Album Fotografico

Hollywood Set

Via Margutta 51. I was the first to spot the street sign. In my mind, I saw it half a century ago. Sun shining, children playing, loping stairways. Maybe you just can’t see this from the street. I half expected a young Gregory Peck to come out, maybe leading Audrey Hepburn on her first Roman adventure. Instead it is us on our Roman adventure. Standing outside the house numbered 51 on a quiet, empty street. I stretch my arms out, pull my left foot back, touching my toe to the ground. I embrace my inner Audrey.

Twenty-two seconds
I am someone else waiting
For happy endings

How to Become an Acrobat

Piazza del Popolo. First stop on Notte Bianca. It’s not as crowded as I imagined. Just wait for later. We wade our way in as the music starts. Two figures in white swing, back and forth. It’s like I’m back on the playground in elementary school willing myself to go higher and higher to touch the trees with my feet. There is a tightrope walker, and a Spanish duo with their theatrics: arms spread wide, palms to cheek in surprise. The Chinese boys, so young, vault on top of each other in their matching red outfits. It gets darker. We huddle closer, watching the white figures at the top of the piazza cartwheel and handspring across the way, looking more like cartoons than real people. The jump and bounce. Those figures stay with me all night.

町の角
人込み夜の
懐かしさ

(the city corner
on the crowded night
nostalgic)

Tour of the French Embassy

Tours are conducted in Italian or French. Do you understand, she asks us in Italian. Un po’ di. Kind of like my un peu francais. Would I understand more if she spoke Italian or French? I’m not sure. I concentrate hard as we move into the Palazzo. At some point, I can tell that she is French and not Italian, though she seems competent in the language. I look when she points up or across. I pick out single words that make me feel accomplished, as Lisa whispers answers that I only half-listen to. The language grabs me. I like this better than the Palazzo Vecchio tour in English. This is what I am supposed to be listening to, even if I don’t understand. I pick up on excitement, on piu importante. I don’t need anyone to tell me how to by hypnotized by the ceiling fresco.

The Italian
Asks Come ti chiami?
Her name is Marie