_ walking_

What I see on a walk back from school.

The escape from studio, from class, from the palace. It is leaving what is formal, frescoed, and serious. Sometimes, it is leaving what is warm and dry for someplace cold and wet, which seems to be the case in November. The cobblestone streets shine with the reflection of the lighted shop windows and restaurants against the dark damp stone. Fewer people line the streets, as they often do on these evenings. Only those with a reason to be out are. Thus, it is filled with Italians on cell phones, or shopkeepers just closing. The usual bustle of lost dreamy tourists is absent when it has rained.

Walking on these nights is usually incredibly peaceful. Cars stop and go, turn right and left, with a certain rhythm and balance. Their sounds, though not quiet, fade into the background like the harmless white noise of household appliances. Somewhat often there is a rift in this 'calm', and the blaring wailing siren of an ambulance or Polizia rushes by.

If you are observant, you can pick apart the background of people walking by. The exhausted, blank-looking ones with backpacks and laptop bags are most probably study abroad students, tired from another day of Roman college life, or their 500th historical tour. The women with long pea coats and tall dark boots are typically businesswomen, those wearing stilettos or those changing into them have not quite come out of the woodwork yet. It is still too early in the night, and early in the week. Older men in suits have usually escaped from the office by this point, but those that work a little later a present, walking to their cars or motorbikes to return home. And then there are the tourists. On these rainy nights, it's the hardcore tourists that are still present, trying to figure out what in Rome is still visible and photo-worthy on a dark wet night.

At around 8 at night, the city is in a lull. Shops have closed or are closing. People are home with their families, just barely starting supper. And even the homeless are starting their suppers. The most amazing thing happens around this time of night, at least on some streets. ..The homeless who so numerously line the streets, sitting shivering and humble before passers by finally have food. They draw it out of plastic grocery bags and take-out containers. No, they did not just fake being poor - they have been given their food. If you wait and watch, sometimes you can see a shop-keeper or restaurant cook sneak out quietly, whistle abruptly, and hold out a plastic bag containing take out containers with 'gift food.' Beautiful.

Just a few blocks further, and you reach a large ministry and the beginning of my pocket of quiet residential streets. The few stores there are long closed. Just the 'Fruitteria' is open, the shopkeeper as welcoming as ever. Italian grocers are extremely special. Though you may be foreign, though you may not know exactly what you want, though you may have issues finding your change, the still greet you with a smile and treat you with kindness. They pick over their produce for the best they have. They even give you free gifts if they are shown loyalty or you spend a specific amount. It is an incredibly warm and welcome thing to have your grocery eagerly ask how you are and carefully package up food for you, like they were fragile china.

A minute of walking more, and the glass and iron door is reached, red sensor glowing at the foot of the door, Italian messages surrounding the inside warning of 'automatic door - do not push!' But our key doesn't work for the magical button. Instead, the regular old key turns, the door creaks, and you arrive in the white tunnel that first symbolizes your Roman ' home'