Get the TKV newsletter in your inbox every Tuesday!
Currently, I’m sitting in my hotel room in Rome, Italy (I always make a point to specify the country because in college, I read a novel where the main character travels to Rome, Italy to meet some people. Friends only to discover that his friends mean rome, Georgia, such as “Georgia Peach”). If you follow along, you might say to yourself, “Geez, you’ve spent half your life in Rome, probably show live Why aren’t you there?” You might do something – we spend a lot of time in Italy: we were here for my birthday in April (eg the hotels were too expensive to book a holiday for my actual birthday, so we came here the week before). We were also here last December, just before Christmas, but it rained almost every day, Anthony got covid, and I had a terrible allergic reaction to a glass of delicious red wine and got out of the shower because I was so embarrassed. Passed out in front of Anthony (who by then had covid). suffered through). We’re now back for a wedding, which falls just a day after finishing some errands that brought me to Cannes (practically a hop-skip-and-jump away from Rome).
And we might live here one day—this morning, walking down one of the city’s many winding streets, we stopped at a small realtor’s window. Someone taped printouts of houses for sale from 345.000 to 2.500.000. “Oh look, it’s your favorite! Maybe you can find our house in Italy!” I said to Anthony, referring to one of the open discussions he had started about buying a second home in the country where his father was born. He looked out the window for a moment. Close lingers, before muttering, “I need more pictures.”
We resume our walk towards the morning light coming out of the piazza below us. As I laced my fingers through his, he asked, “If you had to choose right now, where in Italy would you like to buy a second home?” Anthony doesn’t ask many questions. He is very good at answering all my questions. I once asked him why he didn’t question me, and he replied, “Because I know everything I need to know about you,” to which I rolled my eyes and said, “God. You’re so arrogant.” This started one of the many “robust” conversations we had early in our relationship about “conversational etiquette,” a subject about which I have very specific opinions, which, not surprisingly, are heavily influenced by East-Asian principles of hospitality.
But I have to disagree.
Suffice it to say, I always relish my chance to share something about which Anthony expresses a genuine curiosity, even if it’s something small—like where our imaginary home might be in Italy. A slideshow of photos from our time in Sardegna clicks through in rapid succession – the blue waters of Jolly Ranch when the sun warms, contrasted with the blue-gray that blankets the sea as clouds roll through the jagged tips of ancient mountains. “Let’s see… right now? Hmmm….” Long. More Polaroids: bone-white buildings with bunches of violet bougainvillea, slivers of blue sapphire sparkling in their ivory mouths, pass me like an old-fashioned motion picture show as I make my morning run before breakfast. , an old man with hair as white as sea foam and fingering a plate of shriveled tomatoes and unleavened cursau.
Sardegna was charming in its slowness. Even the water, long fingers of cut rock and sun-drenched bluffs glowing gently, seemed like life was more enjoyable when we took the time to drink it in. The same slightly-too-short two-piece bathing suit you’ve been wearing since college with those Birkenstocks that know your leg shape better than you do. And no one will notice you toting your morning groceries in a bag you got for free from the bookstore you frequented while in Boystown, Chicago. If you try to brag about the house you’re building in West Hollywood or the tinted windows on your new Tesla, they’ll look at you like you’re certifiable, until you realize that here, you’re allowed to lower it. Races you may not remember signing up for. I’ve often dreamed aloud to Anthony that I’d be happy to leave the hustle and bustle of the kingdom and relocate permanently to the island’s sparkling shores, sinking my teeth into tomatoes and fleshy greens to write cookbooks and vignettes. olive
But I surprised myself by answering,
“Here. In Rome. And right next to the Korean market.”
Here, I’ll depart from the maxim of “good writing” and inject an aphorism, as hackneyed and overused as a dilapidated buggy on an Amish farm:
“Home is where the heart is.”
I’m too cynical or stupid (don’t know which) to have any definite opinion about whether the above is true, but perhaps it helps explain why Antony’s rare answer to the question is “Rome,” a city that is decidedly dirty. , unsanitary, expensive, and unsafe than Sardegna. Moreover, unlike our honeymoon island of calm, Rome has all the trappings of a conspicuously consuming rat race, with Chanel and Prada stores as prevalent as Starbucks in Manhattan, where Ferraris are likely to thread the streets like needles. As a Vespa held together by duct tape in Trastevere. So why Rome?
We got married here. About five years ago. A small, desecrated church housing furniture upholstered in wine red silk, a thin, worn rug of the same color and an elegantly decapitated figure hidden behind a very large tree stand bearing a visible layer of dust. Its plastic leaves. I know. It sounds glamorous, right? Of course, I wanted to get married in a huge cathedral with stained glass windows and updated furnishings, but the laws in the capital city of the Catholic Church are very strict – I was a divorcee and therefore, I was permanently disqualified from marrying in the Roman Church. Thus, we’ll settle for the Caracalla–a still beautiful if painfully old municipal building that performs ceremonies with the same efficiency as the quick-elope chapel on the Strip.
It was July and although Rome is notoriously hot and humid at that time of year, God had blessed us with a little rain earlier in the day. I was worried that the storm would last into the evening and completely derail our outdoor reception, but God, indeed, was good that day and threw down skies as long as needed to cool the city. By the time I met my betrothed inside the former church, the clouds had evaporated and all that was left of the rain was a little damp clinging to the rocks around us.
Since we weren’t inside an actual church, the ceremony was more like what you might expect inside a city hall. There were no priests or priests or persons of worship. Rather, we were married by a city official, whom I had never met before showing up in my wedding dress. I asked my brother, Jason, to stand as my “man of honor” and Anthony anointed his own younger brother, David, as his “best man,” but in reality, they acted as our wedding “witnesses,” signing their powers in front of our guests. Official marriage certificate. Antony’s cousin Flaviana served as the official “interpreter” and another cousin, Ludovica, and her then-boyfriend, John, performed an arrangement of Bach’s aria. Goldberg variation on violin and cello respectively. Although it was completely unnecessary, we ended up tagging along to exchange rings because it felt weird not to say our vows with the rings we’d picked out earlier in the spring at a jewelry store that Anthony’s cousin, Daniela, had recommended to us.
I think most brides are focused on their grooms, or remembering their vows, or not even passing the 6-week “starvation plan that will guarantee you fit into your dress”, but maybe the ceremony was in a language I was better at. Not realizing, I found my mind drifting quite a bit before I said “I do”. I counted the stones piled together like rows and rows of broken teeth that enclosed us in a cavernous mouth, wondering how many secrets they might reveal if someone decided to open them. How much love and not-so-love have they witnessed? How many times have they correctly predicted the outcome of unions cemented inside a building that truly tested the definition of “forever”? While I was there waiting to be a wife, I decided to tell them my own secret, a story I had yet to share with anyone—not even Anthony…
Hear my secret on
Spotify | Apple Google
