Postmodern Manners: How to Talk To Someone After A Mass Shooting

LEWISTON, MAINE

With killings by assault weapons becoming more common in the United States, one unaddressed problem is how to talk to people who lived through the carnage. Although I was nowhere near the Oct. 25 shootings in Lewiston, Maine, I live and work here.

I'm more trauma adjacent than anything else. But I can say what worked and what didn't in the aftermath, especially when it comes to conversations. 

Here are my suggestions, then, of how to talk to someone who has lived in a community with lots of trauma:

Don't Second Guess

It's human nature to ask questions and think of ways you personally wouldn't have been as unfortunate as others. Don't do it to someone whose city had a mass shooting. This would be very rude, perhaps as socially unacceptable as wearing white after Labor Day.

Do Reach Out

The art of mailing notes continues to diminish. But fortunately, sending a text or an emoji is a welcome, and speedier, substitute. 

When my wife told me to keep texting so she knew I was O.K. while I was at work following the shootings, I sent short replies. My brother asked how I was doing via text as well.

After I told him I had returned home, he replied with a thumbs up icon and added, "Scary bro." 

Don't Assume People Are O.K. Because They Sound Fine 

Although "I'm fine" is a standard response in social situations, people might not show any sign of struggling in the immediate aftermath. Figuring out feelings takes time, which means that a person might not be doing well after they said they were.

This can be confusing because most social interactions in the United States don't deal with negative emotions. Two standard comments about a deceased person tend to be either A) how they will be missed or B) how much of a turnout their funeral had.

How to deal with grief doesn't appear in many etiquette manuals because no polite statement, however well-intentioned, helps. Listening can.

Do Show Support

Lewiston has had many fundraising efforts to assist survivors and families. At the last regular game of the Lewiston High School football team's season, the crowd recognized emergency responders, police, firefighters or nurses, who helped that night. The names of the dead were also read aloud in silence during the ceremony at the start of the game.

While informal, unlike buying a gift for a wedding, all the previous examples count as signs of support. 

Don't Say, "Nothing Can Be Done"

A standard line in correspondence is concluding with "Kindest regards." But if a person claims nothing could have prevented a mass murder, they are not being kind. In fact, should a person make such an insensitive remark, they are not worth replying to, whether in person or by mail. 

While working to have a future without mass shootings cannot be measured, unlike sending flowers, it's the most polite thing a person can do. 

World Youth Day Journal: August 22

Tuesday, August 22, 2000

4:05 p.m.

Boarding our plane in Florence.

    I wrote this last section on the flight back to the United States. Ian and I visited Rome after the Assisi trip the day before.

    Ian and I went into Rome, which was great. He and I took the train into Rome, meeting a guy who Ian thought was a mule in the drug trade.

    We headed to Barberini Square to eat at the Hard Rock Cafe. Ian had lunch there, saying he paid $15 for a steak. He had taken the day off from traveling [to Assisi] because his mother Anna, who runs the St. Teresa group, let him because of all his work Sunday marching everyone back.

    Ian wanted to visit the Colosseum because he had not had the chance to see it. Unfortunately, it and the Modern Museum of Art were both closed because it was Monday. 

    We waited to be called to our table in the Hard Rock bar. A couple of American guys gave the bartender a hard time because he was not serving drinks with ice. The ice machine was broken.

    Ian ordered a pork dish with spicy sauce, I a house salad and jambalaya chicken and penne pasta. We both stuffed ourselves, which was great because I knew breakfast would be our usual paltry bread, butter and jelly. 

    It was weird to speak English in Rome. When I ordered the house salad, they did not have Italian dressing, so I ordered honey mustard.

    "What do you call Italian dressing in Italy?" I asked Ian. 

    Ian asked a cab driver outside the Hard Rock how much he charged. The guy said it would depend on the meter. We settled on 90,000 lire, or $45.

    I rolled my window in the rear of the Volvo all the way down, and I stuck out my elbow. It was after midnight, and Rome had become cool. We passed Trajan's Column, the Victor Emmanuel II monument, both lit up at night. The Colosseum was lit up as wellm which was great. Even the inside arches were flooded with light.

    We zipped around a rotary in front of it and I got a little nervous at how close we came to another car.

    People sat on walls near the Forum during our taxi drive. Lots of people were still walking.

    Ian said, "Rome comes alive at night." The reason is everything has cooled down.

    After passing the Forum, our driver told us about the road named after Christopher Columbus, which leads directly to the sea. On the righthand side of the road, Ian saw a woman flashing her breasts. Soon we saw lots of women at bus stops and corners. One stood wearing a white bathing-suit-type tank top and bottom. She had a sweater or come jacket on.

    Ian asked where the women were from. Our driver said Albania, Romania and the former Yugoslavia. Nice girls, he said.

    I drank a lot of water and Pepsi at the Hard Rock because I could tell I was starting to come down with a cold. As a result, I started to feel the need to piss badly.

    "You all right, man?" Ian asked me.

    I told him what was going on. Ian noticed I had quieted down all of a sudden.

    Ian paid our driver 100,000 lire to pay for the trip and the tip. He noticed if we went by the meter, we would have paid less. He was unsure if the driver would take the long way and charge more, though, so he set a price earlier.

    After hitting the men's room near the bar at the Country Club, [a nickname for a building at the campground], Ian hd a beer and I had a Coke. We watched a father leave the outdoor, stone-covered area outside the bar carrying his young son.

    That's one thing about this country, Ian said, people do everything together.

    After walking back to my cabin, I tried to quietly take a shower and prepare for bed. I slept less than three hours, but felt good. I spent a final night in Rome, something else to cherish.

    7:40 p.m.

    "Erin Brockovich," the first movie of our flight, finished minutes ago.

    This morning's drive to Florence was uneventful, aside from the fact that I felt like I was driving through a postcard. All sorts of fields lay along our highway, and although Florence does appear to be more industrialized, I still like how factories and office buildings do not overwhelm the landscape.

    The other surprise was Florence's airport, about the size of the Portland International Jetport. Brian said it was so small we all could just wave and be seen from one end of the airport to another.

    I bought a bottle of wine for Ian because he paid the taxi bill, as well as a bottle of wine with an oil and vinegar set for Mom and Dad. I got it all at the duty-free shop.

    The strange thing was by Sunday, at Tor Vergata, while lots of people swooned, I turned to Ian and said, "You know, I feel pretty good."

    "So do I," Ian said.

    Ian did a great job Sunday gathering people together to tell them what to do because of the heat. Ian and Brian, along with students and chaperones like me kept getting water. 

World Youth Day Journal: August 21

Tor Vergata, getting settled in the day before a giant outdoor mass celebrated by Pope John Paul II.

I wrote the following posts while riding a bus to and from Assisi. I jump around while writing to catch up on what I missed. I mention going to the Vatican Museums on Friday and seeing the Sistine Chapel.

Ian is another chaperone on the trip. He had a younger sister among the teen pilgrims and a mother leading one of the parish groups.

Monday, August 21

6:44 p.m.

    Deacon Steve summed up World Youth Day well yesterday. The pope was great, as were festivities such as Saturday's fireworks, "but they didn't have to kill us to get there."

    We were told our hike was six miles, and we all agreed it was much longer because of the winding trip to and around Tor Vergata. 

    I heard an estimate that 11 Mainers went to the medical tent, most of them passed out from the heat. Lack of water and lack of eating were key reasons.

    Maine outnumbered any other groups in the medical area, which led to an impromptu meeting in the sun so all of the students could be told to eat and drink and not spend too much time underneath our temporary shelters.

    Ian reminded people to drink their water. Brian fetched fresh, cold water from spigots for everyone. 

    People passing out from the heat was no high point. I felt good, despite our walk and time in the sun.

    Saturday night was really the peak. I wrote a little bit about the pope riding among the crowd in the popemobile [on Saturday], then stopped as it sounded like he was approaching.

    What gave the pope's presence away was all the people jogging and sprinting around the patchwork of sleeping bags, blankets and bedrolls behind us. They all headed in the same direction, and suddenly began to change in our direction. I had no idea where the roads went, so I wasn't sure if the pope passed.

    When it appeared the pope was going to pass by us, the crowd at the side of the road surged and someone from our group yelled, "Tell her to get her butt over here!"

    Girls climbed on guys' shoulders, screams got closer.

    The pope sat in the popemobile, which is really a bulletproof box he rides in. His hands rested on the sides as we all took pictures.

    Ian saw people from Spain or Central American countries kneeling as the pope passed. I took a few pictures with my camera and after I was finished, I glimpsed the skullcap on the back of an elderly man in white.

    The roars subsided. Then lots of people started hugging one another, telling what they saw, how close they were and what kind of pictures they took.

    The prayer service included teens from around the world addressing the pope and hearing a wide musical selection. I did not expect gospel at our get-together. Seeing the. pope tap his hand to the music and wave his hands above his head were also things I did not expect from the 80-year-old pontiff.

8:36 a.m.

    We left an Aperto 24 store, where I picked up my new favorite brand of ice tea, San Benedetto. Being the only available flavor at Tor Vergata has helped me acquire a taste for San Benedetto peach flavor.

    It's weird to see peach and apricot juice in aseptic packages, something also offered from our bagged breakfasts this morning. I've seen peach juice on other occasions.

    Before I regurgitate, more, I will give short snippets from yesterday.

    Our march out of Tor Vergata was mostly pleasant. We had a slow, steady pace and stopped a few times.

    Many of us cheered and waved to people from other countries. Some Italians cheered "Viva America!" One of the jubilee volunteers traded his sweaty blue t-shirt for one of my orange Maine t-shirts. Before we packed up, I spotted a German pilgrim wearing an orange Maine t-shirt, complete with lobster pin and blueberry pin. I kept thinking he was in our group.

   Our march was supposed to be short —about three miles to a subway station. We passed the station and learned the metro was closed and we would have to be bused. We would have to hike further towards a bus station.

    Ian had led our large group, but after hearing about our hike to a bus, he said we should all break up into different groups. He was tired of yelling.

    I got people to sing the refrain from the Proclaimers' "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)." Finally, I remembered one version from "Though the Mountains May Fall" and Cheverus guys knew it because it's always sung at masses. 

    Note: A memorable name —Irish Village Disco Bar, near St. Paul's Outside the Walls.

    A few of the girls started complaining about being hungry. Ian turned around and told them to stop whining. You knew what you were getting into when you signed up for it, he told them. Jesus went into the desert for 40 days, he said, and he didn't complain.

    "This is nothing!" he said. 

    There was a pause, and I said, "Amen, brother!"

    "It was Jesus, right?" Ian asked later. I told him yes.

    A short while later, we stopped under a tent by the road to rest and have something to eat. Many of the students had not brought food with them despite Ian's command before we left to bring food and water. With a longer march, they needed something to eat.

    Underneath the tent lay many discarded lunch boxes many pilgrims were given. It contained an assortment of snacks such as Pringles potato chips, pudding, pear juice, crackers, cookies and tinned meat. Everyone said the tinned meat smelled like cat food.     

    With some scrounging through the boxes, we did find cookies and a few crackers.

    When I saw a group of pilgrims pushing a shopping cart filled with backpacks, I became jealous.

    [back to giving details from the Saturday night vigil]

    We heard the crowd shout "Gio-VANNI PAO-lo" with a clap-clap-clap-clap. Once the crowd shouted in Italian "John Paul II we love you." The pope shouted back "John Paul II, I love you."

    Joe heard it through the translator on the radio how the pope said at 11 o'clock, "It's 11 o'clock, now what do we do?"

    During his speech, he paused at one point and said, "Don't worry. I'm almost finished."

    "He talks a lot for an old man," Brian said.

    As the pope prepared to leave, fireworks shot off in an area behind us. No one expected them. They were beautiful, shooting up in three volleys of golden, swirling patterns. Music played over the speakers along as the fireworks went off. After the roads of surprise, people cheered.

    The grass we sat on became damp in the evening. Joe's eggshell foam mattress and sheet were wet.

    I bedded down in my fleece Wal-Mart sleeping bag on two trash bags. No one else among the 2 million people fell asleep, judging by all the cheering and laughing Italians who passed me. Two people tripped over my pillow as they walked by. I pretended to be asleep. A group of French tourists sang "La Marseillaise" at 12:30 a.m., complete with drums and a brass section.

    A word about sleeping on the ground in a Mediterranean country—it's cold. All the condensation soaked my fleece sleeping bag, and rather than get up, I lay twisted in a fetal position with my arms folded over my chest.

    Mass began at 8:45. It began to get hot after 9 a.m.

    Communion was distributed quickly. Priests standing under white umbrellas appeared close to our section. I received communion from a Filipino-looking priest, who said, "Corpus Christi" to me.

    I wish I could say the pope's homily was moving. I found it complicated. He did make a good remark in his final goodbyes in different languages about how all the youth must go out to the world, and how doing good for Christ is hard, but with God's help, it is possible. I did like how pilgrims from different nations cheered when he spoke their language.

    Back to today. Our bus is driving through Umbria, the region in central Italy where Assisi is located. We have driven through many tunnels through mountains and spotted several castles on hilltops. 

    Small notes — our campground is amid camps of Italians. Ian, who has broad shoulders, long blonde hair and a light brown beard, was approached by small kids who said, "Hercules! Hercules!"

    Brian said at a concession stand at Tor Vergata an Italian guy asked Ian, "You drive Harley-Davidson?" and made a handlebar motion with his hands.

    I talked with Anna [a parent and parish group leader] about the heat yesterday. One of the parents said the temperature was over 100 degrees. I talked to Anna why so many Maine people were stricken. She kept reminding students to cover themselves up because so many boys had their shirts off. She had told girls not to bring tank tops and said they were furious with her about the rule. They brought them any way. 

    All the uncovered skin, and feet included, contributed to heat stroke, she said.

    "Why did Arabs cover themselves?" she asked the kids. Good point.

       Nuns wore habits, carried umbrellas and walked slowly, she said, and were fine. All the Italians we saw walked slowly, according to Anna.

    Another good point. Sometimes the emphasis on "Mediterranean lifestyle" Americans speak about is a little condescending. Italians move about more slowly during the day because it's damn hot.

[recalling a subway trip on the way back from Tor Vergata]

    The subways were packed, a sweaty affair. I used to laugh about how Japanese subways sometimes have people pushed into cars. I saw people slip in through the door to our car and feel my arms compressed because of people pressing against me.

    I talked to a pilgrim from India before we started getting packed with people. When we began to approach a stop, I saw people lined up on the platform and began to move away from the doors. The subway driver hit the brakes suddenly, and I flew in the air and landed on a bedroll lying on the lap of someone in a seat. I bounced into the air.

    Fortunately, I wasn't hurt, although my back was sore.

  

The Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi, Assisi

    12:38 p.m.

    We are on a steep hill leading up to St. Francis' basilica. 

    4:51 p.m.

    

    Our group shopping in Assisi, a time capsule of a medieval town. Take away all the shops selling religious articles, leather goods and baby clothes and not much appears to have changed. It's a steep ride to the basilica, with roads zigzagging into the town. At one point, we walked through a gate, wooden doors included.

    I'm sure Assisi prides itself on its appearance, complete with two large parking lots for buses.

    

    Brian had another great line today as a car looking 30-40 years old passed us on a narrow street. If it hit me, it would probably be the one that is damaged, he said [it was also tiny].

    Of course, I should write about St. Francis' tomb. It's just I did not like waiting in line for another church [my seventh for the trip, counting chapels and basilicas in the same category].

    

    The tomb is above an altar. People knelt in prayer around it. A black friar in a gray robe sat at a table next to the tomb with a microphone next to him. He was the source of the message ["No photo. Phone off."], I think, rather than a recording.

    Time to backtrack —

    Thursday night Brian and I left the restaurant shortly before 10 p.m. We went in the wrong direction, then turned around. We found Barberini Square and Brian said, "Dude, if we can't get on the subway, we can take a cab."

    The subway was open, but crammed. We stood on the platform and when the subway doors opened, two guys stood in the tightly-packed car with hands raised saying, "No-No-No." The next subway looked equally crammed until a few people left from a car a few ahead of Brian and me. He started running and we squeezed in. 

    We hopped onto a train to Castelfusano. A group of French pilgrims talked with Argentinians, and at one point one of the French guys sung, "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina." The Argentinians in turn sung the macarena and the French guys danced. 

    We visited St. Peter's again Friday, hitting the Vatican Museum first. When all our group crossed the street next to the Vatican Museum, we cut into the line. What amazed me outside the Vatican was its huge walls, slanted like a pyramid's.

    

    The entrance to the museum was stunning, marble (I think) or some whitish stone with modern registers and stairs. We emptied out into a courtyard with illustrations of the Sistine Chapel and the Last Judgement on it. Groups would gather outside the courtyard to explain Michelangelo's works before entering the halls.

    The courtyard outside the Vatican Museum.

    A girl from Maine looked at the illustrations and asked, "Did Michelangelo do both of those?" I said yes.

    All the pictures from my high school Latin books came from the busts and statues in the Vatican Museum's halls. I saw the Lacoon, the ancient statue that influenced Renaissance artists. 

    The Lacoon is on the right.

    The guide tried to stop and tell us about the busts and tapestries we saw, slowing down the stream of people around us, So many groups were there that everyone walked in front of each other's photos. I thought we reached the end of a hallway when I discovered it was a door leading to a hall connected directly with ours.

    To enter the Sistine Chapel, we went through a windowless, white hallway down some stairs with prerecorded messages in a number of languages telling us not to take pictures. After entering another hallway and taking a left through a doorway, I saw part of the Sistine Chapel ceiling. The entrance was to the right of the altar in the chapel.

    The chapel was dim, with no lights inside. Instead, lights beamed through windows. The windows did not have clear panes but were white, perhaps to limit the lights' effect on the frescoes.

    Unfortunately, people took pictures in the chapel — with flashes. Ian said he walked around telling people who took pictures, "You're going to hell."

    The inside of the chapel is about the size of a basketball court, longer at the ends with no room for bleachers. A guard stood nearby, clapping his hands every few minutes to remind people to quiet down. Shortly after his claps echoed around us, people, myself included, talked.

        

World Youth Day Journal: 19 August

 

Marching through Rome with bottled water available next to an aqueduct.

One memory I have of being surrounded by tens of thousands of people happened when Pope John Paul II was traveling around in the popemobile the night before he said mass. I thought I wrote it in the journal but cannot find it.

People were freaking out in excitement about the approach of the pope.

Brian said, "Is this the pope or Elvis?"

A seminarian near us said, "Better than Elvis!"

Saturday, August 19

6:04 p.m.

    We made it to our spot at Universite Tor Vergata before six p.m. We left the "country club" [the nickname for our campground at Castelfusano] after 9:30 a.m. this morning. Our subway arrived at our stop around 11.

    Instead of beginning our hike, groups were delayed along the road to make a staggered start. We stood with our backpacks on and slowly crept forward. A flagpole cast a shadow across a grassy area near the station and a group of Africans lay on the grass in the pole's narrow shadow. Smart people. Shade would become a scarce commodity.

    The start was slow, but with plenty of water. Pallets of bottled water stood by the slide of the road, and fittingly, one large water stop was next to a Roman aqueduct.

    The generous amounts of water, as well as people on streets spraying water from garden hoses, made water fights inevitable. Those caught in the crossfire occasionally got pissed off. Including a Finnish (I think) guitar player who shouted.

    He began yelling at people who splashed water among the crowd of Catholics, saying if they wanted to throw water, they should be willing to pay for his guitar. Throughout the trip, we joked about "guitar guy" and spotted him several times during the hike. He had a guitar case.

    By the time we reached Tor Vergata, however, Guitar guy started to make sense. This was in between being sprayed by water from the same spigots that supplied our water. Because we could barely move single file down the roads, we all got sprayed, hot or not. 

    Other kind pilgrims gave us water bottles filled with cool water or filled empty water bottles for us.

    These were the same roads buses traveled too [at Tor Vergata]. Brian, a veteran of many Grateful Dead and Phish concerts, said no lanes were designated for buses, and people traveled around in cars, not golf carts. The worst outdoor concert he had seen did not compare to it.

    The ambulances had to compete with people on roads when they were not on sidewalks, blaring their Tarzan yell sirens, drivers honking their horns quickly in a staccato fashion. Many of us carried two-liter bottles of water because we were uncertain if any would be at our site. Combined with our backpacks, it was a heavy load. And then the group that left at 10 a.m. showed up behind us.

    I lacked a lot of the enthusiasm of pilgrims. Fr. Dan said, "Praise to Jesus!" upon arriving near our designated camp.

    I said, "That's open to interpretation."

    After finding an open space, I dropped my torn plastic bag of food and water, relieved to let it go without fear of being trampled. I remained bent over for a moment and Joe turned suddenly and his backpack hit me in the head.

    I have never been so happy to have a seat in the back in my life.

    I was invited to join evening prayer with some of the seminarians. I declined. A seminarian had seen me writing and I talked about the "hellish Bataan death march" we endured.

    But it will all be worth it, he said.

    One of them offered to carry my plastic bag filled with water earlier on our march. I thanked him [I think I declined].

    Maybe it wasn't a priest recruiting drive. Seminarians and chaperons prayed together.

7:30 p.m.

    

    The crowd just cheered as the pope begins to enter after getting off the pope chopper. I can see a big-screen TV, but it's partially blocked as everyone looks at the popemobile move along the screen.

World Youth Day Journal: 18 August 2000

 

St. Paul's Outside the Walls, Rome. The statue is of St. Paul. Catholics like to have martyrs for the faith appearing with whatever killed them so St. Paul, beheading victim, holds a sword.

The church visits around Rome continued on Thursday, along with a trip to the catacombs. Once all the Maine teens were safely back at our home base at Castelfusano, I and another chaperone went back into Rome. 

Friday, August 18

9:24 a.m., St. Paul's Outside the Walls

    I'm sitting at the base of a column as the congregation claps to the song "Everybody Sing Alleluia." I saw someone else leaning against a pillar writing, and I figured I would too, especially because I did not write yesterday.

    Also, the music literally repeats what we did here yesterday.

    Cardinal George of Chicago spoke to us about freedom and making choices. Angela, a St. Anselm's College student, told Brian and me how she thought the church should have had better speakers. I agreed.

    The cardinal gave a pleasant speech, although "workmanlike" is about the best I could say about it. I told Angela and Brian I would have liked to have heard from former New York Governor Mario Cuomo, a Catholic who is one of the best speakers around.

    I have to admit, though, I was quite moved by how the whole congregation of teens that sung, cheered and waved their way together. A few minutes ago a line of people danced by me to the song, "Yes, Lord." So it continues.

    Our mass began with a Kenyan man singing in Swahili [I think] as people from his diocese danced their way into church for the procession, followed by a long line of priests and the cardinal.

    When I got tired of sitting or standing, I went to confession. Even though I had been about a week and a half ago, I went again to fulfill the requirements of the indulgence for the jubilee. Others included passing through the holy door, prayer and acts of charity. After confession, I looked at the crypt for St. Paul in front of the altar [he's supposed to be buried there].     

    The Maine group hopped onto buses to visit the catacombs and two remaining basilicas in Rome that have holy doors.

    We drove to the outside of Rome to see the burial places of Rome's early Christians. Our guide Esther, who has a habit of finishing what she said with a high-pitched "u-h-h?" that Joe impersonated, was very knowledgeable.

    The catacombs, she said, were not hidden from Romans because everyone knew where they were buried. The catacombs we visited were on the Appian Way, which made sense.

    It looked like we were visiting farms, except the fields were simply covered with grass. A huge parking lot flanked the field and we joined a crowd of people waiting to tour the catacombs. Many drank soda while we waited. I got a Fanta, different from the orange soda from home because it is mixed with orange juice. I like it.

    We went to a small amphitheater where a Salesian priest talked about the catacombs and who was buried in them. Unlike the Romans, early Christians did not believe in cremation. They were buried in graves carved from soft volcanic rock and were covered with marble or terra cotta. Rome simply did not have space for graves, which explained why the San Callixtus catacombs had about eight miles of them underground.

   The priest said since the early 1960s bones started disappearing because people took them. As a result of the bone thefts, the catacombs did not hold bodies. We only saw portions on them.

    What was nice was walking underground and enjoying the cool air amid all the graves. The rock was black and the spaces for the bodies carved inside them made them look like bunk beds. The bunks had no covers on them, so they were all empty. The walls of the catacombs had fragments of the covers of graves, some written in Greek, others in Latin. I wanted to translate the Latin, but the fragments were so small I could not see many complete words.

    Later in our trip, our group saw St. John Lateran, an impressive Baroque structure whose massive size did not fit into the frame of my camera. 

    A stage stood in front of St. John Lateran. Music blared from speakers. One song was Alanis Morissette's "You Oughta Know," which included "Are you thinking of me when you fuck her," normally partially deleted in America. 

    Across the street from St. John's was a reproduction of the medieval basilica of St. John Lateran. It included a half-dome with a mosaic on it. 

    When I entered the new St. John's I was beginning to get a sense of its size when I heard the percussion start from Marvin Gaye's "Sexual Healing" playing outside.

    St. John's has white marble everywhere, which I liked. The massive amount of people lining up inside and outside was overwhelming. Fortunately the basilica has a large lawn in front of it.

    The buses were crammed at our stop. We began a walk to Santa Maria Maggiore instead. I was glad we did. It was the first time I had walked through Rome.

    The streets were tree-lined and the buildings gave shade in the late afternoon. We passed a convent wedged between two buildings that had a gate in front of it. A black nun stood outside, the first of many nuns we saw on our walk. Further down a road, we passed a platoon of Filipina nuns, all of whom seemed only five feet tall.

    I looked for film. I was down to my last roll. I slipped into a narrow film store and picked up a three-pack of film off a counter. After saying, "Grazie," I headed back to my group.

    I did not need to worry. We did not move too quickly and Ben, who is 6 foot, 7 inches, followed the back of the crowd wearing his orange Maine shirt.

    We did have to stop for a girl who slipped on a pamphlet on the sidewalk and skinned her knee. That's when the Filipina nuns passed us. Fortunately the girl was fine.

    Crossing a street Brian spotted a portion of an aqueduct in between two buildings. I took a picture.

    Santa Maria Maggiore does not have the luxury of space. It has a small square and fountain in front of it, not enough for the crowd. Joe and the guys joined a crowd in filling up their water bottles from the fountain. 

    The church maintains its medieval interior with Romanesque arches. Like St. Paul's, it has plastic chairs too. The heat of the church combined with the number of people made the visit difficult.

    Our guide Esther ... led us into the Sistine Chapel of the church [not the one in the Vatican, named after another Pope Sixtus]. Statues of four angles held the canopy. On the opposite side was Pope Sixtus, in statue and his remains. A glass case held his body, covered with robes and a death mask. His statue showed him smiling. It reminded me why people rarely smile in portraits and status. The pope had a wide grin like a circus clown.

    Jeanne's niece, who will be a freshman at her high school in Virginia, said she had seen more dead bodies today than she had in her entire life (Jeanne is head of youth ministry for the diocese).

    The cardinal of Toronto is speaking now over a poor speaker system at St. Paul's "God don't make no trash" got applause.

    He was short, anyway, and I liked his tone. "My dear friends, thank you very much," he said at the end.

    

    12:19 p.m.

    outside the basilica in the courtyard

    

    The gospel is being read inside St. Paul's and I'm writing. I ate shortly before noon. Plus I need to write. I was sitting on a bench in the left-hand corner of the basilica writing when I noticed the pounding of my keyboard could be heard amid the silence of mass.

    

Joe across the street from the Colosseum

    I had wanted Joe to join Brian and me in a walk around Rome yesterday evening as we finished up in front of the forum. I had taken several picture of him with the Colosseum in the background and he and the guys tried to see if they could visit it in their final 15 minutes. Joe said the line was too long for them to get inside.

    

    He and the guys went to the beach instead yesterday. Brian and I went out on our own. It was the most fun I have had here.

    The guidebook to Rome I had did not list every street, I learned, and I began to travel in general directions. 

    

    We came upon the Pantheon by walking down a narrow street. I saw tall columns in the distance, and wondered if it was the Pantheon. It was.

    

    Our excursion taught me one thing about Rome —stuff pops up out of nowhere. The Pantheon has a piazza in front of it. The fountain and all the restaurants (McDonald's included) make it crowded.

    

    I knew the Pantheon well, thanks to teaching Humanities [I taught at Dirigo High School in Dixfield, Maine, for three years] with videos from Michael Wood's "Art of the Western World."

    Brian said he had goosebumps looking at Raphael's tomb. A few Italian kings, Victor Emmanuel included, are buried there, dwarfing Raphael's small tomb. I liked looking up at the oculus, or the eye of the church, taking a series of pictures, trying to get the scope of the place. The world seemed to be too big to fit into the film on my camera. That's why I write.

    While heading in the general direction of Trevi Fountain, we came upon Trajan's Column in a nearby square [I was leading Brian and me in the wrong direction]. I was psyched. I had no idea where it was located snapped a few pictures of it. It's massive.

    

    Following directions from a Carabinieri (he gave me directions in English after I asked in Italian), we headed to Trevi.

    

     I imagined a streetside fountain, not one that took up half a square. The other side was mobbed with people, ether taking flash pictures or looking down at people near the fountain's base.

    The base of Trevi fountain is below street level, where many people turn their backs to throw a coin. It was so congested Brian and I stayed up on street level. He spotted a guy snapping pictures on the steps of a church in the piazza, and I climbed up to snap a few of my own.

    I still can't get over the size of the statues. Oceanus appeared to be the size of a bus. All the figures were truly giants. 

    I walked to the right side of the fountain and threw two coins in, worth 700 lire. I bought postcards. Brian purchased a status of Caesar for about 140,000 lire. The vendor gave him rosary beads as a bonus. Brian wondered if he should have haggled (The vendor dropped the price once, "For you,140,000!"), but liked the statue, putting it in his shoulder bag. His boss is nicknamed "Caesar," so Brian bought it for him.

    We picked a downstairs restaurant on the way to Piazza Barberini, where a subway stop was. We both ordered salads. Mine consisted of thick slices of mozzarella and tomato. I thought "grilled scampi" meant shrimp but they were crabs. Huge legs —once again, different from home. and good. Brian had minestrone and pizza. 

    Twice during our meal, the lights went out. Each time, Brian reached into his backpack and pulled out a flashlight, pointed it at his pizza, and started eating.

    I should stop for now, because communion is being distributed with "Be Not Afraid" sung. I will rejoin my group.

    But first — a note: these pillars out in the courtyard are covered with bird droppings. They are sooty and grimy too. I sometimes can't believe all the cigarette butts around the steps in front either. Italy is beautiful, not pristine.

World Youth Day Journal, 16 August 2000

 

    Maine pilgrims followed a group member carrying the Maine state flag. I have no idea who this guy is in the picture above but my brother Joe carried the flag later during our trip.

Our group went to masses and meetings at the basilica St. Paul's Outside the Walls. We headed to St. Peter's basilica by bus after arriving at St. Paul's from Castulfusano, the place we were staying in on the coast. In order to officially make a pilgrimage for the Holy Year, we Maine pilgrims needed to visit all four of Rome's basilicas. We managed to see two of them on Wednesday. We missed lots of other parts of the city, which made me and fellow chaperones determined to see more of Rome.

Wednesday, August 16

9:26 p.m.

    Brian on our visit to St. Peter's without seeing anything else in Rome: "It's like half a hand job. It fucking sucks."

    Our day began around 6:30 a.m. getting up for breakfast and our bus ride at 7:30 for Rome. Bread, jam and butter again.

    Our first stop was St. Paul's, which is a medieval church (found out later —burned down in the nineteenth century, rebuilt) with a kind of courtyard in front with a giant statue of St. Paul. We waited for a bus, and while there we met a group from California. A couple guys asked me if we fish in Maine. I said we did, in summer and ice fishing in winter. Basically ice fishing is sitting on your ass next to a stove. I told them. They laughed.

    Then someone in our group told us to go toward the bus stop. We did, and all sorts of groups started appearing, such as ones from Mexico.

    We all managed to squeeze on one bus. It was weird to see the walls of Vatican City — I said "Look at the castle" when it was outside the walls of the city itself. I glimpsed the Colosseum through the bus windows. I wanted to look up and see it all, but only saw a rectangular view. Along with the brickwork holding it together, some columns have metal bands to keep them together. The forum is right nearby, and like a lot of ruins, at a lower ground level than we were.

    I saw the Arch of Titus, protected by a fence around it and lots of columns. I wanted to jump off the bus, but I thought I saw the dome of St. Peter's too, one of two false alarms for the day. Rome has many domed churches, and St. Peter's is tough to see. I imagined it looming above the landscape like Capitol Hill in Washington. It doesn't. It sneaks up on you.

    We passed the entrance to St. Peter's Square and I saw the dome. We stopped on a street nearby and walked toward the entrance.

    Music played over speakers and would continue while we walked through the square and into St. Peter's Basilica ("Emmanuel," World Youth Day's theme).

    I took many photos of St. Peter's and the square as we approached the entrance. The square looked small, but we spotted people on the steps of St. Peter's who looked really tiny. I could not believe seeing people on the dome of St. Peter's who looked even smaller.

    I kept saying "I can't believe I'm here" and exhaled. We were corralled into an entrance that went around the obelisk in the square. I had hoped to see Egyptian hieroglyphics on it. Instead I saw Latin inscriptions on the base. Andrew and I tried to translate and figured out one year listed was 1564.

    Flags from all nations around the world hung on Bernini's colonnade. Other youth groups sat in the shade of the columns.

    My World Youth Day group from Maine. Everyone with us wore bright orange t-shirts to help us not get lost from one another at big events. I had two of the shirts, one of which I later traded for a blue Italian World Youth Day t-shirt.

        We ascended a stone ramp in front of St. Peter's, which I didn't know existed. A handicapped-accessible basilica. Good. A small garden of flowers was at the steps. We were continually moved ahead by people in blue t-shirts, jubilee volunteers.

    I entered the portico and could not believe how high its ceiling was. We all looked up, inside the place where the pope waves to everyone.

    

    The lights inside the basilica were off. I did spot Bernini's canopy, where the pope celebrates mass.

    I have always wanted to look at that, and the place in Rome where I most wanted to be was under the dome, looking at the canopy. We kept moving along, though, so I couldn't ponder much.

    

    Michelangelo's Pieta stood behind bulletproof glass to our far right. Joe took a picture and I wanted to take a closer look. A guide told us in English we couldn't. We had to keep moving. So we did.

    I took a picture of a statue of St. Teresa [of Avila], one of the huge statues in the pillars of the church. I laughed for a few reasons. First, when I was a guide at Victoria Mansion [a house museum in Portland, Maine], I constantly told people not to take pictures, saying how the flashes fade paintings and frescoes. And I was doing it. Because I wanted to remember.

    Another reason I laughed was because of the huge paintings I saw. I said "They're real." [I found out later that most of the paintings inside were mosaic replicas]

    I did not take a closer look because of the continuing movement of people, even though I wanted to take a look at Bernini's tabernacle at the side of the basilica.

    A French lady asked me to take a picture for her as we walked along. It took a moment because I had to press the shutter very quickly. She thanked me in English.

    Joe took my picture with the canopy in the background. I took a number of shots of the canopy and one of the ceiling. I stopped, looked up for a few moments, thanked God I was there and moved on.

    After rounding the corner in front of the canopy, the pace picked up. I blessed myself with holy water from some basin flanked by giant marble cherubs.

    Once we got off the steps of St. Peter's, we stood in the shade of the columns waiting while the rest of the group came outside. We drank water and said hello to a group from Alaska. A person waved the state flag as they walked by us.

Maine pilgrims in front of a column and with a distant view.

    I really did not want to go anywhere. I wanted to sit in the shade of the colonnade, watch people go by and write. It was around 11 o'clock and we were thinking about lunch.

    While crossing the Tiber, I saw Castel Sant'Angelo, a papal castle. I could not believe how close it was to us. Deacon Steve wanted to visit that. We saw people on the roof next to a massive statue of St. Michael the Archangel. I snapped a picture of the Tiber because it was the river I had read so much about in Latin class, even though it was green from algae blooms.

    We stopped to have some gelato around 11:30 a.m. I had frulatti, a mix of two ice creams and soda, which cost 3,000 lire [the exchange rate was roughly 2,000 lire to a dollar]. A restaurant next door opened at noon, so we waited until it opened, looking at menus.

    Joe got an olive pizza. The Roman version has a very thin crust and a light tomato sauce. I ordered antipasto vegetale, zucchini, potatoes, mushrooms and yellow peppers sauteed in olive oil with some vinegar and tomato sauce. I can't believe I am writing about my meal. Still, it's real Italian food, and surprising. 

    Our table's bill came to 105,000 lire and Ben paid for it with his credit card. We paid him back.

    When we arrived at St. Paul's from our bus ride, I did make my pilgrimage inside. People attended confession in the church confessionals, although in one case a person knelt outside while talking to a friar who sat in the middle of the booth with no screen in front of him, making him look like a ticket vendor.

    I saw lots of friars in Rome, some in brown robes or gray. Priests wore black shirts and Roman collars, with blue shirts or even white. Nuns wore white or black habits and veils like St. Carol did in the Sisters of Mercy [my great aunt who died in 1993].

    I even saw some man in a brown robe with a tonsure. In his case it was a thin ring of hair around his head.

    Brian fell asleep on the ride back and had his head on my shoulder. He apologized and recalled how he did it in a bus station before. 

    Random notes — St. Peter's was dark and cool with its stone walls and pillars, a relief from the outside. I could feel the air moving above my head. 

    I had wondered what the place would smell like, as if it would be musty like an attic. It wasn't. With all the air circulating it didn't have a particular smell.

    We had a prayer service tonight and the same time we started music began blaring from the camp disco. "Surfing USA" competed with our praying.