Before the Curtain

November 3, 2025

Greetings from backstage,

The city of Rome is impressive.  It is filled with sounds and smells and a vibrancy, a host of extraordinary experiences, waiting to be absorbed.  There are museums and ruins and churches and art galleries, fancy rooftop restaurants with views of the Colosseum.  It is rich with cultural importance, of history that really matters.

All of this is inspiring and, in some ways, exhausting.  I wanted to see it, to soak it all in, to know about all history and feel all the marble and taste all the food and take in the famous things the world thinks of when they think of Rome.  Nearly every place I looked was another amazing thing, even the bus stops seemed to have ancient relics in them.

But there was a point in all of this when I was overwhelmed, overstimulated.  There was more than once in my awe that I felt like I couldn’t absorb any more astonishing things.  Surrounded by noisy city, by craning crowds, by endless traffic, by yet another excavation of important archaeology. Everything seemed to demand attention.

I woke up each morning and looked out the window, shaking my head at how lucky I was to be in this beautiful city, and at the same time consumed with another thought: coffee.  We stayed in a small flat overlooking a piazza, which was lined with cafes, all with interesting things to eat and drink, and none of them open early enough for me. 

In every place I’ve visited, all over the world, I have run the streets before the world is open for business. Running in new places like this offers me a number of gifts.  I run to wake up, to clear my head, to think and create, and to see, to explore.  There is a practical side too, especially when I travel.  It helps me to orient myself in a new place, even in the small line I sketch in the neighborhoods around me.  And now, in Rome, I slipped out of our building in the soft predawn for all of those reasons, and to find coffee.

I set off from our flat, teetering a little on the ubiquitous cobblestones, sampietrini, weaving in between the carts and bicycles and scooters tucked in the narrow lane.  I ran along dim alleys, buildings rising up just a few floors on either side, shaping a narrow slot to the pale morning sky.  I passed by tiny shops, this one leather goods, then a window of trinkets, then a wine and cheese display, all dark, in last moments of half sleep.

I came to a small square between the buildings and noticed one window was already lit.  There was a large wooden table covered in flour, and behind it a shelf of bread, a knife on the counter, waiting for the next thing.  There was no baker there, but the scene was complete.

I stopped for a moment and waited to see if someone would appear, waited long enough to feel the peace in the moment.  It was a feeling of being backstage before the actors arrived, before the costumes and make-up, before the real conversation was replaced with rehearsed lines.  I moved on, jogged a mile or so through the maze of buildings, until I thought I should be close to the place I sought.

The man sat at a small table in the alley, slouching in the wrought iron chair, his legs stretched out in front of him, ankles crossed, shoelaces untied.  He was smoking a cigarette, a private moment. He didn’t hear me coming so when I said “Buongiorno,” it startled him, and he hurried to his feet, apologizing in Italian.  I laughed and confessed that ‘good morning’ was about the extent of my second language skills. He offered a few sentences in broken English, and we found our common ground.

As I followed him into the little shop, I told him I wanted coffee and perhaps some pastry.  The shop was not quite open yet, I never learned what the appointed hour was.  He slipped behind the little counter lined with glass displays, filled with rolls and pastries and, oddly, a stack of ham and cheese sandwiches.

I stood at the counter considering the baked goods, while he attended to whatever machine made the coffee.  There was hissing and tapping and clinking of spoons and porcelain.  In a few minutes he produced two cups of coffee in Styrofoam cups, lids snugged in place.  I pointed to the croissants, and he wordlessly slipped two into a white paper sack.

He turned back to the coffee machine, more clinking and gurgling and then he turned back. He placed two small cups in saucers on the counter.  Espresso.

He raised his eyebrows and tilted his head as if to say, “How can we not?”

And so in that quiet moment, before the day began, before the world awoke, before anything else was asked of either of us, we leaned on the counter and slowly sipped from the tiny cups.

I walked back through the alleys, balancing the coffee cups and pastries, taking a few wrong turns between the dustbins and construction scaffolds and empty sidewalk tables.  The sun had risen above the eastern rim of Rome, and each street I crossed showed more of the golden light, more long shadows of statues and pillars and other things older than I can describe.  People began to fill the sidewalks and alleys, and soon the windows were lit, the doors opened, and there were brooms sweeping and voices raised. 

Someday I may write about the other incredible things I experienced there, the incredible architecture, the food, the different feel of each district, the drama of the papal address, the art, the nearly endless samples of creation from thousands of years of history.

But this morning, sitting in my den, the image that matters to me is this simple one, with no pretension, with no agenda.  Even surrounded by the vitality of modern Rome, and the almost unfathomable history, this unassuming moment just before the curtain went up was what struck me.  This moment when I saw that Rome, like everywhere, is a place where people live and work and love and cry and have coffee.  They begin again every morning, just like us. Just like this morning.

Hope this finds you a tourist in your own town,

David

Copyright © 2025 David Smith