I’ve never told anybody that I’ve loved them.
I’ve never been in love.
I used to lie all the time—I’m surprised I’ve never lied and said ‘I love you’ to someone. I almost have, during those quiet times when it would be stupid to say anything else, like “funny weather we’ve been having” or even “I like the way the pillow dents your hair.” I take love too seriously to fib, to use words to fill the silences that scare me so much.
Even the words we never speak hang over us. Like clouds, or rogue balloons. I am brimming with all the love I haven’t gotten to give to anyone. My pink paper heart is heavy with it. That’s why my posture is so bad.
***
Saturday morning in Rome. The air feels fresh as it follows me through ally-ways, past a vegetable stand and a cluster of construction workers. I thought I had gotten myself lost until I heard the water and left the dark ally to see the spray of water in bright sunshine. All roads lead to the Trevi Fountain; I could have taken one of three alleys to get here. It is in the center of Rome, and thus in the center of my day alone exploring Rome. I circled it in blue pen on my map—a marble north star. The figure in the center is “Oceanus riding on a chariot of sea shells, drawn by two marine horses which plunge through a welter of rocks and water, guided by Tritons,” writes Hereward Lester Cooke, Jr. According to him, no one really knows who made the Fontana de Trevi as we know it. It could have been either Bernini, Nicola Salvi, or Pietro Bracci who restored the fountain more than 200 years ago. The water rushing over smooth, pale stone is aquamarine and faceted like a diamond. On each side of Oceanus there are two women wearing silky togas. One holds a corpecopia of spilling fruit. She is Abundance. The other holds a sharp spear and a cup from which serpents drink. She is Salubrity.
***
Coins, mostly copper two-cents, glitter on the floor of the fountain. As the day passes, more and more coins are tossed in, dotting the basin and disturbing its surface. The legend goes that one coin placed in your right hand, crossed over your heart to be tossed over your left shoulder will assure you that you will visit Rome again. The 1954 film, Three Coins in the Fountain inspired more modern rituals: two coins for a new romance and three for either a marriage or a divorce. In the early morning I wish for a return to Rome, and toss in one coin, crossing my heart and listening for the splash above the din of other wishers.
More than a fountain, the Trevi is a building. Behind the water and statues there are four smooth columns which burst into flowers and vines on the top. Where the building meets the blue sky there is a shield with two angels blowing their horns on both sides. Another legend without proof is that it was a virgin who led the Romans to a clean water source outside of the city in 19 BC. She led them to Aqua Virgo, where the water was as sweet and pure as she. She is immortalized on the right side on the façade; a maiden in robes, the center point of four men.
***
Love echoes like footsteps in Rome. I can feel its presence everywhere, in the lemon tree-filled courtyard of the church by the Spanish Steps, waiting in line to see God’s hand in the Sistine Chapel and of course at the Trevi. Couples navigate the cobblestone, connected by laced fingers and steady gazes. They sit on the steps and kiss before tossing a coin. The Romans see no reason why the world should not know how you feel about someone. A few steps from the fountain, on the gate of the Chiesa dei Santi Vincenzo e Anastasio church, there are hundreds of metal padlocks. It is another ritual—you write the name of your lover on a lock, secure it to the gate and toss the key into the fountain. They are mostly just initials, M.B + K.J, hieroglyphics of dedication. There is a red one that says “Together Forever” and a gold one that reads “Ti amo.” Each lock is a ghost of two people who left something behind when they left Rome.
I feel the ghosts, too. There is one on my lips where we last kissed, standing in the train station, luggage in hand. The shortest of absences from the person on my mind will make me wax poetic and make my silly heart beat young. In Rome I feel so young. My years are a speck in the timeline compared to the Colosseum that crumbles with its age.
If it were not for so many things (boys with hearts so broken they couldn’t love me with all the little pieces) I could have been in love in the past, at least once. If it were not for my own mistakes I could have been happy. If I could learn to love the person and not love the love, we could be happy in the future.
It’s like Marcello Mastroianni splashing through the fountain after Sylvia in La Dolce Vita. It is nighttime and the water is glowing. In the course of a week Marcello has been with the traditional Emma and the jaded Maddelena—lover to lover looking for something he cannot name. “I guess she’s right,” he says to himself about Sylvia, the movie-star, “I’m making a mistake. We’re all making a mistake!” Still he goes to her and nearly kisses her only to stop and ask who she is. She tells him nothing and instead whispers, “listen." Listen to the water crashing down around us and stop thinking about everything and everyone.
***
When the sun sets, the Trevi Fountain is transformed. What was beautiful in the day, is powerful and enchanting in the night. The white marbles turns to a glowing orange, lighted by underwater spotlights. People buzz around the layered steps, eating gelato, taking pictures.
I toss in two for a new romance, though I may already have what I want. It doesn’t matter. Wishes are not real. They are as unreal as the idea of love, or the idea of loving love. Only people are real. Love doesn’t become real until you love real people.
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