From the sublime to the ridiculous. Assisi was such a spiritual high. Then we take a bus ride to Rome, the pleasure center and grounding point of the world. (The highway rest stop makes you espressos and fresh squeezed orange juice.) We arrive at an outdoor restaurant in Rome for lunch, with a live musical act that gets everyone dancing. I’m still in saint mode from Assisi and all the jumping around and singing just looks animalistic to me. Then we split into color groups for a walking tour of the city, including the Jewish quarter, Piazza Navona, the Pantheon and Trevi Fountain. Unbelievable crowds. You could hardly move at the Trevi Fountain. It’s an insane asylum but with better food.
It’s the Catholic church’s jubilee year on top of high tourist season. They’re thinking of charging admission just to throw coins into the Trevi fountain. I have to push my way through crowds to get photos of it. Quite a jolt to the senses after Assisi.
Our irascible tour guide refuses to hurry and we’re late for a meeting with the whole tour for John’s blessing at the Pantheon. She says something about people not rushing in Italy and we have to go with the flow here. I’m not in my body enough to be assertive enough to just leave our group and run to the Pantheon. I get there just as John is finishing his blessing. Lesson learned. It seems like it’s back to the old grind of personality lessons after my miles-high mini-death in Assisi. Plus the Girlfriend is pissed at me for what I thought were such clever comments on Day 8 about the other girlfriends who’ve been with me on trips—although she forgives fast and soon joins the dancing with the rest of the animals.
My comments were an exaggeration to illustrate a point anyway. I try to complain to the ex-girlfriend Sherie, who’s in charge of the trip logistics, about not putting me in John’s color group so I can get photos of him, but I get no mercy. She just dances around me laughing and singing. Did she read Day 8 as well?
Why does God torment me like this when I’m such a pure saint who can abandon the body so easily? I keep thinking I have a winning hand but the Traveler plays both sides, and it’s the cards themselves as well. Its mastery includes the physical level. All the sainthood in the world doesn’t win me any hands in this game when it’s only love that’s been in charge ever since the Christ extended the game into the physical world. There’s no escape now, just participation. God declares the End, not me, and there are no caves to retreat into anymore. I remember sitting in a seminar once, waiting for J-R to get up on stage as I was looking at my life from outside the game, calculating how I was going to get off this planet, or at least avoid some of the more difficult experiences. J-R got up on stage and the first thing out of his mouth was, “You know, you can’t duck your experiences here.”
Anyway there are some nice photos of people dancing at lunch.
And check out the newsstand/souvenir shop that has the black and white calendars with photos of hunky priests. Looks like some kind of soft porn for lady tourists. These calendars are all over Rome. I saw them last year too. But this year they have a different significance for me.
