At first glance, I wouldn’t expect somebody like you to have curiosity in me like you do. I’m a writer, akin to you, but not really…and you didn’t know that about me when we met. The title of ‘writer’, for me, is strictly a technicality. I mean, I write, but close to nobody reads any of it. I’m quiet, a self-proclaimed loner, and a little bit of a badass. Not like you, who has people lining up to read every letter you scribble down. Liam Carroll, showoff extraordinaire. It was accidental that you stumbled across my writing in the first place, and I wouldn’t want lots of people to read it anyway. It’s mostly jagged poetry, and it’s painful for me.
Today, as we toddle along the Tiber, my mind is flustered with thoughts, as it always is. I’m aware of my consistently sidetracked state, contrary to what most people think, but it doesn’t bother me. My neuroses have served as constant companions, and I’ve learned to embrace them over the span of the two years that we’ve spent here. While in Italy, I’ve grown old enough to see all of the things that are unalterable in my life, and consequently, I’ve reached a foundational bliss in this country that makes me proud of myself. My Roman ease, though, if I’m being totally honest, is partly due to your friendship and willingness to be a witness to my life. I will never, ever admit that to you.
I like to create timelines in my head. What I mean is that, when I’m with people that I’ve known for awhile, I frequently think back to the day when they and I first met. I put the sequential events of our shared relationship into order, desperately seeking to explain how we wound up wherever we happen to be at that moment. Without those timelines, I have trouble understanding how people wind up anywhere. Without my own timeline, even, I struggle to see how I wound up in Rome. Well, so it is with you. As we walk together, so habituated to one another that talking isn’t needed, I reflect back to the day we first met.
But then here we walk, along this not-so-mighty-river. Romans would have you think that this thing was a blood-thirsty bunghole, but in reality, it’s just as slow as we are. I’ve been brought out of my reflection world by the smell of fried artichokes, and I’m smiling because I know the area we’re bypassing. Consistently over the course of my life, my favorite country is the one I’m in, my favorite neighborhood the one I’m walking through. Thus, I typically prove to be unreliable and, in general, awful at making decisions about travel, or restaurants, or places to live. Not in Rome, though. My choice neighborhood in Rome, without any qualm, is the Jewish Quarter. The quiet resilience that is exuded from this section of town stirs me, and its Jewish exclusivity is calming to me. These people that we’re walking by have earned the right to be exclusive, to draw into themselves for support and community, to question the very countrymen and women that they live amongst, and they’ve proven that it’s possible to come courageously out of horrors. It’s this type of buoyancy that I find so moving about this city, particularly in the Ghetto di Roma.
In a way, I feel like that’s what you and I have done, drawing into ourselves for support and community. Yet, me being me, I flip the box, and I am keenly aware of how we must appear to other people as we walk. Take today for instance. Me, long blonde hair, but dressed in all black, rocking my favorite red lipstick. You, thin, with deep, dark eyes, grungy and grizzly, yet still timelessly striking. Arm in arm. It’s possible that we even appear to be a couple. That will never be true, though. You hate women too much, and I hate men too much.
You’re one of very few people in my life that prefers to call me Cesraéa, rather than Chez. At first, I was wary of you for using it so freely, as if you had the right to do so. I’m very fond of my name, as you know, but most people don’t choose to notice that Chez is short for something. All of my poems, incidentally, are titled Cesraéa, and I think that’s why you use it. You asked me once, last year, why I title all of them with my name, and honestly, I think it’s because I don’t know what to write about if I’m not writing about myself. My world is the only world that I really know. People write about lots of people. They write about Steve, Molly, Jane, Mark. But somewhere in there, they’re writing about themselves. I believe that, anyway. So I just try to cut the bullshit and be honest with you. But nobody reads it, so it’s easier for me than it is for you. Put bluntly, it doesn’t make sense to me to title them with any other name. I don’t think I ever answered that question for you.
I’m smiling again, brought out of my flustered world another time. We’re crossing the Tiber now, about to cross into Trestevere. We’re walking the bridges that connect the Isola Tiberina with both sides of the river, my favorite route. It’s my favorite route because it houses one of my first and most powerful memories of Rome. When we first arrived here, I remember scouring the city for a post-box. I was desperate and discouraged. I suppose I expected to see blue, arch-shaped boxes on every street corner, just like home. In my embarrassing confusion, only God knows how many red Poste Italia boxes that I probably walked straight by, pissed off and unconvinced that Italy and I would find a way to get along. The first one that finally I noticed was the one attached to the outside of La Chiesa di San Giovani Calibita, on this little island, while I was walking alone one night. Red is my favorite color, it always has been. It’s the color of a slap, the color of my lipstick, and the color of the post box that renewed my conviction in the decision to re-start my life in Italy.
We’ve just crossed into Trestevere, I’m sure on our way to Piazza di Santa Maria, your favorite piazza in Rome. You’re in the middle of telling me that this, Trestevere, is where you do your best writing. We’ve had this conversation before, so, as we walk, I give you a look to suggest my exasperation, and I leave you again for my own world, tuning you out.
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