time.for.hitting.the.road

I love the sounds of a city, in all their weird diversity, and the way they change in intensity and tempo as the day waxes and wanes. Rome is a rich symphony, layers pile on layers, fluid and intense, underlain always by the shushing of car tyres, the argument of horns and the unsteady shriek of sirens.

Here, high on Monte Celio above two of Rome's largest hospitals, the sirens are demanding and frequent, screaming for attention and action "Look at me, run away". They are quite different to the nasal double beat meep mawp of Australian sirens - Roman ambulance sirens have one long loud wheeh whaaaah, underscored by a high pitched yowl. It is distinctive and unmistakable!

The cars themselves are a noisy throng shushing and blaring, as they hustle and shoulder along busy Via Claudia, accompanied by the low pitched chuggering of trucks and buses ~ pushy here as they are everywhere, seeming to relish the fact that they are the working vehicles ... "make way, make way, work being done here, step aside" ... and buzzing about in between it all, the rrrrreving of motor scooters zipping about.

On Sunday mornings alone, things are are a little different ~ the cars wait, pacato, while the bells begin the movement with melodic cacaphony ~ Rome is, after all, a city of churches, and their bells.

Bells are such a beautiful sound. For me there is are pleasant remembrances of childhood Sundays, but the bells themselves are marvellous, the deep chime thrilling through the thick metal, leaving behind its echo for an instant, before tumbling into the next strike; creating a chain of cadence that almost catches into tune, so you find yourself humming tiny snatches of sound that never quite become a melody.

As my room is less than 100 metres from the beautiful Basilica and only slightly more from the bell tower, I enjoy the full concert on Sunday mornings, with the shutters and windows flung wide to the azure sky and the sunlight streaming in. No alarm clock can beat this!

Tonight it is 23.30 pm, and in the city streets below, someone has begun to drum the ancient marching tune, dum dum, dum dum dum - and now that they have our attention, they are speaking through a loud speaker, now comes the full band, a martial tune crackling in the night air and sounding above even the whine of the electric mini buses as they flicker along the road. It is all very exciting, but it is also in Italian, so I can enjoy the music but not the meaning! Ho! it seems one of the many local dogs shares the excitement and has begun to sing along with the snatched choruses of opera, and respond to the powerful interspersing declamations!

The sounds of the city's symphony drift into the night, as do I ...

To wake with the traffic noises and chattering of birds in the few moments before dawn pushes in through the window.

In the half darkness, the sounds are intense and encompassing, nature continuing her busy life under, over and around the noises of humanity. Wherever she has a chance, nature finds a little space, and here in the gardens there is plenty of room for the wild as well as the cultured.

In the house, distant sounds of doors opening and footsteps can be heard, as the early risers begin their day, in work or in contemplation.

The Roman, perhaps Italian attitude to leisure is somehow exemplified in the absence of 'lounge' chairs. There are chairs, yes, some of them very, very gorgeous, some amazingly comfortable, but the few easy chairs that dot this huge house owe nothing to the Italian influence. Check out this site, http://www.designboom.com/history/easy_role.html , and note the difference between the Italian style armchair and that of most other nations. See anything interesting? Yep, that's right, the Italian armchair looks just like an ordinary chair, while many other chairs look like something you might just flop into at the end of a long day and have a nice snooze!

The Italians are an industrious and creative nation, and every thing that is made appears to be designed to be more than it is - a chair is not enough, it must also be a beautiful chair. (Of course, that doesn't always work, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, or in the case of the seat, the backside of the beholder ...) Leisure seems to consist of sharing conversation around a table, with friends and family, and then working a while more. Stand, sit or lie down, but whatever you do, loungeing about is NOT on the agenda! No wonder they found the time to create an Empire while the rest of the world was figuring out how to stuff dried grass into nice mattressy shapes.

I wonder how this cultural aspect squares with the execrable television dished out to the millions of viewers who have made the fabulous character, Mr Berlusconi ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silvio_Berlusconi ) wealthier than any of the Caesars?

In just a few minutes, the first bell of the day will ring in the house, followed shortly afterwards by a second bell, louder, longer and more insitent - time to get up, get get up, get up ...

The morning sounds of the house rise in volume. Footsteps are no longer careful or muffled, voices are not lowered. It's time everyone is up and about, and there is no more need to keep quiet about it! Doors open and close, the sounds of keys jangling and people greeting each other as they hurry to breakfast, or work.

As the time for morning Mass approaches, the sound of voices becomes more and more massed, as individuals and groups begin to move along the marble corridors in the same direction. the high ceilings return the greetings of people walking along the halls, turning into this corridor and walking down the stairs towards the Basilica, for today's Homily.

Inside the Basilica, the familiar sounds of voices and footsteps echoes from the soaring arches and domes of the building, but the beauty and solemnity of this sacred space where St Paul of the cross is buried, seems to have a dampening effect on the sounds of men, and as one goes further and further into the basilica, until we reach the Capello where a saint lies buried, his body in efigy on a glass coffin in the next chapel, walking across the marble tomb stones of the richly faithful embedded in the floor, their names eroded by centuries of muffled footsteps, and a silence seems to fall, whispers become the sounds that feels most comfortable.

Then one voice rises, to be join by the murmuring of others, as the Mass begins and proceeds. Music fills the air, and as people sing, the high ceilings, the carvings and massed voices have the effect of making every singer sound wonderful, and every song sounds beautiful and grand as it floats up into the huge dome, painted in shades of blue and gold and white, with scenes of a magnificent Heaven just like the one I was taught about as a little girl - lots of very holy people in robes, with neat hair and sad smiles, sitting very seriously on soft white clouds which are suspended in an azure sky ... a staggeringly beautiful place, the product (one suspects) of the love of the lord and of good design in nearly equal parts.

Today's Homily is given by a man with a soft, sing song voice, who speaks about pain and suffering. He remembers that somewhere in the world the music of the morning is raucous and raw, and asks how is it possible to have authority without the corrupting influence of power. How shall we sing the Lord's song, in a strange land?

Yet here in this beautiful cool place, where the marble floors lie at the feet of centuries, it's not hard to imagine that the painters of these glorious scenes saw the magnificent heaven of beauty, holy love and peace within their grasp.

The Basilica is cared for by an old and most charming man, who came out of retirement to clean and polish and lavish attention and love on the beauties here. Is it, I ask, the work of his hands or his heart? He loves to do it, he replies, strong hand touching his shirt above his heart, eyes gleaming and smile eloquent, because wherever Jesus is, that is where he wishes to spend his labours, to make the chandeliers sparkle and the wood gleam to demonstrate his love.

Many years ago, my grandmother told me that it is not polish that makes wood shine, but polishing. So this magnificence does not just come from gilt and glass, but from the energy that travels through the cloth in this man's hands, and in the hands perhaps of other old men through the centuries. As he walks around the twilight darkness of the unlit Basilica, his shoes making tiny squeaky sounds, the Basilica sings its song of beauty and peace and his note sounds too in the symphony of the city.

From the uplifting sounds of the Basilica, we are whisked upstairs again on the tromp of many feet, all along the workday corridors, where for most of the day the sounds of voices and machines take the place of other things.

At 13.00, the city of Rome eats, and at 14.00 it sleeps ... until 15.00 a drowsy silence falls on the city, as many shops close and most people take a midday break, in preparation for the afternoon of work which stretches from 15.00 until 19.30.

As the shadows of the day slide along the walls, the sounds become wearier, more earnest, slower. Everyone is looking forward to dinner, which commences promptly at 8 pm in the Refettoria Communita. Once a prayer has been said, everyone sits - a group now of about 120 people. The students of the House have been deputised to serve the guests, and are very sweet and charming about it, offering dishes over and over, and sweeping away the dirty plates with practiced hands.

These young men are all Religious, studying at various Universities in Rome while they live in the Monastery, and many of them are studying as well as doing the work of the House. As the clatter and chatter in the Refettoria reaches a crescendo, the students are busier than ever. Once, not so very long ago, a man tells me, meals were eaten in silence, with one monk standing on high in a wooden altar reading aloud from a worthy book throughout. The tables we sit at are an innovation, too ~ the Monks sat in the wooden pews around the wall, and the middle of the floor was left bare.

The paintings on the walls also suggest a sterner era, when the music stopped for mealtime ~ there Solomon makes his judgement of the women who come to him with tragic tale of dead children and mother hunger; high up, sinners are judged, against the back wall the last supper reminds us that meal times need not be pleasant, while further along the tired face of a saint looks down ...

Dinner ends quickly - a bell sounds, and everyone stands, a short prayer is said and plates are passed in at the central table as everyone leaves the dining room and clatters along the wide corridor into the evening.

Many go to continue the work of the day, or prepare for tomorrow, others go to join the evening social gatherings in the Sala dei Papei, where the walls are hung with portraits of those who have aided the Monks in great ways, including several popes. As this is one of the few places smoking is allowed, and as it seems everyone from Europe and Asia smoke heavily, the room seems to remember the smoke and hold it in close on its itself, even when the smokers have departed ...

These many people do not see each other so frequently, and these informal social gatherings find spirits high, many reminiscences to share and news to be told and much laughter, sounding like music to tired ears.

As the city slips into sleep and so do I, I can hear rousing choruses of favourite songs echoing along the corridors from the sala, out the wide flung windows, over the silent gardens and into the night.

Ah ha, I think, that's one for the people down below to write home about :-)