As I close my eyes, the birds around the orange garden sing in perfect harmony and the breeze tickles the hair on the back of my neck. I can feel and hear the wind whistling through my hair and clothes; but it also picks up pieces of the dust on the ground. As I'm still recovering from being sick, there is a constant tickle in my throat and I can't help but cough every know and then as I sit on the bench in otherwise silence. I can't smell anything - though I long to smell the oranges and blackberries that I saw around me before I closed my eyes - nothing permeates through my dulled by sickness olfactory senses.
There are people beginning to pass by me on my stone bench. I hear the crescendo of their feet walking past me, like the sound of glass shards being thrown around in a ceramic jar. They speak in foreign tongues that I cannot understand as they hurry past me in a large group. I can tell some of them are in smaller groups among them, however, as there are a few people who walk at a different pace and closer to my body. I can feel them separating themselves from the larger group of people and I wonder why they came to this quiet grove and where they are from. As a lull in passersby comes and the noise around me lessens I become aware of the warmth of the sun on my toes. Since I can only feel it there, I know the rest of my body is in shade, the slight chill magnified by the wind pulling at my body from seemingly every direction. Though it tries to pull me multiple ways, it has a soothing effect, like it is a soft massage on my body, urging me to lie down and sleep. The last thing I hear before I open my eyes to see the world again is a small group of a few older, Italian women. At this point in my time in Rome I can recognize Italian speech, and the women's voices are aged and soft - they remind me immediately of a doting grandmother and her friends as they banter back and forth.
(Orange Garden, Aventine, May 28)
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