Chestnuts in Rome

 

Day Six: Beautiful walk to the Spanish Steps which, until the 1600’s was just a muddy hill. We were welcome to the square by a trio singing “le donna e mobile”. I’m happy even as I mark the anniversary of my mother’s death. I am thinking about Rose as we come upon a woman selling chestnuts, something my Mom would make for me on cold winter nights as we’d sit close together on the couch watching an old black and white movie. I hated the movies, loved my Mom and enjoyed the chestnuts. Caesar buys the chestnuts and we share them while sitting on the Spanish steps. We finish and scale the stairs to the top where sits the Church of the Trinity dei Monti, one of the French Catholic Churches in Italy. Should we go in? We visit lots of churches, sometimes I skip one. Well, we’re here and the sun is hot, it will be cool inside. I light more candles, say more prayers. I kneel in the pew and I notice a few nuns praying by a small altar. I approach the altar, curious, and find a shrine made of roses and the bone relic of Therese of Lisieux, our St. Therese of the Little Flower. I am moved to tears and feel silly, crying in a random church in Italy. I guess that is what travel is about, finding a bit of home, a bit of your mother, in a far away place.