THE END OF ANCIENT: February, 2003

At the top of the Via Veneto, William and I found a park called the Villa Borghese, an oasis with gardens, fountains, museums and pathways. A good place for a walk on our final Sunday together.

We skipped the museums and stuck to holding hands and strolling in the brisk air and golden light. We came across some stables and hung over fences to nuzzle horses as they breathed steamy gusts of air into our faces. We laughed at puppies rolling down hillsides. We chatted about where we were, both geographically and relationship-wise.

I wanted the perspective gained from my winter weeks in Italy to make me more secure and less needy about the magic "thing" I was supposed to do to trigger our engagement. I didn't want the anxiety of what, where or when.

As we luxuriated in the good fortune of our romantic haze, we knew only that we would miss each other. We were post-9/11 but pre-Iraq war and pre-global economic downturn. Otherwise, unknowingness was all I possessed. For someone who could daydream for hours in a state of mystery, I was getting a sky full of cloudiness.

I arrived back in Los Angeles and two days later received a dozen red roses with this note:

Mel,
Buon San Valentino al mio vero amore!
Love, William

Valentine's Day, 2003, and love, nurtured in Italy, landed on our doorstep across six thousand three hundred and fifty-three miles.

I clipped the stems, set each rose in sugar water and placed the vase next to the bed. As I reached to turn out the lamp my hand stopped in mid-click.

It's 2003. William and I have been together over four years. I beat my record. Engaged/not engaged. Married/not married. None of that matters on Valentine's night. I beat my record. I didn't use the Nikes and run away.

AMALFI: February, 2003 (Part 3)

I picked up a picnic lunch at a grocery store and wandered through pottery shops and a small stationery factory, where designs in cerulean blue and shiny gold curled around the edges of embossed linen papyrus. I bought a small compass in a store filled with all things seaworthy. After perusing the goods of the town I strolled along the beach, with its shuttered-up restaurants and boat-rental kiosks.

It was easy to imagine hot summer days and a seaside filled with lean, tanned bodies splashing in foamy waves. Still, I was more content to be alone here in winter. I took a bus way up the hillside to the town of Ravello, where I wandered gardens studded with alabaster statues of naked Italian men. Stone plazas offered views of the winding coastline far below.

The weather, though sunny, became increasingly cold. An icy wind tore at my jacket and I stopped periodically for cups of hot milk or chocolate. My sunglasses clouded as I stepped inside the warmth of coffee bars.

Freddo! a shopkeeper greeted me.

Si, si, I answered, rubbing my gloved hands together as if to show I understood.

I ate my lunch parked on a bench overlooking the ocean. I read my book under a tree and imagined an everyday life in such a place. So remote, so far up, so far away....

Nope. I loved it, but I couldn't live here. And now I was missing my boyfriend back in Rome. I left the Amalfi coast after a few days. As the countryside passed outside my train window, I pondered the facts. I had three more days with William then I was back to Los Angeles.

Peace, purpose, creativity. Where, when, how?

Once in Rome, William and I shared a dinner of salad and cold meats on the bed, caught up on our news and whispered love thoughts to each other, but no one went to sleep engaged to be married. Certainly no one in this room at the Excelsior Hotel on the Via Veneto was set to exchange time-tested vows and sign on the dotted line.

AMALFI: February, 2003 (Part 2)

I awoke in the dark to the crashing sound of thunder. Across the now-black sea, rain poured in sheets and lightning flared. I could make out roiling whitecaps in the ocean.

Dinner. I decided I was going to find a place out there, in that rainstorm, to eat. I grabbed my umbrella and set forth, getting pelted by raindrops so fat they resembled a Hollywood effect. I slipped and slid down slick stairs and across shiny cobblestones. Rain soaked my shoes and pants.

I crossed the main piazza, illuminated by occasional lightning flashes. Spears of light brightened the round top of the Duomo. It wasn't difficult to notice the inspiration Edgar Allen Poe may have found here.

It being winter, there weren't many choices for dinner, but I found one open trattoria. I stumbled in, slightly shocked by the heavy storm, and shook myself free of my damp coat. According to my guidebook, this family-run restaurant was known for its fresh seafood. An older — well, elderly — gentleman steered me to a table and pulled out a chair. I could see through to the kitchen, where his mama cooked, her face rosy in a cloud of steam. At the cash register his wife counted receipts.

I learned of all these relationships over my three-course meal of insalata, zuppa and golden-fried octopus and shrimp. The man, who was the family son, stopped by at each course for feedback and I told him, "Bella, bella and bella." He was tickled by my limited but positive response and offered a local treat to enjoy with my cappuccino.

He produced a tall bottle of greenish liquid. Basil liqueur, he explained, and poured me a small glass. An unusual but not unpleasing taste and oddly perfect on a winter night with a storm raging outside.

My new friend filled me in on some agricultural facts. Because the Amalfi coast includes the ancient city of Pompeii, Vesuvian ash is embedded in its soil, making its fertility remarkable. Here lemons were fat and tasty, tomatoes sweet and juicy, and basil especially fragrant.

The son took a serious tone when expressing sadness about 9/11 and his fears of an upcoming war (the U.S. was only a month away from marching into Afghanistan). He believed George Bush was a stupido, as was the Italian leader Silvio Berlusconi. He pined for Bill Clinton and brushed aside the former president's amores.

Capisco? he kept asking.

Si, si, I answered.

When it comes to sadness and fear, linguistic barriers disappear and an international fluency of the heart takes over. I thanked my host and his family for the delicious meal, donned my coat and stepped back outside to cross the piazza and return to the hotel.

My sleep that night was deep and dreamless. The next day dawned crystal-clear and brilliantly sunny. Amalfi, washed clean, awaited my exploration.

AMALFI: February, 2003 (Part 1)

The bus driver had us sailing along the perilous Amalfi coastline, twisting and weaving his bright blue behemoth of a vehicle around hairpin turns overlooking dramatic drops to a crashing blue sea. My stomach lurched every time he turned his back to the road in order to converse with a passenger behind him, but for this guy this trip was an ordinary occurrence.

"Good God, eyes front!" I wanted to scream, but my Italian wasn't up to the task.

The breathtaking ride was an exercise in trust I wasn't sure I would pass. I turned away from the ocean view and tried to focus on the tiers of lemon groves perched on the jagged hillsides. How Amalfi came to be was incomprehensible to me. Its rugged landscape was less than conducive to building a community, but nonetheless I was grateful to the nutty city planners who decided to ignore this and build houses on top of each other.

In the fifth century, Romans hid near this coastline while escaping invading Germans. It was good hiding place: if they found you, you could jump into that ocean and swim like an Olympian.

Amalfi is also noteworthy for being the birthplace of the invention of the compass, in the thirteenth century. It makes sense: lost Romans, on the run. Where the hell are we? Beats me, let's set up camp and hey, why not grow lemons while we're at it and make a tasty aperitif we can call...hmmm...limoncello.

To get to Amalfi from Rome I had taken a train to Salerno then hopped on a bus. We passed Positano and other lovely towns perched over the sea and continued to the jewel of the coast. Amalfi, which I had visited those many years ago on my first trip to Italy. It is one of my favorite places in the world. Other than a few satellite dishes and the addition of an internet cafe, the town had not much changed in sixteen years. The Duomo, the cathedral of Amalfi, sits atop a staircase so steep its parishioners often have to take rests while climbing it to reach Mass in one piece.

I found housing in a pensione up three curvy stairways. I was given a large room decorated with two antique beds, an armoire, a desk and a chair upholstered in brown chintz fabric. A tiny bathroom held a tiny shower stall. I parted curtains, opened shutters and doors to step onto a small private balcony with a view of the seaside sparkling in afternoon light. As with the convent in Cortona, I was paying thirty-five dollars a night. Another bonus of winter travel, to be sure.

Would I have wanted to share my five days in Amalfi with William? Of course, but there was something about this location that was conducive to my private journey. This rang true for others as well: E. M. Forester, Gore Vidal, John Steinbeck, D.H. Lawrence, Edgar Allen Poe and Henrik Ibsen all wrote here. Cocteau and Klee painted here. Greta Garbo and Margot Fonteyn rested here and Jackie Kennedy Onassis secluded herself nearby, high up in the town of Ravello.

I napped on my first afternoon in this magic place, I reckoned I was in good company, cocooned in a nurturing spirit. I drifted off sure that after a few days in the heady clear air of the Italian coast I could head home to write a masterpiece.

Absolutely...as soon as I have a tiny nap...that's right....

ROME: February, 2003 (Part 3)

At the Excelsior, not splurging on room service or laundry meant grocery shopping to fill our mini-fridge and trips on a subway to a laundromat. I abandoned all pride and waltzed through the grand hotel lobby with sacks of food or bags of dirty clothes.

Buon giorno, Signora.

The bellboys, concierge and receptionists addressed me as "Signora" because I was convincingly masquerading as a married woman. Once I knew we would be traveling in Morocco and Italy, I decided — for "security reasons," and to show "respect" to "socially conservative" cultures — it would be best if William and I presented ourselves as a married couple.

At least these were the arguments I posited to my significant other/partner/live-in boyfriend. From a friend I borrowed a simple gold band with a tiny embedded diamond. Odd how it fit so perfectly on my finger...really, was that a coincidence?

William viewed the entire charade as exactly that. On the other hand, I was thoroughly enjoying the newfound dignity conferred by my upgraded status. I liked addressing the hotel staff with "my husband" this or "my husband" that and I wore the role well at the shop where I bought a gift for "mio marito." I shrugged in the world-weary manner of a wife and the saleslady shared a knowing smile.

Si, Signora.

I liked it, a lot, this pretend marriage. As I got older, going from the namby-pambiness of "girlfriend" to the cachet of "wife" gained importance to me.

Before we moved in together, William had a chat with his parents to alert them of our home renovation, our cohabitation, our eventual marriage and — something we both agreed on — that we would not have children.

They were not at all happy with the last item. His mother lamented that "nothing makes a person happier than having children" and predicted he would change his mind. His father simply saw no good reason for us to marry if we weren't planning on having children.

I waited for William at home.

How did it go?

Not well.

We hugged.

This is what I want, William said. You and me and the pets are our family.

So, as I saw it during our travels, I was simply setting the stage for our family. I polished my "wedding ring" and gave my boyfriend a sly smile.

ROME: February, 2003 (Part 2)

Speaking of wifedom, I was in the throes of curiosity myself. It was early in the new year but it was difficult not to explicate William's sentence:

You're going to do something to make the proposal happen.

We climbed over crumbling stone, weeds and cracked plaster. We placed our hands on marble walls and thought about people living their lives here so long ago. We took pictures and even when I see them now I swear I can see my mind percolating. Do what? What will I do to pop a proposal out of him?

January was too early, I knew that. My flight home was right before Valentine's Day, so that couldn't be it. He would never propose over the phone or email...would he?

Those pictures of me are carefree, happy, delighted, and on my way to crazy.

After our long afternoon of sightseeing we were ready for dinner, but alas, too early. Bars were open with snacks but a real dinner would have to wait until restaurants opened at seven-thirty. We window-shopped, stopped in music shops and bookstores and browsed in clothing stores.

By the time we opened the door of a small trattoria to order wine and study the menu, we were ready to chew cardboard. William ended up cutting into a perfect steak, charred on the outside and dripping red on the inside. Quite appropriate after visiting the Colosseum. My red was in the glass of wine I had paired with a salad, baked fish and tender ravioli stuffed with creamy cheese.

After wending our way home to the Excelsior and tucking into bed, I whispered to William that I would be off again in the morning — but no worries, since his laundry was done and the fridge was stocked. I'd be back in a week. Fairly warned, he kissed me good night.

Maybe my return from ports south would be "the thing." Maybe I was giving him a week to prepare a proposal. I fell blissfully asleep, unaware I wasn't even in the ballpark, timing-wise. I was as ignorant as Julius Caesar out for a spring walk.

ROME: February, 2003 (Part 1)

Once a week, on his Sunday off, I would convince William to get out of bed, out of the hotel and into the world. Without my nagging, he'd be content to sleep until lunch, order room service, play a game of Scrabble, watch the hotel's American ESPN feed, and return to bed. I understood his exhaustion, but wouldn't have it.

One afternoon we left the Excelsior for lunch, with plans to explore the Colosseum and the Roman Forum afterwards. As we left the subway station and approached the imposing structure of the ancient Colosseum, we were greeted by the sight of beefcake boys dressed up as gladiators. For a fee one could have a photo taken with one of these cheesy Ben-Hur movie extras. They were encouraging young and old alike to step into a prop chariot and paste on smiles with them. I thought about my previous visit here, blissfully devoid of gladiator wannabes.

Once inside the Colosseum, I recalled how I sat almost entirely alone on a sunny November day way back when, eating my picnic lunch while envisioning the hugely popular and ghastly battles of the first and second centuries.

Now, many years later, the Colosseum and the Roman Forum were undergoing restoration. I'm all for supporting the crumbling walls of historic structures and it irked me that fools felt the need to spray them with graffiti and make off with whole chunks of two thousand-year-old stone.

But beside the scaffolding I saw a sign advertising a musical performance. Right here, inside the Colosseum. Nooooo....

All around us, other tourists and families traipsed by, licking their scoops of chocolate gelato. Talking, talking, talking. The lack of quiet interrupted my thoughts and I couldn't imagine anything beyond the hubbub in front of me. The structure was still impressive but not as evocative.

Same deal with the Roman Forum. We did manage to duck the crowds by climbing up narrow pathways through gardens and into a neighborhood of ruins above what was once old Rome. From our perch we looked below into the downtown area, where Julius Caesar had once made political speeches. Where the man foolishly ignored both the Ides of March and the admonitions of his wife and walked straight into a flurry of daggers. He fell dead at the statue of his archenemy, Pompey.

Should have listened to the wife.