Probably

I didn’t come here for the girl.

On May 8th of 2006, I didn’t know a Valeria.

I didn’t come here for her and I didn’t come here for any other person. I came here for me.

I have lived a long time without her and I lived in this city for weeks without her.

But now, I don’t know if I can continue to live in this city without her. Nearly everything in this city - everything that I touch and see and smell - has been painted a different shade by her and by us. I see her at work. I see her at the lake in EUR. I see her at my apartment. My God, do I see her at my apartment.

It seems as if every piece of this city - every side street and corner and stair - has been touched by us.

Our first kiss in Villa Borghese.
The tram going up Via Flaminia to my first apartment.
The furniture store near Piazzale Flaminio.
Parking her car near Piazza del Popolo.
Dinner at Il Brillo.
San Pietro at night - “our spot”.
Shopping on Via del Corso - “Jam” and “Zara” and “Energie”.
Going to Piazza Venezia for a cappuccino and only a cappuccino.
Sitting and talking - at the beginning - on a bench on Via dei Fori Imperiali.
Termini taking the trains to Siena and Perugia.
Piazza Navona at Christmas, one week before I left.
Circo Massimo in silence, listening to each other, existing together.
The rose garden above Circo Massimo, when she called and told me she left her boyfriend.
Trastevere - all of it.
Driving on the Cristoforo Colombo.
Viale Marconi - walking and shopping, at Christmas, with big jackets.
Walking around San Paolo Basilica, knowing her.
Watching her give her thesis at her university - Roma Tre.
The McDonald’s on Viale America.
My school - where I met her the first time.
Via Fiume Giallo.
Ostia.

There are hundreds. They cover the entire city and not many hours go by consecutively without me seeing or hearing or feeling one of these. I have lived but a few weeks in this city without her and that has become painfully, painfully obvious.

I didn’t come to this city because of her.

But probably, I will leave this city because of her.

Beauty

The Beauty that I have experienced since May haunts me. Every day...every hour of my existence now is overwhelmed with thoughts and memories of this. They are countless - more than one person could possibly remember yet too many to possibly forget. On this website I have given you descriptions of only a small sample, and my words for those chosen few have been pitifully inadequate.

It is a Beauty that words simply cannot capture. I could enlist the talents of history's greatest writers, the people who paint vividly and fantastically with words, yet they too would fail miserably to express this Beauty.

Impossible to encapsulate - to define - to describe.

This Beauty is unlike anything I have ever experienced. I have experienced a lot in my 26 years...however this is something wholly different and unique from everything else in my life.

I thought the sunset in Florence last summer was beautiful. I thought hearing "It's a Wonderful World" in Cologne was beautiful. Paris at dusk. Cinque Terre at...well, anytime of the day. The Alhambra, Capri, the Swiss Alps, the Grand Place in Brussels. Chapel Hill on a crisp autumn evening.

Viewed separately, in their own right, these things are in fact beautiful. But life is not lived in a vacuum. If you lose your job of 15 years, this seems a tragedy. However, if the following month you lose your spouse to cancer…certainly you will cease to think of your unemployment as a tragedy. For losing your job is nothing compared to losing your loved one.

Such is true here, as well.
All of it - everything up until now pales in this Beauty's light. There are many things that I have thought to be beautiful in my life. But life is not lived in a vacuum. And the scales have just been radically altered.

I have just stepped out of the light from the most beautiful thing I have ever experienced. I fear – with every piece of my broken heart – that it will be the most beautiful thing I will ever see in my life. I fear that because it has passed. Because if that is true, then I must live the rest of my days knowing that I will never see a beauty quite as fantastic, quite as radiant and pure and innocent as this Beauty.

And that breaks my heart.

Again.

“Sometimes...when you hold out for everything, you walk away with nothing.”


I have nothing left after this.

Reckoning

There is a girl.

A girl who, at this moment, is 4,000 miles away.

I met her in the most unlikely of circumstances...half-way across the globe from my home. A million miles from my life and my world and my normal.

Probably, the girl is not thinking of me.

But I am thinking of her.

I remember a time when she said:

The life is very strange. I want very much to find a man of my life. And now I find you and you are Americano. I don't understand.


I don't know how to reckon with this. Is there reason in this world? Is there chance or fate or destiny? Is it a game? Is it all just random? Is there a God?

I don't know anymore - I cannot reckon with this...

It is as a Dream - A Nightmare

And it simply cannot be Real...

And So It Ends...

Perchè?

I don’t know why I came to this city.

Maybe it was to avoid responsibility.
Maybe it was to be a different person.
Or to leave the past behind.
Or to be a teacher.
Or to live in a place so full of history and culture and art.
Maybe it was to find answers.

I hope it was not to find answers. Because I have not found them. In fact, I feel like I have even more questions now than ever.

I have been in this place – away from my home – for 8 months. I have met people from many different countries. I have seen those people come and go. I have seen this country win a World Cup. I have seen this country elect a new government and pass new laws. I have seen this city in ways that I never imagined I would see it. I have seen the graffiti and the homeless and the traffic. I have experienced the horrible public transportation. I have breathed the polluted air but I have not swum in the polluted sea. I have looked at this place with disgust, wonder, apathy and I have looked at it as if it were any other city in all the world – as if it were my own.

A few weeks ago, my family came to visit. My parents, 2 of my sisters, a brother-in-law, and my little niece, Victoria. She’s a lot bigger than I remember. A lot bigger than the last time I saw her back in March. I have missed so much.

Time passes without anyone’s permission. I have seen the seasons change in this city. I arrived during Spring’s beginning. The days were comfortable but the mornings and nights would chill you without a jacket. Everything was new for me and I navigated through this new life of mine with wide eyes and shaking hands. People came and then they left. Never could I have imagined or predicted what events would unfold during this new life stage. The sun rises every morning and with it a new day comes. We never know what the tide will bring in.

Spring somehow changed into summer without notice. It happened without notice because life was simply becoming more involving. A job came about just as quickly as one could hope for. At the time, I just wanted a job – it mattered not where or when or how much. However, those exact things – where and when – would prove to be quite meaningful in the days to come. There are literally hundreds of language schools in this city and I sent my resume to a good chunk of them. I could have worked at any number of schools and I could have met any number of different people. How many different paths could have unfolded in front of me? How many different situations or decisions could I have been faced with? I don’t know, perhaps the path that I found was the only one that existed. And perhaps I didn’t find the path as much as it found me. Perhaps. Whatever the truth is, this path has proven to be quite life altering.

I remember the exact moment when I first saw her name. But it was just a name on a piece of paper. A faceless, soulless, meaningless name that I would teach the English language to and forget. How many students have I had over the last 7 months? How many have come and gone? 200?? It only took my third class ever to change my life. And not just my life here in Rome – my Life. Tuesday, May 9th at 6 p.m. No matter what happens in the future, I will look back upon this period in my life, and I will inevitably think of the girl. She – We – will be forever imprinted upon my life. The trials and tribulations; the lessons; the moments of unfiltered Beauty; and the Affliction. How many language schools are there in this city again? Hundreds?? And how many teachers are at my particular school? 15?? 20??

Why was that particular name on my particular schedule? Why? What reason is there for that? Why was she taking a class during this particular period? Why had I decided to move to this place at this particular moment? Does it matter? Of all the language schools in all the cities in all the world – we had to walk into the same one at the same time.

And so here we are, starting yet another month. Fall has been a technicality and really Winter hasn’t taken hold just yet. It’s as if Mother Nature hasn’t quite decided what she wants in life. A stark parallel to my life right now.

It’s strange, really. The last 2 months have been just about as difficult as the first 3 were easy. And my God, were they easy. The girl talked about North Carolina and the future and how perfect the days were with me. She must have asked me 100 times: “You want married me??” Everything was clear. She wanted me and she wanted a life with me. She told me – almost every day – not to leave Rome. It wouldn’t be fair and her life would be horrible without me.

And then we experienced a huge, huge shift in September for some reason. It’s something I’m still not clear on, but when I told her that I was staying and my parents were selling my car – something changed. In these two months, she’s told me that she never loved me, that she loved me at one time and that she’s only happy when she dreams of life in North Carolina. She has told me that I give her the power to continue to live and she has asked me not to leave her. She has said more things. Somehow, reality found us and has been doing it’s damned best to take us out.

Maybe…just maybe, I’m starting to understand now. Maybe all the dreaming was easy at first – easy because it was so unrealistic. Admittedly, the circumstances surrounding our relationship have been quite fantastic. It has lent itself well to the dreaming.

Nevertheless…I am coming back to this city after Christmas. Probably, I will be coming back to a different place than I left. It’s possible that the girl and I will not stay together for much longer and I could be on another journey – Alone.

How many times do I have to get back up before I can just stop getting up any more?

A Blink...

On Monday night, I stood at the bus stop in the rain talking on the phone to my girlfriend about her day and about her mother and about her thesis. It was raining and I was tired but damn, was her voice healing.
Tonight I stood at the same bus stop alone. I wasn’t talking to my girlfriend because I don’t have a girlfriend right now. I feel broken.


In the Blink of an Eye

In the Blink of an Eye, your life can change.

In the Blink of an Eye, you can turn the hallway corner at school and see a girl in a white jumper that gives you pause. You pause, not because on that day she’s stunning (she certainly can be), but rather because on that day something deep down inside of you stirs. Something at a very innate level. You don’t know this girl in the white jumper and you don’t know what this feeling is – but My God, do you have butterflies.

In the Blink of an Eye, the spark can come out of nowhere. That spark you get with another person when you know something is undeniably right about being with her.

In the Blink of an Eye, you can understand that you were brought to this very place and moment and that she was brought to this very place and moment for a reason, and quite on purpose.

In the Blink of an Eye, the world can disappear. A hug between a girl who has a boyfriend and a boy from North Carolina can very easily and very naturally turn into a kiss. A kiss that – I would swear on this – stopped the Earth from rotating for about 10 seconds. The type of kiss that writers write about. That filmmakers dream of filming. The type of kiss that everybody wants as their first kiss with someone. A kiss that you will unquestionably remember for all the days of your life.

In the Blink of an Eye, the image can pop into your head. You know the image. The one you get when you envision – sometimes in the most unlikely of situations – your future with the girl standing in front of you. On a busy Roman road, with your arms wrapped around in front of her, palms on her tummy, looking at furniture. Totally unexpected and totally something you’ve never done before. But somehow it’s comfortable and it isn’t fleeting. It’s real.

In the Blink of an Eye, the girl can look at you with arguably the biggest and brownest eyes in all the world and say things to you that make you look up into the heavens and thank God for inexplicably blessing your life. Things like “Jonathan, don’t go back to North Carolina. It’s not fair that your family and friends get you for years and I for only few months.” Things like “Jonathan, we have more things to do together. We have to walk on street at Christmas with big jackets and scarves. You have to see me play volley. We have to visit Venezia together.”

In the Blink of an Eye, your life can change.

In the Blink of an Eye, the girl in the white jumper can take away all those “I love you”’s that she’s said in the last 2 months. “I don’t love you. In the past or now. I’m sorry.” Everything else has been real, she says. She was saying those words for a month before you returned them to her. And when you finally did – on a cobblestone street in the middle of Trastevere – she wrapped her arms around you and pressed her body against yours as if you had just saved her from the deepest and darkest ocean in the universe. You know what that feels like? First to have someone react like that when you tell her you love her? It’s magical. It really is and it fills your heart with something not of this world. And then to have someone say they want to take those words back? I would rather someone cut off my fingers one by one.

In the Blink of an Eye, you can go from not having a worry in the world, to hanging on for dear life. That’s what it feels like right now. I feel like I just caught a glimpse of the summit…the beauty and the clarity and the views seemed spectacular. It was in grasp, but as I was taking that last step, the rock underneath my feet gave way. And now all I’ve got is one hand holding on – slipping more and more by the second.

In the Blink of an Eye…the girl that so suddenly came into your life, like a whirlwind touching down, could just as suddenly be gone from your life.


It’s real and it hurts like hell. Not because I don’t have a girlfriend right now, but rather, because I feel like it’s my fault. I feel like I keep blowing it and I don’t know what to do about that.

Something is terribly wrong with me and I don’t know how to fix it.

I fight myself - it seems like - on a daily basis.

It's been, what, 4 years since I last had a serious, serious relationship?!?

4 years since I last trusted myself with another person.
4 years since I last believed in myself with another person.
4 years since I last wholly trusted another person.

It was a conscientious decision, to be sure. But circumstances that occurred after the decision simply made it easier to follow thru with the course of action.

And so here I am - a man who's not spent more than 2 consecutive months with the same girl in the last 4 years of his life - and I'm pushing 3 months with this ever-so-unexpected girl from Rome.

She's just about as sweet as they come. She's honest with me. She tells me her dreams and her fears. She's not afraid to smile and laugh and kiss me with abandon. She's not afraid to cry in front of me, either.

She does things - like tells me her ex-boyfriend called her - with such aloofness that it's obvious she expects me to care even less than she does. Obvious that there's no reason not to trust her. And there isn't. When I take time to step outside and think, that point becomes quite clear.

But the knee-jerk reaction still dwells somewhere deep inside me. Left over from the mistakes that I've made and the daggers to the heart that I've taken. Sometimes I get jealous. Sometimes, frustrated. Sometimes still, I close up.

But I'm trying. I swear to God, I am.

I see a battle on the horizon, to be honest.

Castel Sant'Angelo at Night 2, originally uploaded by uncsuperman.

Honestly, I don't know where the time goes. But a month has passed since I last wrote and time will not stand still, no matter what we do.

After a particularly exhausting and boring day on Monday, I slumped into my seat on the almost-vacant bus pulling out of Stazione Termini. Unfortunately, the apartment I chose in late April ended up being about 1000 miles (don't ask me for that in kilometers, please) from where I work. It sometimes is a pain in the ass, but my 50-70 minute commute sometimes gives me time to relax, decompress, and reflect.

Such was the case Monday night.

I'm not sure what I was listening to, but my MP3 player was on and I had been sweating periodically throughout this long and sweltering day, so I'm sure I smelled a little. I crossed my arms and put them on the handlebar directly in front of me. Then I rested my chin on them and stared off into the Roman night. Maybe 4 other people were on the bus with me, and I'm sure I looked quite pitiful and depressed to them. Or perhaps they didn't consider me at all...probably not.

But I wasn't depressed - I was just shutting down for a few minutes. Life sure is different here. Italy is not some 3rd world country, to be sure, but it's on a whole different level from America. There are a lot of poor people here. It's dang near impossible to own a home within the city because living expenses are so high, and wages are so low. If I work 30 hours a week, as a teacher, then my salary is higher than the average for the city. And most of them work quite a bit more than I do.

It's an odd contrast or contradiction of sorts. You can't walk for 5 minutes without seeing evidence of this terrific glory from the past. But today, the city - let alone the country - struggles. If you work for the government, you have a contract for life. It's almost impossible to get fired. Yet others in the private sector struggle mightily to find work.

From what my students tell me, income tax can be as high as 50%, depending on your salary. Yet the city shows no signs of that type of monetary support. It lacks maintenance, renovation and cleaning. Evidence of a large and highly inefficient government, I presume.

Despite all of this - the city remains a magnificent place to be. Which just highlights the potential it has. If traffic could be eased with better public transport; if the cost of living could be brought down; if the city could be cleaned up using some of that tax money. Oh the potential.

I like being here. It's cool as all hell, to be honest. But I don't know how long I will remain. I'm not sure if it's a fault or a virtue - but I just don't like planning anything. Right now, at this moment, I want to stay here for a long time. Years. But who knows what tomorrow will bring?

And it kills me every time Valeria asks me the question.

I tell her not to worry, but it doesn't help. I feel lucky simply because she chose to stick around. Somehow we made it through the little crisis a month ago and have been wonderful ever since. 2 weeks ago we went to Siena for a day and night and had a great time in that romantic little city. She's been gone on vacation this entire week and I honestly didn't think it would matter to me. I have missed her terribly.

Things have escalated - not at an alarming pace, mind you - but at a pace that makes you realize something, something very big, is right about it all. I am trying to stay grounded in all of this. It's difficult not to think about the obvious expanse that divides us but it's a lot of fun to think about the possibilities which lay ahead.

Perhaps part of this little adventure was the idea to separate myself from my life up until this point. To detach, in a way, and reflect upon the things which I have done; the decisions which I have made; and the paths which I have taken. I think that in a way, I have succeeded in this.

For most of my life I have been a very mature person. But it has become increasingly evident to me that in relationships, I can be quite the immature little snob. I don't know why - maybe it stems from the royal treatment my sisters and mother gave me growing up. But whatever the reason, it's my responsibility.

I have expected a lot from my companions. I have expected things to be on my terms.

I think maybe we're getting to that point again, where I have to decide if I'm in or out. Fold or ante up?

Like I said before, eventually I'm going to have to step up...

I Do Want

Let me first say that this post was written some weeks ago, and much has changed since then. The girl, Valeria, is no longer my student. She no longer has a boyfriend. And our relationship is no longer strictly professional. We have spent a lot of time together and we have shared some magical moments, to be sure. Things which I merely wished for while I was teaching her, have now come true. The English language doesn't lend itself to conveying the beauty of the past 3 weeks.

But now, she's scared. Truth be told, so am I. We met on Friday and she told me, after speaking to a friend, that she thought we didn't have a future. I'm from North Carolina, after all. A long way from Rome. And that she needed a few days to think. We then proceeded to have one fantastic afternoon merely sitting in her car, talking. I know not what happens next. I don't know if this is my place in the story.


I was sitting in front of her. One eye maintaining the "teacher" role that I was supposed to be playing - the other slipping into just "Jonathan".

Maybe it was me. Maybe her. Unsure of how the conversation veered from the educational into the personal, the reality was that it had, and I found myself in the middle of something that I never would have expected.

"I...I don't, umm, understand all the English words" she said, in this very urgent but somehow controlled way of speaking. I was aware that something important was happening, and that she wanted so badly to use words which she didn't yet know - words which would convey the depth of her message.

"But...I understand this."

She looked at me briefly and pointed at her eyes.

"And I understand...how I feel."

At that moment, the obvious language barrier that exists between us became irrelevant. I knew and she knew. And that was all that mattered.

That was Tuesday. In Thursday's class I tried to stay on point, referencing the book more than I usually do in any class. But she wouldn't follow my lead. She kept joking about ex-girlfriends that I had mentioned previously. Or a girl that I told her I'd gone to a party with over the weekend, Nicoletta.

Maybe 30 minutes into the lesson, a brief hush came over us from somewhere. She broke the silence.

"I have a question."

Okay. Maybe she wants to know the difference between Past Simple and Present Perfect tenses. That I can answer.

But that wasn't the question. The question she asked, I couldn't answer.

"After the...after I...finish this...course. What happens?"

It would have been infinitely easier had she been talking about her study of the English language. She wasn't.

"I don't know." And I didn't. I don't know what to say to that because I'm afraid. I'm afraid of being a jerk and of being unsatisfied and of hurting the girl. I'm afraid and I've been afraid for a long, long time. But at some point, I'm going to have to step up. So I asked her a question.

"What do you want to happen?"

"I...have a boyfriend. And, I...am scared that you go back to North Carolina. You tell me in first class that you go home in September...October. But, I want to know you."

A few lessons ago, I had offered to continue teaching her on the side after she finished her lessons at the school. I reiterated that offer to her.

"I...I don't want you to teach me. I want to know you...if you want."

"I do. I do want."