Do as Romans do

The sky was a dark orange blanket thrown over a dark, glum Rome, yesterday evening. The Pope had resigned in the morning and the skyes, in their sad gloom, seemed to cry out all their concern and bleak despair in the long, dark afternoon that followed the news from the Vatican. Here I am, waiting for the bus number 85, on the large via Taranto, swept by a nasty, soaken wind that pours on my poor shoes and coat, all the misery and joy of this new beginning. Because, and I am sure of this,  this is a new benìginning for the Church and for the times to come. And while I run to my darling bus that opens its doors like a mother hugs her little child, my memory flies back to the morning. I am alone in the house, pottering around, from one room to the other, like a bouncing ball, waiting for a chinese friend, when all of a sudden (or maybe it was the holy ghost), at a few minutes to twelve, I say to mysef, isn't it a fine time to have a look at the news? And what news! I barely believe what I am reading and I ring my husband who is buying bread and water in the little shop next door. "It's a joke!", he says. But then, in a minute, he is upstairs and on the phone. No joke, no science fiction. This is life, true and sound, the one that goes flickering, through days and nights, changing what we can see, but never that which is essential. Rome, my dear Rome, saw it all, many times over. All must change because all must stay the same, said the old prince of Salina in the magnificent novel "The Lepard". I smile at the good and wait until tomorrow for another day to come, with sun and rain. Do as Romans do.