As I sit down to transfer these scribbled notes on to the computer I see the full moon hanging over the Basilica San Paolo. The sight makes me catch my breath, a tremor where the diaphragm connects at the front of the ribs, and there's a tiny blast off to another reality, a germ of potential . . . but meanwhile back on the ground:
There's a strange lull following the last exam yesterday morning. Eight exams, eight days: a few hours of concentrated revision, a twelve minute oral exam, then immediately cast out that one before further ferocious revision, and so on. Oral exams, apparently a Roman tradition; they are now beginning to have the quality of a dream one has woken up from. Earlier this afternoon I had walked out to the:
Via Appia Antica 15.15
It's interesting how one's knowledge of a locality builds over a few months. As a group we visited the Catacombes di San Callisto during those first days of our induction. Whilst a coach had taken us there, we walked back – at least some us did – and for me it was a complete maze of twists and turns that made no sense.
Recently I have begun to explore the adjacent (to the college) area of Garbatella: a bit shabby, traditional, artisanal, working class – a proper locality where it's easy to imagine people are really local – born, grew up, worked and died. Two bits of graffiti I took note of: the first, YOU ARE NOW ENTERING FREE GARBATELLA – in English, hints of the sixties, counter-cultural, political. The second was a memorial to Bobby Sands, the IRA hunger striker who died in '81 (if I remember rightly) in the Maze Prison. Garbatella also has these wonderful oases of fading and beautiful housing, interesting and unique, mostly terracotta washed. There are narrow cobbled streets which cars keep out of apart from a few parked by people who live there, palm trees and those 'umbrella' pines. And, to keep to the thread of this narrative, a street name I noticed: Via della Sette Chiese.
Of course I eventually got round to looking it up on a map and discovered that this old and winding lane goes all the from the Basilica San Paolo out to the Catacombes di San Callisto (and other catacombes) and connects to the Via Appia Antica – a preserved stretch of old Roman road, complete with enormous cobblestones and history leaping out of the grass on either side. It's the place where people go for a stroll on Sunday afternoons.
And so here I am having an espresso and sitting out in the warm February sunshine and jotting these thoughts down before walking back.
Learning is all about joining the bits up! And whoever led the walk back in September did not follow the Via della Sette Chiese or only a couple of sections of it.