Rome. As one friend called it, a palimpsest. Echoes upon shades of history, currently covered with a veneer, like a carapace, of the modern age. Here I am and I am not sure what I am doing. I laid in bed last night, tossing and turning, the rusty wheels in my head grinding their chipped cogs, trying to make sense of it all. I am surprised no one else heard the clanking din. I finally slept around 04:30.
I exist in a grey area. I have been here at the Aegean Center for over two years and this is my fifth session. I have been designated a ‘working intern’. I am not sure what this means but I know how it feels. I fall somewhere in-between the students, who are much younger than I, and the faculty, of which I am not. I wander this middle path feeling at times like a ghost, a shade in the midst of the group. A good friend reminded me that perhaps I am inside an egg, dark and muffled. If so, let’s get this hatching over with, please.
“To thine own self be true” can be applied to my current state. I can keep my own counsel, play my cards close to my chest but when push comes to shove I have to be able to find the right people to speak to about my thinking. This I will do. Last spring I was honest about my feelings and for that I have lost a dear friend forever. If I could change the past I would (who wouldn’t, really?) but the fact remains that I opened up my heart and welcomed vulnerability. I am paying the price for this. I wish I could just blow it off, be less sensitive, think of these things in a more superficial way. I guess it is to my credit that I have depth and feelings but I envy those who can just shrug off life’s little tragedies like so many random raindrops.
There are few who I could go to and receive the direction I need. Thankfully I have some friends here in Rome who can help me out in ways that most people around me will never understand. I will see them tonight. We will laugh at our pains as we discard our phantasmagoric vestments for a time. Ghosts no more, our temporal selves will reveal the human frailties and shortcomings normal for our kind. As we disperse, we will blend back in to the mix, walking the middle grey again, another layer, more echoes, a faint outline resembling…
JDCM
white, middle grey (18%), and black
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