All'orlo del Caos

There is something both lawless and kind about Trastevere, chaotic on the surface, yet soothingly cavalier. The ancient cobblestone streets of this gritty little Roman town across the Tiber River roll and wind tortuously, almost aggressively.  But as I am whipped and jerked nervously, lazily around its creaky coaster, I begin to relax -- trust and go with the tempo. The cars and motorbikes whiz carelessly by, with no governance but also, I discover, no malice. Macho motorists wink with amusement as I dodge them --  there is a pattern to the hazardously disappearing sidewalks, which turn up suddenly on the other side at unpredictable intervals that I am beginning to internalize. Local pedestrians amble obliviously, gelato in hand, and somehow it all works out. It's almost impossible to find your way around -- everyone you stop for directions says something to the effect of, "Ok, well, it's too confusing to explain, but..."  But it's downright exhilarating once you do begin to master it, or at least get enough of a feel for it that you are willing to take a chance of getting hopefully lost.

Not to put too cute or convenient a point on it, but this idea has clearly emerged as the theme -- both for my trip so not-very-far, and for the second language journey.  The Chaos/Complexity Theory of Second Language Acquisition says that learning is messy, non-linear, self-constructed, and happens at the border between chaos and order -- called "the edge of chaos" by physicist and journalist Mitchell Waldrop -- a state which good teachers strive to create.  You need to get lost a bit to grow and learn.

I arrived in Rome just a little over a day ago, and I've gotten lost just a bit.  It's thrilling.

It probably began at this trip's inception. Half-baked and a little impetuous, finding an apartment long-distance, going more or less solo, only a day and a half after insanely busy Christmas and my exhausting semester's end, fairly vague agenda in shaky hand.

Then a blizzard, New York's first snow of the season, delays my flight for two days.  When we do leave, the plane is over an hour late because the baggage handlers, many of whom live in the unshoveled reaches of Queens, could not get to work.  This puts my Dublin connection to Rome -- scheduled for 7:00 pm, an hour and 15 minutes after the original landing time -- in serious jeopardy.  The cute young Japanese guy sitting next to me has a plane to Paris leaving at the same time, and worries, taps and checks the digitized flight progress nervously throughout the trip. The flight attendant, pretty and Irish but stern and unsoothing, does little soothing. "They may hold the doors open for an extra minute or two because they know yoo're cooming and have yoor looggage, but we joost have no way of knowing."  With seven minutes to spare, I tear through the Dublin airport at top old-lady speed, through passport check and security, up stairs and down escalators, over evocatively foggy tarmacks and up the stairs to my plane, winded and sweaty, 7:02.  This Aer Lingus stewardess does soothe, offers me a cup of water with some sweet alarm at my panting dishevelment, says, "Oh, we were waitin' for ya -- it's only fair, ya know."  We wait a few more minutes for other late connectors, and are finally Rome bound.

My looggage is not so loocky.

The airline sounds lethargic and unconcerned, at the airport and now over 24 hours later. They just keep repeating tonelessly -- as if I am every passenger who's ever been separated from luggage, and they are getting a little tired of telling me this already -- that this is not uncommon, and that they are still tracking it. They believe it's still in Dublin, and with the holiday, you know, it may be a while.  You can buy some replacement items, maybe 50 euros or so worth, and get reimbursed.  But I am shockingly alone in another country, and I don't know where I am or where I'm going, never mind how to get somewhere else, like a clothing store. I am tempted to wish I had not done this all, and to cry for my reliable best friend and husband.  Maybe for a brief overwhelmed flash I do.  But this was all and always about the risk and the growth, I have most of my important stuff in my on-board bag, and I am inexplicably happy and content.

I grab a cab to my apartment, and call Alessandro on his cell as instructed, the guy from the broker who is to meet me there with keys and assistance.  I get an operator's message saying in Italian that this is an non-working number, and for yet another panicked minute, well, I panic.  But once again some reflexive buoyancy gets me past the vision of me with a cup on an Italian street corner for a month, and I call my usual contact person at the agency, Mario.  He assures me that I probably just need to dial the country code, but that he will call Alessandro and have him come right away.  Alessandro is a lovely archetype of a handsome, soft spoken Italian morsel (sorry, Julie, just journalistic transparency at work here, you're my real Italian morsel), and he gets me settled into my little cutems flat with keys, closets, recycling instructions and the like, and takes his leave.

I am beyond exhausted, but I want to get a feel for the neighborhood and pick up a few groceries, so I head out.



This is when I am first unceremoniously yanked through the dizzying cragginess of my Trastevere neighborhood, exotic little car horns sounding their irritation at my clumsy foreignness. I worry, in my deepening stupor, that I will need a trail of ciabatta crumbs if I wander more than a twisty-turny block or two away. I have a cappuccino and a pasta pesto at Marco's across the street, buy some milk and bread at a convenience store on the block, and head back home.  Home!

I get my meager possessions set up and and stored, internet going, explore the apartment, and realize it is freezing.  My-fingers-are-numb freezing.  The heater is on, but I fiddle with it, numbly.  I find and close the kind of hidden sliding mirrored doors to the bathroom, which is unheated and icy -- that should help.  I busy myself with more settling in distraction, when Mario calls.  He is, oddly for someone who wrote that I should feel free to contact him with any problems or needs, in complete denial about my plight.  Simply says he knows that the heat is working, often works too well, and there is nothing more to be done or said. When I express disbelief, he says, as if he has happened upon the perfect solution, "Okay, you know what?  Just fool around with the knobs a bit, without, you know, making anything worse.  See if that helps.  If not, you can call me again, okay?" For some reason, I agree that that is okay.  I fool with the dials, making nothing worse, or, as far as I can tell, better, and happen upon my own solution.  Perhaps Mario is right, and the problem is me, maybe I am feeling cold because I am tired.  I will take a nap.

I wake up, about an hour later, shivering.  I call my husband, chat chirpily about all the wonders and excitement of Rome.  I do have to let on about the luggage and, since my teeth are chattering, about the heat.  Or lack thereof.  And about the Mario brush-off.  I am eager to avoid sounding or being helpless, so without much spousal prodding, I devise a very independent and no-prisoners plan to call Mario again and American-woman his ass.  I leave him a message, a fiery, frozen, let's-get-real message.

I realize how deeply I am loving this.  I am dealing with crap, alone, no luggage, foreign language, exhausted, shivering, and I am okay.  I am so okay.

Mario calls back, and with the prompting of a woman in the background whom I think might be his boss, he is so sorry and concerned about me and remembers there is an electric heater in the apartment.  He just doesn't remember where, and he thinks I should get up on an eight foot ladder and climb up into the loft to have a look (you can see it in the picture).  This to a woman who's afraid of staircases that don't have railings.

Bring it on.

I look in the loft, and in every other hiding space.  The heater turns up in a closet in the bathroom, and it is wonderful and warm and I did heroic things to get it.

I was going make dinner, but I am 31 hours worth of sleep deprived, and a celebration is called for.  Rick Steves can't recommend Trattoria Lucia highly enough, the spaghetti a la gricia with pancetta in particular, and it is right around the corner and it is adorable and cheap and delicious. So popular, too, because of a few recent raves, that they are turning people away in droves. I think I got lucky because I am alone, easy to squeeze into a quiet little table in the corner.  I toast my felicitous independence with a glass of Santa Cristina Annata.

Overwhelmed? Freezing? Whipped and jerked?  Lost? I own this town.

Ruggito.