Rome Journal: Divorce Italian Style

It is not Spring, but on a January day in Rome it feels like it. Do the Milanese in the north go to Rome like Snowbirds to Boca? It’s the kind of day that particularly delicious on the Viale Glorioso, the cul de sac whose magnificence derives from its majestic staircase, composed of five landings. A group of high school kids on a class trip is chaperoned by an elegant 40ish teacher who one imagines lives a double life, perhaps as an actress in Divorce Italian Style Redux. The whole contingent is crowded around the one narrow café. Stragglers can be found in the bespoke sneaker shop next door. On the Glorioso stairs a young blond with a fit bit puts an onlooker to shame as she scampers up and down the steps, effortlessly and without a touch of breathlessness. The students and the climber all soon disappear. All that remains are the varying couriers on motorcycles and vans, including a UPS driver in his brown uniform, ringing intercoms and engaging in a back and forth with the apartment dwellers who occupy the worn midcentury dwellings whose balconies overflow with plants.

read "Rome Journal: An Oasis For Depressives" by Francis Levy, HuffPost

and listen to "Cry Baby" by Garnet Mimms and The Enchanters