked down and had a flash of death. I saw myself climbing over the fence, spreading my arms, fingers like a tree, and jumping in, losing my life.

It reminded me how scared I actually am of death and how much I love living here. Then, the sun shown again and the water flexed its scales. I guessed it was good.

“Eri solo da incontrare ma tu ci sri sempre stata”

Someone wrote that on the wall. It means: “You were only here for me, but you have always been.” If anything, I dissolved in the wall this time, arms back, fingers like a tree, and knew whoever wrote that felt the same way I did—bittersweet, daybreak about to expire. I smiled into the sun, squinted, and kept walking on cracked cobblestone, where moss grew in dark patches, good and evil, and added color to a usually dark place. 

Carnevale

I woke up feeling like the desert and ended feeling like the ocean which, in my mind, are fairly equal entities as I had pieces of myself scattered everywhere, with my face catalogued behind millions of Italian cameras.

Corrine and I ran into Carnevale. We were shopping on the main artery in Central Roma and, by the time we got out of H&M, the parade was going full force. Confetti burst through in the air, kids sprayed silly string, and a soundtrack of animal noises surrounded us: this is what it’s like to be 5 years old in Rome.

It was a family event. Children were on parent’s shoulders wearing ears like Topolino, and throwing glitter like fairy godmothers. Seeing Rome compounded at once, with the streets closed off and the Piazzo del Popolo jammed, was like the Renaissance Faire mixed with the Superbowl; all of Italy together to celebrate one giant event.

Rome is a city full of strangers. People come to watch the sun set on the colosseum, and bring their native language with. Everyone still echoes back first-world communication, but at Carnevale everything spoken was purely Italian. 

The parade looped around. Corrine and I ran to the other side of the street and let stanzas of princesses and ribbon dancers flow through our consciousness, while all around the crowd translated the same experience through a different language. It was an unreal feeling. A breeze waved glitter through the streets and Bravi! Bravi! We yelled extra loud.

After, we walked down Via del Corso and saw change, empty bottles and books scattered all over the ground.

“Centissimi per pensi?"

It was an open-air museum. A cardboard sign repeated “Penny for your thoughts?” in three different languages, a pool of coins stagnant next door. The museum was completed by a random Roman citizen. I saw it and, in a flash, knew how much Romans actually love their city. If you’re born in this town you never want to leave--taking that step away from leaving everything you know and never could know is heartbreaking. Italian life worships ancestory, and stepping out of God's navel is to become a lonely ruin, surrounded by glitter from Carnevale, but only hearing relatives telescoped through a far-away distance.   

Firenze

Friday we left the hostel to head down streets narrow by even Roman standards. This time it was Florence for the weekend, and as we crossed the Pontevechio I took a star out of our constellation and stopped: how did I get to this moment in life? I’m young, I’m in Florence, I’m crossing a bridge older than my oldest family member, and I’m in the place where the Renaissance began: could life be this good? The river was flowing one fold after another, running the stars, saying: one, Florence, two, Florence, three, Florence, four…

I got to the stairs and Hannah is standing in front of me with this red coat, while Elliott urges us on (he’s Ryan’s friend). I walk downstairs into what looks like an exposed brick basement and end up in a restaurant with garlic hanging from the walls-- I knew: “Ok, this is the most Italian place I’ve ever been.”

As an American studying abroad, even though you’re in Italy, a lot of the places you go still aren’t really Italian. So when I stepped down and saw the view I knew I was in the right place, and followed the path of people ahead of me. Dinner was 3 hours, I don’t remember what the tables or chairs were like, but Molly sat across from me, and we all shared wine and appetizers, and had a great time. After that we had to go, and rolled through the night magnified like folds on the river, magnified like the folds on Florence.

So Elliott takes us to this bar and at first it’s disgusting, but then we go to another and it’s actually pretty cool. The walls are orange and red, with a table, and then the bartender looks like Albert Einstein and yells, VAI VAI VAI, everytime you take a drink. The drink took steps and first you put sugar on one side of an orange, coffee grounds on the next, and then drink Rum and Coke as fast as you can. Next we were at this Spanish place, drinking homemade Sangria from silly straws and then we were a this Zoolander blue light style club with raging techno and maybe disco lights on the walls but I don’t really remember.

We walked past the Duomo on our way back, white with fresco on the outside, and now the stars were above and bleeding white into the night, illuminating some kind of path for me. I followed it, and was drunk and young in Florence and stared up and wondered not what Michelangelo thought (because who am I to even wonder that), but how I got there and where I would be next and thanked the universe and moon for lighting a path for me this far. 

Vatican City

             I entered the spiritual heart of Roman Catholicism and looked around: Vatican City. Christened as a papal state in 1929, the state itself is actually only a piazza long, consisting of just St. Peter's Basilica and the Vatican Museum; a direct contrast to the amount of history there. Statues were piled on sarcophagi, and as Maia and I walked ahead with our tour group, the suns glare jagged the bronze saints before us: leaving me shadowed in a gray pattern of belief.
             How do you work the audio tour again...?
             La Cappella Sistina, Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel, is by far the most famous stop in the Vatican Museum. The Chapel is the last point in the Museo's tour, and stands right before the Gift Shop--a valid marketing strategy for Italians and Americans alike. The entire ceiling, walls and pulpit of this room are frescoed, with each character conveying its own identity and narratives from the Book of Genesis and Last Judgment. Benches were built into the walls, and as I stared up at the ceiling I saw a Greek-looking God touching fingers with a frail Adam; a stream of Christianity still prominent today. Both characters stretched to find one another, with separation suffering ever contour of their face, and leaving the word "achievement" in my mind. The Sistine Chapel took Michelangelo 15 years to fresco, and strained his back in the process. It was finished in the 15th century, and originally criticized for the amount of nudity displayed. The opposition got Daniele de Volterra to cover the genitals of specific characters which, when discovered by Roma's artistic community, earned Volterra the nickname "trouser-maker," along with no outside commissions. The alteration has since been removed, and Michelangelo's four-sides of biblical thought have been restored, leaving me to wonder at their artistic tour de force.
             The four rooms before the Sistine Chapel are the Stanze di Raffaello, the Raphael Rooms. They are allegories on the humanist ideals of theology, philosophy, poetry and justice, and show four great leaders in all these fields: Plato, Aristotle, Da Vinci and Michelangelo. The walls and ceiling are frescoed  in gold paint and shadows from the sun, leaving each corner illuminated beautifully. The limbs and expressions in the characters are defined, drawing the main idea of humanism clear: faith with freedom. They are a beautiful build-up to La Sistina.
             La Cappella Sistina e Le Stanze di Raffaello are the most notable achievements in the Vatican Museum--but every work in the Museo has earned its place. The Egyptian mummy, with its bandages undone, heightens statues from the Etruscan Years, and the Jesus of the Contemporary Art Wing abstractly extracts emotion from Botticelli's Renaissance frescoes. Belief was a common theme throughout all these works, and as cities and empires crumbled, corners of their culture remained, wrinkling present space with past thought, and showing that human existence is just one pattern of faith overlapping another--the darkness between them just a separation from concrete to cloud.

The Eternal City

          The church doors were locked and I had no place to go. My roommate Maia and I were on our first solo expedition through Roma and, typical to Italian form, we began the journey late: ugly Americans. After two failed touristy attempts, Maia and I decided to venture farther into Central Roma, where the concrete tidal wave of standing ruins among fallen civilizations stood tall.
          So Via della Luce intersects Via del Genovesi where we should turn right but not before passing Santa Cecilia in Trastevere?
          We arrived in Campo dei Fiori. A bronze statue of Giordano Bruno stood front and center. In the 1600s, Rome's political environment was not one to be trifled with; political thought centered around the pope's every whim. Bruno, the bronze, had the nerve to suggest the separation between church and state--that was an unpopular idea. Bruno was tried for his opinions, convicted of heresy, and burnt at the stake. Now, a fountain stands where his ashes fell. Today, the Campo seemed like a hectic place where sullen street vendors always accepted the lowest price haggled. But, in less than modern times, this piazza was the center for intellectuals and anti-establishment thinkers. Maia and I stopped to look at small statues of the piazza and, fearing confrontation with the street vendors, we walked on.
          Next, we went to Piazza Navona, most notably the most beautiful piazza in all of Rome. The piazza is actually an old stadium, with its elliptical shape honoring its ancient history. Maia and I walked in, and immediately saw street performers dancing with rubber chickens, to vast entertainment of crowds gathered around. The acts were hilarious, but always came to a close: nothing compared to the permanent fontanas of yesteryear. In the center of the piazza is Fontana di Fiumi, a massive statue depicting the four great rivers of the 17th century: the Danube in Europe, the Ganges in Asia, the Nile in Africa and the Rio de la Plata in the New World. Gian Lorenzo Bernini, the man behind the fountain, apparently stole the fontana's commission from the artist Borromini. Borromini built the Church of Sant'Agnese in Agone, the chiesa next to Piazza Navona, and was commissioned to build the Fontana di Fiumi as well: until Bernini "stepped in" with the Pope's sister. After that, the pope's mind was promptly changed. Art vendors began to set up their paintings in the piazza and, as the piazza dimensions were slowly watercolored from three to two, Maia and I left for our last stop of the day: the Pantheon.
          I've visited Rome once before with my grandparents, and the Pantheon was my favorite site.
          Today, my memory did not disappoint. It was later in the day, but the low light still dissolved the faded columns in my mind. The view was impressive. The ceiling of the Pantheon is a large dome, meant to represent the sky, with a hole cut in the center, to represent the sun. It is a 2,000 year old pagan church, which, in the 17th century made the conversion to Catholicism. This change in ideology is said to have fostered preservative attempts. Pope Boniface IV oversaw this change and transferred over 28 cartloads of bones of martyrs there. Raphael, the painter, is buried in the Pantheon. It is the best-preserved and, in my opinion, most beautiful structure in all of Rome.
          We exited the Pantheon, and outside the sky fell purple: the international monopoly sign to head directly home. The bus ride back was uneventful and, as we passed gates shutting, with neon "open" signs burning "closed," the Eternal City glowed on, with 2,000 years of ruinous memory and civilization standing in the careful moonlight.

Study hard and work right, then you can play all night

...talk about incentive. I just arrived in Rome and my ISC ("Italian Student Companion") was leading my roommates and I to a bar. Andiamo!: the cafe had two rooms and sold mostly Peroni, a popular Italian beer. All the American students stood outside, and while we sipped our sodas, a man on a vespa weaved through the crowd selling roses; blanco e rosso solo un euro!
          I had arrived in Rome 3 hours before. My flight was delayed. By the time I was ready at the meeting location, the person supposed to pick me up left: leaving me stuck. I pulled my suitcases, purse and heavy language barrier through the Fiumicino airport. Italian vendors passed me, and arrival and departure airplanes zoomed ahead, leaving me still as the pillar I stood against. Soon, the situation became clear: I needed to get to my apartment and I needed to get there on my own.
          I decided to try the vendors. The first one didn't understand what I was saying and tried to sell me a tour. The second spoke English and recommended the Italian bus system; I didn't even know what that was. Finally, a third vendor understood my situation; I bought five minutes worth of Internet and phone cards from her and called my study-abroad counselor. My options were either the train or a cab; I opted for the cab. One hundred euros, three hours and a disgusting amount of airline sweat later, I walked through the door of my apartment and was ready to turn it into my home.

Non grazie per "los roses" signor?


          I stood outside the bar and the man on the vespa drove away, leaving a trail of flower petals flying behind him. The roses glowed, half-illuminated by the moon, and I thought of Shakespeare writing, "But what is in a name? that which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet?" I had known this phrase before, but suddenly it occurred to me that Shakespeare must have wrote the line while abroad, because as the night bloomed before me, I understood these next 4 months were mine to name and to know "Rome" (but what is a name?) however I please.

When in Rome, do as the Romans do...

...or try to, at least. In six short days I will travel over the Atlantic Ocean, above the French Alps, and close my life in Chicago; I'm going to Rome. The routine that has thus far echoed my life will change, and I'll enter a place primarily known for its fashion sense.

Parlo Italiano? No, I don't speak Italian.

But right now, my language skills are not what I'm concerned with. My main problem has been the packing; beginning packing, to be specific. I've basically accepted the fact that  my Italian phrase book and red hair will scream "tourist" at every native that can see me. But my clothing style I can change, and hopefully alter to the language of fashion the Italians subscribe to. I have six short days, an empty suitcase and four months of clothing to account for. The clock is ticking and I'm trying to think like an local in the Eternal City: what to pack, what to wear...?!