A Remembrance Day Mass at San Silvestre, this morning, in
the centre of Rome, between the Spanish Steps (we didn’t see Audrey Hepburn!)
and the Via del Corso. A Mass celebrated in English and it had a very English
feel to it. The Beda and the English College have a tradition of celebrating
this Mass at San Silvestre. There is a Pallottine community attached to the
church and we were invited upstairs (a queue formed on the stairs to sign the
visitors book) for soup, coffee and finger food including sandwiches made with
white sliced bread with the crusts cut off. After which four of us walked back
to the Colosseo under cloudless skies and summer-like heat to catch the Metro
back to the Beda.
A further instalment on the subject of starlings: on
Thursday afternoon I had a delightful wander through the terracotta and ochre
maze of narrow streets in the centre of the city; marvelling at the continued
existence of artisan workshops, hardware shops, bookshops, interesting food
stores and cafés. A proper way to arrange things if one had any choice in the
matter. Whilst on the subject of shops (hopefully I’ll remember to get back to
the starlings) I’ve noticed that the supermarkets in Rome are small (compared
to Britain) and most of them seem to be underground – on the basement level of
apartment blocks. So on first arriving here there seems to be a complete
absence of supermarkets until you ask those in the know.
I planned to find my way back via the river, to follow that
south, cut through to Pyramide and then it’s straight down the Via Ostiense to
San Paolo and the college. But it was five o’clock and my thoughts turned to
coffee and some writing I wanted to do (cafés are great places to write). The
Piazza Navona is very lovely but very touristy and expensive so I meandered on
to the Piazza Farnese where the street sweepers were beginning to clean up
after the market and there was a pavement café that beckoned. A perfect time of
day to stop and watch the world go by and jot some thoughts down towards a
future poem. From there I found my way to the Tevere and even as I approached I
could hear and then see millions upon millions of starlings wheeling in groups
of several thousand, layer upon layer, other’s settling, roosting in the plane
trees that line the embankment. This time quite a number of people had
umbrellas up and I noticed quite a few cars (obviously been there for some
time) coated thickly in their droppings.
One can have thoughts – interfering thoughts – at the most
inopportune moments. Yesterday morning, during Mass my mind returned to some
thoughts regarding my propensity to polarise – to go against whatever
situation/culture that I happen to be in. I become a resister. No doubt if it
didn’t begin at school then it was certainly strengthened at school. On this
occasion the thought was along the lines of: as a therapist it was not unusual
to find myself opposing the thinking of the profession in general or a group of
colleagues in particular; in Totnes I turned against the all-things-alternative
colouring of Totnes . . . and now here I am in Rome, the heart of Catholicism .
. . and these thoughts infiltrated
seconds before I was due to walk up to the lectern to read the responsorial
psalm and sing the first alleluia of the gospel acclamation. It didn’t help!
Did I imagine the extra tension in my voice? Did anybody else notice?