As I sit down on the curb of the street there’s a faint smell of cigarette ashes that comes to me; someone must have smoked here recently and thrown the butt on the ground nearby. Someone else brushes my side as they settle down next to me, and I can hear them flip open a book and the scribble of their pen as they begin to write. An American man walks in front of me talking about a favorite restaurant in the area as the clicking of a woman in heels follows him; they step on the cover of a manhole and it wobbles. The wind picked up for a moment and the pages of my journal tried to flip as I held them down. I can hear the camera of a group of girls behind me click each time they take a photo. I assume they’re taking photos in front of the fountain that I can hear running behind me and feel the spray of it on my back when the wind blows right. A group of young French speaking boys hurry past me and I hear them talking about the large doors of Sant’Agnese in Agone. The boys running past made me think of a phrase in French, “le fond de l’air est frais”, that translates to the back of the air is cold. It’s usually applied to the change of seasons when it’s warm but there’s still a subtle chill in the air. I think that the phrase perfectly captures what it was like to sit there on this mid-May afternoon; the air felt warm enough but there was a slight breeze that kept it cool. The persistent squeaking of the vendors advertising their throwable noisy toys drew me out of my reverie and back into the piazza.
(Piazza Navona, 5/21)
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