That time we went to Italy part something

The streets in Bologna are lined with porticoes, a last vestige of an old Catholic ceremony, wherein the statue of the Virgin Mary was carried from the center of the city up to a cathedral outside of town. The arcade, as its called, large stone walkways that cover both sides of the sidewalk of the main drag, were designed to help keep the relic of the Virgin out of the rain. Now the arcades provide shade and protection from those same elements for shoppers at upscale clothing stores and boutiques. Nothing has changed.

          At some point we get off the first bus and change to another bus. I can tell you that if you don’t know a bus line or a map of public transit, the decision seems completely random and you trust it implicitly. If someone in a major city says, “We get off here,” and you find yourself looking out the window at a field full of ice, with a few ravens flying overhead and circling the carcass of a bull, you still get off. It’s kind of like being a prisoner. For the record, I feel this way all the time due to my poor sense of direction, and it’s enough to make me doubt the existence of free will.

          Does free will exist anyway? Is it important if it does? You can now find scientists who will argue that we are merely a product of our synapses and neurons, that we are not in fact driving these bodies that we’re in. I’m curious what it says about us that no matter how much things change, religious, scientific, secular, we’ll always be wondering just why the fuck we do the things that we do.

          We’re talking about religion, which will be a common and uncomfortable topic during our stay. My new brother-in-law is a rabid anti-Catholic, interested in maybe starting a church someday, and my brother is a fairly recent Catholic convert who briefly considered joining a monastery. I, on the other hand, have moved away from my Episcopalian roots, to Evangelical churches, Orthodoxy, back to Evangelical churches, Methodists etc. I’m always looking for a home, but I can never seem to find one. I’m a religious mutt. I’m restless in nearly everything and enjoy it most when everyone gets along.

          One of the first things you notice in any big city are the pigeons—their ubiquitous iridescent heads bobbing beneath benches, darting into pools of water or stupidly marching with their red eyes as people eat on benches and watch them waddle about. The other thing that you notice are the public works. We drive by a large fountain, Neptune being paid homage to by several mermaids. It’s good to be Neptune. I think of telling someone, but we’re on the way to dinner, and I’m about as tired as I can remember being.

Thank God we’re having pizza. Pizza was invented in Italy, along with art, sex, and men with beautiful wavy hair. I don’t want you to spend your time reading this over and think that I learned nothing after having flown halfway across the world. Dear reader, my sister cut the pizza with scissors. Have you ever cut pizza with scissors? It’s a delight. And it’s somewhere between the Sistine Chapel and Bernin’s work in Saint Peter’s Basilica in terms of revelation. The pizza falls away like it was born to it.

          The evening is warm, and the windows are open. The interior windows open out into a small courtyard where women are hanging their clothes from the sill and occasionally calling to each other like extras from a movie. Most of the windows have flower boxes, which are nearly ubiquitous here, and the sort of aesthetic pleasantry that may be indicative of the closer living quarters but also indicative of a finer taste than your typical house in America. It’s hard to tell. I remember talking to my sister about living in Italy, listening to her talk to her husband in Italian, translating or complaining, or calling us a couple of dumb fucks. Who knew. Mostly. it sounded like they were arguing. Everything in Italian sounds like an argument, “Should we throw them out? Maybe. My brother once chased me with a kitchen knife.” Lord knows.

          Mostly, my sister talked about the roaches. Here is the thing about having roaches and guests. You kind of have to mention them, don’t you? That’s not the kind of thing that you hide from someone. “Oh, shit. You saw a roach? I can’t believe it. It’s the first one, ever? Oh, you’re saying you saw twenty and one of them had a suitcase with our address listed on it. Huh, that’s strange. What are the chances?”