While I was in Rome my already random blogging patterns completely fell apart.  I had the best of intentions leaving America (of course I was going to write the best travel blog ever written by a college student), but as soon as I landed in Rome I had stars in my eyes and my attention was absorbed in the millions of sparkling details that stole my heart. And gradually my sadness fell into the cracks between the “little St. Peter’s”* under my feet.

After we napped off the worst of the jet lag and the nauseating cab ride from the airport, my roommates and I proceeded to get thoroughly lost in Trastevere, our “neighborhood” South of the river in Rome. Two hours, one slice of “fold-y pizza”, and one incredibly worthless map later we walked past a tiny opening in the wall lining the sidewalk, it was an entrance into a garden full of pavilions and bustling with people and all the rattling dull-roar of a room full of Italian conversationists. It was a senior center of sorts, but it was more like a club than anything. From the sidewalk I could see old men playing cards, and old women clumped together all over the courtyard talking about who knows what.  

“Hey guys, I’ve read about these, can we stop in?” (How many times did I say that in Italy?)

Madeline looked cautious and Emily looked curious, but I didn’t really wait for a response. I knew what I was hoping to find: a bocce ball game with the locals- so I wondered to the back of the garden/courtyard and found it- the game was in full swing, Italian style: the clacking of the bocce balls and the laughter from the old men escaping from under a pavilion in this oasis-like space between two old apartment buildings- it was really quite picturesque. 

The old men finished up their game and were beginning to put on their well-tailored jackets in the 75 degree heat (always put together, the Italians) when they noticed us watching. Two blondes and a brunette, the youngest people in the garden by decades: they knew we were international students and assumed we were American. So I stepped forward and opened my American mouth to ask if we could play bocce ball.

And so began my first interaction with the Italians. They tried desperately to teach us the delicate art of bocce ball. My Italian was helpful; it’s both terrifying and exhilarating to be the translator. My highly sensitive nature always felt the longing to understand and be understood every time I put myself in the language barrier- I didn’t need eyes to translate, not really. I used my eyes to match lips to articulations and body language to vocal inflections, but translating is a job of the heart and the subconscious- a combination of letting go and trusting one’s language skills and feeling out the situation to find meanings- if I let go of my eyes and make the world stand still I can feel meanings from the hearts near me. It takes practice, and obviously is easier the longer you know someone, but I’m not crazy, just try it. It is a much more peaceful way to communicate than frantically scrambling through a dual language dictionary, whether it be mental or physical.

“Ayy! Più piano, più piano!” the tall, slender man with the denim jacket put his palms to his temples, exasperated with our incompetent bocce ball skills.

“More floor, more floor?” I thought to myself, huh? Then I let myself feel the situation and his meaning came to me.

“More softly, more softly! He says we need to throw more softly!” When I let go of the drive to reconcile his words with American meanings, the more colloquial shades of Italian came back to me. 

From then on, speaking with locals became more of an art than a science for me. Speaking with Italians was more like participating in performance art than definition recall from then on. 

My heart has always been more accurate than my brain. 

*Little St. Peter’s- the Roman pet-name for the cube-like cobblestones that pave the streets of Rome