thoughts on things above, and elsewhere

On Blue Skies: She was escaping to another prison and I was sitting in my same golden-walled cell. We were sharing a moment across an ocean while she shared the latest musical discovery of hers with me.

Amos Lee, southern sugar dripping from his lips, serenaded us:    “My soul’s as open as the sky, and oftentimes as blue.”

The poetry of the line is beautiful, but it is my present location which makes it especially poignant to me. As anyone who has visited Rome in the spring (or my facebook photos section) can attest to, the skies here are as blue as you could imagine. On days when the sun is out, beautiful shades of everything between turquoise and sapphire paint the sky in such a way that you can not help but wonder if you tripped and fell into one of the postcards from the street-side shops.

As the warm spring creeps steadily in, I find myself spending more and more time beneath this great blue dome – laying on my back watching cotton-ball clouds blow or walking down the streets observing the steeples of churches thrusting their crosses high into the magnificent heavens above. I am continually struck by the never ending expanse above my head, and I marvel both at its magnitude and color as I find myself swimming in a sea of soul.

Caught between the warm rays of the sun on my cheeks and the cool breeze, my red hair blows into my eyes, and I brush it away to see the blue. For the time being I’ll tuck the red neatly away, saving it for the days when it will once again regain its rightful place.

On Sunsets: Since I arrived in Rome, the desktop background on my computer has been the same picture. Taken by a friend one early Manhattan morning, the silhouette of a tree stands against a purple sky ushering in a yello morning over sleepy Harlem. The tree is not particularly special – not the gnarled and knotted type that is usually photographed; simple and young it stands unpretentiously watching the beginning of a new day, solitary but for a few fingers of a neighboring tree reaching into the frame. <It replaced a photo of my sisters around a dinner table, ringing in the new year (in so many ways) in our holiday finest> An ideal background, this pictures carries enough emotions and memories to bring a smile to my lips, but is does not stare directly back at me with any of the piercing eyes and smiles I miss so dearly.

The matter of sunrises here in Rome is that there are none. Nor are their sunsets. The heavens are bright well into the evening, but when the sun does finally decide to rest her head, she leaves quickly – unannounced by any chorus of color. When she returns, she merely climbs quietly to her place in the blue heavens.

I find myself thinking something I never though I would say; I miss the in-between. The glorious entry of a new day, ringing out its fanfare of possibilities in warm hues. And the regal exit, creeping colors waving goodbye as they look back over their shoulder. There we stand, solitary as that tree in Morningside park, maybe with a few fingers reaching towards our own. I long to watching the celestial tides come and go, holding our breath as we prepare for what is yet to be.

On rain: Earlier this morning I sat in my dining room, fingers tapping on the vinyl tablecloth with brightly colored lemons. As my mind wandered from ancient Roman sarcophagi, my gaze wandered to the window. The song – Amos Lee again – ended and left something that should have been silence but instead pitter-pattered on the roof. I walked to the window, realizing it was raining, but as I looked closer I noticed the heavy raindrops only seemed to fall close to my window; not far off the skies were blue and cotton-cloud filled as ever. I craned my head out and watched, ignoring the inevitable hair-frizz and few black tears, to see that a large gray cloud had settled over my apartment building, leaving the rest of the turquoise expanse untouched.

I laughed out loud, and as I lingered in the window frame letting the rain-water stream down my face, I contemplated what I would look like as a cartoon character. Finally, one of my housemates came out, and as she folded her underwear and socks I could feel her furrowing her brow at me. I remarked on the one rain cloud above our building and she laughed: “That seems to be the way things have been going around here.”

I dried off my face, pulled my hair back, and went about my day. Rain gave way to sun, which stepped back for brief showers and then showed her face again. The rain and the sun dance together, weaving in an out, giving way but never sharing. The way a lot of things have been going around here. And we here in Rome are caught always between the summer sun and the wintery watery chill, wondering at what moment one will leave – as quickly as the night and day – and be replaced by the other.

yours.Rachel