Merriweather-
When in Rome there is an overwhelming urge to be in Rome. A sense of being somewhere set apart from one one is to be anywhere else. This want, or expectancy, must stem from something, but what? Whatever it is, it requires a participation unlike any that I’ve encountered in other places (but then again- I’m still quite a young’n.) But what is this endeavour we’ve all set ourselves on, what new path shall we be walking? Rome, as we’re often told here, is a place to refine the senses, but I’m quite sure I agree with that phrasing. Rather, I prefer to think of it as a discovery of the senses– and in the simplest of ways I just did- through a hearty Italian dinner.
Flora-
I think that changing the place where we are, telling us to be in Rome, teaches us to be in a universal way. It expands our experience and educates our entire self. Can anyone really ever just be? Don’t we have to be somewhere? And here in Rome is the fullest place to be. Just some thoughts…
Merriweather-
I’m not sure that it does teach us in a universal way— in fact, I’d say that it teaches us in such particular ways that the poignancy carries itself in an almost ripple-effect that educates our persons in ways we have yet to fully realize. Yes, I think that people can simply “be”- because to be, the act of being, is an incredibly fulfilling act. It’s a unifying act, when we are directed properly, and maybe that’s our task. There’s something to Rome, to directing ourselves in and toward and beyond the city that, again, I’m not sure we’ll understand until much farther down the line. We do have to be somewhere but it’s an internal a somewhere as it is external.
Flora-
That’s true, it is an internal somewhere, too, the internal somewhere is somewhere where we always are. Being implies thinking, seeing, breathing, it is a fulfilling and unifying act and cannot be taken in isolation which is why just “being” seems like an impossibility to me. I like what you are saying about Rome directing ourselves, and I don’t think we will understand it fully yet but I do think we can understand some of it now.
I keep thinking about the statement “all roads lead to Rome” and how that, in a cliche way, points to Rome really as a center.
Merriweather-
True, true… (Connellogism, anyone?) but I do disagree with how you think of being, or of what you say is implied by being. Shall I be corny and ask whether the question at hand is “To be or not to be?”
Flora-
Be as corny as you’d like, I did it, too 
. (Yes, over ambitious undergrads use “emoticons”.) I don’t think non-being is ever a possibility. Hamlet sees this, too, because he thinks of death as sleep, and sleep always brings dreams. There will always be something we perceive and think and want. We cannot be separated from ourselves.
Is Rome as the center a Connellogism? My brain has become so aged that I can no longer remember such things.
I do remember, however, walking over the Janiculum towards St. Peter’s one day way back in the magical spring of 2005 and having it suddenly occur to me that I was in ROME! and that it was, all at once, the Rome of John Paul II and Caesar, the Rome of Peter and Paul and the Rome of Aeneas and Romulus. It was the Rome which people had been drawn to, drawn enough to fight and bleed and die for for (roughly) 2761 years. It was the Rome which conqured Vei and Carthage, which united Europe and gave us our language (whatever that might be) and, most importantly, it was the Rome which inspired the story of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. Okay, bad joke.
In any event, I was struck just then about how there’s something about this city. Perhaps Rome is the center is a Connellogism, but that guy gets a lot of things right.
p.s. Who is this, by the bye? My hearing is going too, and so I’m having trouble identifying voices.
Richard Wilbur says “things concentrate at the edges” which is interesting when thinking about Rome as the center. Maybe it is one of those lovely paradoxes, the edges are the center or the center is the edge or something like that.
Well, “brerpatches” is me, Natalie, but “Merriweather” and “Flora” have asked to go unnamed. Although from what I gather, we shall be hearing more from them soon.
I thought the Connellogism was the “true, true …”