Three months ago
It starts with pictures of the moon. Cheesily romantic in nature, hinting at horoscopic hopes, a way to connect from distant places and spaces. I can’t recall why we started sending them, really, and my Whatsapp won’t reveal any more than the first photo sent: a slightly blurry orange-hued luminated circle above a dark-hilled horizon. It was a photo taken after a late-night cigarette on my balcony when my thoughts were on him, well after three in the morning, a wishful initiation of conversation when I should have been sleeping. A response comes the next night, a crisp white dot casting light on tall pines and a roof, a nighttime vista from Liguria.
Words and questions accompany the imagery soon thereafter: “Where was this one? How far is that from here? What’s that below?” More attempts at cracking into his quiet nature. I now live near a castle, a Medieval fortress of sorts, where the moon above old stone walls and towers creates surreal moments to share with him. He wants to know about my work, my research, my time. He suggests a visit sometime, a personal tour of the place, but unsure of when or how. He asks when I’ll be near him next, a place so far in both distance and type–my small Medieval town, his large Roman city. I’m unsure, as is my future, and when I think his motives for answering me are just as unclear, he responds to an image of the moon half-bathed in white light, her rocky gray surface revealing her uninhabitable landscape.
“The half side of you. We are waiting for the other half.”
“That’s the dark half. I’m not sure you’re ready for that,” I reply.
“Sempre pronto. La parte all’ombra a volte può rivelarsi la più interessante…” (“Always ready. The side in shadow sometimes reveals the most interesting…”)
One month ago
I am home now among the palms and curated lawns of retired people. This place is so unlike my life in Italy, the one I am slowly working towards building and making real. It has its charms, though: the warmth, the sea and sand, the slow pace of life. While my days are spent in the pool, helping my family, and seeing old friends, I still have my one-way ticket back to Roma burning a metaphorical hole in my travel app.
My number changes when I’m stateside.
“Vabbè avvisami quando cambi numero hahaha” (“Warn me when you change your number”), he teases.
“Preferisco sorprenderti” (“I prefer to surprise you”), I taunt.
“M’incuriosisci ” (“You intrigue me”), he muses back.
He’s on island time like me, although his island is Mediterranean and mine is in the Gulf Coast. His visits to aziende and agriturismi stagger between my dog park stops and brewery backyards. Our travels create distance, and with distance comes inevitable stillness in conversation.
One week ago
“Quindi sei a Roma.” (“So you’re in Rome.”)
An opener, an invitation, a curiosity. He is potentially here, potentially elsewhere–the classic Italian tale of uncertain planning, particularly during the long, hot summer months. Perhaps we’ll see each other, perhaps an aperitivo, perhaps I create any plan I can cook up to stir intrigue. I prefer the chase, the back-and-forth, the playing with possibility.
Our apartment is full to the brim for the upcoming weekend–a roommate with an impending move-out date, a friend here for bureaucracy, our friend who rents the apartment, another visiting from Florence, and myself. Sardines in a can, and yet we still decide to throw a rooftop picnic and invite other visiting friends–including him. He tells me he’ll bring wine from some places he visited, metaphorical stories in bottles I’m eager to hang onto every word of.
This past weekend
Empty bottles, melted candles, cushions, and dishes scraped clean of the spread we cooked up lay about the large blanket. Everyone but us has left–too tired, too drunk, too high, too buzzed, too much to do tomorrow.
The last few swigs of wine and beer dwindle, as does the conversation, only replaced by longer and longer glances, closer and closer proximity to each other, until we’re backed into a darker corner of the rooftop as he toys with my earrings, and then my hair, trailing to my chin to tilt my face up towards his shadowed face, unable to see those eyes I have been anxiously awaiting to see this close. He closes the space between us slowly, gently, perhaps unsure if I’ve wanted this like he does. I respond with equal care, a slow burn of intensity growing into amorous play. We spend the rest of the night on this rooftop that overlooks the Vatican, the basilica glowing above a sleeping Roma, a horizon only interrupted by a sprinkling of stars, no moon in sight.
