Momentary Blindness (Piazza Navona)

The hustle and bustle of this place that I sit in is anxiety inducing. It is an overload of sensations for me and I can’t seem to make sense of what is going on. So, I give myself a moment and I begin with deciphering the sounds of my surrounding.

On my right side, I can hear someone yelling at someone in Italian during what I believe to be a phone call argument. There are people laughing in the background and in particular there is one person with a loud, shrieking laugh that surprises me.

Some English speaking people walk past me and I hear what I presume to be a tour guide make a joke to their group that “let’s do a count of everyone, I don’t want to lose anyone on our first day.” I chuckle to myself and continue to hone in more closely to the sounds.

I hear streams of water that seem to form a rhythm after enough of my attention is paid to it. I then move my attention to an accordion that suddenly starts playing Despacito by Luis Fonsi in the distance. I tap my feet to the hard floor beneath me in sync with the accordion. The sound of the water does not seem to go away though since I have noticed it. The mixture of the two sounds form a symphony that I am pleased with and makes this moment truly memorable.

I can feel the sun’s rays touch my skin when there isn’t a gush of wind flying. It is refreshing and keeps my attention focused on it. In conjunction with the smell of what I believe to be fried nuts, it reminds me of home. As my timer rings and vibrates in my pocket, I realize that this place isn’t as foreign as my initial thoughts pointed to, but is actually a rather familiar scene.

(Piazza Navona, 21-5-19)

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