A Day in the Life of Chaos

Life for all but the hermit is a string of social interactions.  It is meeting people, leaving people, remembering people, forgetting people.  In all those relationships there are some that standout like flakes of gold floating on the surface of a gold pan. They are uniquely valuable and so  precious they will span a lifetime.  These are the people whose bond seems unregulated by time.  Years may span face to face meetings but each time one occurs it feels as if time and life has stood still.  Like nary a day has passed and conversations and embraces resume as if left only moments before.   These friends are rare because their companionship transcends the physical and intellectual to something much deeper.  The connection is almost spiritual in the way you become intertwined, woven into each others lives.   My friend Francesca is this way.  We first met when we were both in the university, her in Italy and me in America.  I was traveling in Italy and our lives intersected.  B

When I was 12 I started to date Italy.  It was really more of a blind date, I never knew her.  I traveled there with my parents as part of a grand European tour.  The kind that sent us blasting by train from capital to capital and recalled the seminal movie of European tourism, If It's Tuesday This Must Be Belgium.  At one point we spun the dial and landed in Rome.  It was a chaotic place compared to the other grand European cities I had seen.  It was also ancient.  London was wonderful, Paris grand.  Vienna was regal but only in Rome did I feel like I was stepping toward antiquity.  Monuments a testament to time and civilization stood in stark contrast to the lines of traffic and the occasional modern building.  I don't remember a lot from my time there but I do think it was a taste of my future.  I remember horns honking, Vespa's whizzing by and the smell of diesel in the air.  I remember my father's frustration as he struggled to pull flimsy luggage carts over cobble