A few months ago, I was asked to go to Rome to cover a wedding. There was plenty of time, so I made sure I did things I normally wouldn’t do: sit on a bench in a public park, eat at a café, or go to the movies. I went home and looked at the travel photos.
When I got back to Rome, I couldn’t remember half of what I saw. I was so enraptured by the city, I don’t think I could have cared less about that part of it.
But then, it started playing on a loop in my brain. I thought about the fact that when we say “Rome,” we don’t usually mean Italy’s capital city. We typically mean the entire country, or maybe a person from Italy.
Or maybe all of us. We’re not referring to the capital of Italy, but instead the capital of Rome, Italy, which we know because we’ve been to it and therefore have a mental picture of it that is more specific than “Italy.”
This isn’t to say the capital of Italy is more like a nameless, generic place, but it isn’t Italy’s capital, either. And those of you who have been to Italy know that just like there’s a Rome in Washington, D.C. and an Atlanta in Georgia, there’s also a Rome in Siena.
The real Rome has a lot in common with Italy’s capital, but not everything. At its core, the city of Rome is made up of the same materials and the same people, and yet it doesn’t share the history, culture and personality of its capital.
So Rome is a place where we have made it. A place to get lost.
But what does that mean? Can we travel to Rome without ever making it there?
The place where you get lost is, of course, familiar. It’s been there since you were a child, but so has your hometown. It’s a place you’ve taken pictures in and visited before, but not since you were a little kid.
The same goes for Rome. It has a place in our hearts because it’s something we’ve seen. We have seen its sights, tasted its food, stayed in its hotels and eaten at its cafes.
Rome is familiar and new, both all at once. It can be strange, but at the same time comforting. We travel to it, and when we return, we have something new to say.
We’ve fallen in love with it, because we have become it, in that very same place. And it feels right, because the same is true of the place you call home.
“Rome, Romantic.”
I got so into the concept of Rome being the familiar that I decided to tell the story of how my sister introduced me to my second home. It’s a story about a girl who decided that Rome was the place she wanted to spend her life, as it had been the home of two of her idols: her grandma and her uncle.
Her grandma is the sweetest person I’ve ever known, and the world has been lucky enough to have her around for decades.
Rome is her city too, but since she can’t really go there, we’ve adopted it as a place that has become the love of her life.
Her uncle, meanwhile, is the most charming person I’ve ever known. Rome was his first international trip, and we’ve since seen it twice.
He fell in love with Rome, and so do I. He’s an avid photographer, and he loves the city like a person. Rome is part of his life, which is the only reason I was comfortable getting my first DSLR camera. He was at my side to make sure I didn’t get lost.
The same goes for all of us.
It’s impossible to understand Rome without someone to help. It’s an island of tourists, but we will never leave because it’s all we know.
We’ve fallen in love with it, because it’s an escape. It is a place where we are not alone.
Being a traveler requires a good dose of confidence in your travel skills, but it also requires being in a space where you can feel comfortable being with a foreign crowd and a city that seems to attract as many foreign visitors as it does local residents.
In a way, traveling is being lost, as you can look for something and never find it. There’s no return ticket. In other words, you have to be ready to get lost if you want to find it.
You have to find something you love, and let it become you. Rome is the place where you feel as if you’ve become yourself, and this feeling is something you can’t get anywhere else.
No, Rome isn’t everyone’s favorite city in the world, but it might be yours. And at the same time, Rome will never leave you because the love it’s earned from being its own place is strong.
“Rome, Romantic.”
The more time I spend away from home, the more familiar Rome feels. And at the same time, the more I understand what makes Rome so special.
The people are as unique as the city itself. If you let yourself be consumed by the places you visit, Rome can become home. It doesn’t matter if you’re from here or not, because you’re an Italian citizen for life.
So go and make Italy your home. I have. And every time I cross the Trevi Fountain in the evening, I feel as if I’m home in my skin.
It might not feel like home when you’re leaving, but it’s the place where you truly belong. There, you belong, and there, you are Italian.
For the longest time, I had a very vague idea of what I wanted to do with my life. Before I knew it, I was 23 years old, and I had been living in the same city for almost nine years.
Then a few days ago, I realized I was running out of excuses and time to just do what I love: start a new adventure.
It was a cold day in April 2015 when I decided I would give moving to Portland, Oregon a shot. It was an excuse to leave the house. At the time, I was making some money doing photography jobs, but they were always on the weekend. So I decided to take one of my first big breaks, and go to the city of my dreams.
Of course, I couldn’t leave California without saying goodbye. So I decided to drive from San Francisco to LA. And if you’ve ever done this drive, you know it is no ordinary two-hour drive through Northern California.
A couple of hours into the trip, I stopped in Santa Monica for gas. After I filled up, I found a parking spot. I got out of the car and was ready to go back to the car when I realized I was looking down, and not where I was supposed to. I must have been in one of the worst parking lots in the history of parking lots. There were so many cars in it, there wasn’t even a sidewalk. But just as I was about to turn around and find an alternate parking spot, I heard a woman singing, and when she stopped, I recognized her voice.
I had stumbled across Robin Williams. I don’t know if it’s because of the song, but even from a distance, he was mesmerizing. When he saw me, he was incredibly friendly and started talking to me about San Francisco. Eventually he found my car in the sea of SUVs and we talked for a few minutes. He wanted to know if I was an actor, and he told me I had beautiful eyes. We both laughed.
Robin Williams was a California native.
After leaving the gas station, I heard him laughing and talking loudly. He had the same energy I had the first time I saw him in the movie Dead Poets Society. Then, a few minutes later, I saw him walking into a restaurant. This time I didn’t hesitate to stop.
When I asked for his autograph, I told him how he had been my favorite actor since I was ten years old, and that he was the reason I always wanted to travel.
At that moment, I made the decision to move to Portland. And the more I was in the city, the more it felt like home.
The city felt like home in a way no other place ever has, and the closer I got to calling it “home,” the more I realized that this decision would determine my life for the rest of my time in California.
My house was near all the restaurants and coffee shops, the beaches,
