In 2005 I spent three months in Rome. In some ways I have never left. Perhaps it sounds like a commonplace to say that I “left part of myself” in the Eternal City. But the fact is, I did. I returned to Rome once more, in the spring of 2007, when I proposed to my now-wife in Assisi, and I have not been back since. And yet, to this day there is hardly a week that goes by when I do not dream about Rome, and often these dreams recur far more frequently than that.
There is very little to tell about these dreams: usually I am alone, or with another person or group of friends, wandering through the cobblestone streets and alleyways of the city. It is not so much the events, but rather the mood of these dreams that so disturbs my sleep, and then my waking hours, so that I often feel the influence of their haunting beauty long after I have awoken.
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