Eat, Pray, Love

“What do you mean?”
He said, “Don’t you know that the secret to understanding a city and its people is to
learn—what is the word of the street?”
Then he went on to explain, in a mixture of English, Italian and hand gestures, that every
city has a single word that defines it, that identifies most people who live there. If you could
read people’s thoughts as they were passing you on the streets of any given place, you would
discover that most of them are thinking the same thought. Whatever that majority thought
might be—that is the word of the city. And if your personal word does not match the word of
the city, then you don’t really belong there.
“What’s Rome’s word?” I asked.
“SEX,” he announced.
“But isn’t that a stereotype about Rome?”
“No.”
“But surely there are some people in Rome thinking about other things than sex?”
Giulio insisted: “No. All of them, all day, all they are thinking about is SEX.”
“Even over at the Vatican?”
“That’s different. The Vatican isn’t part of Rome. They have a different word over there.
Their word is POWER.”
“You’d think it would be FAITH.”
“It’s POWER,” he repeated. “Trust me. But the word in Rome—it’s SEX.”
Now if you are to believe Giulio, that little word—SEX—cobbles the streets beneath your
feet in Rome, runs through the fountains here, fills the air like traffic noise. Thinking about it,
dressing for it, seeking it, considering it, refusing it, making a sport and game out of it—that’s
all anybody is doing. Which would make a bit of sense as to why, for all its gorgeousness,
Rome doesn’t quite feel like my hometown. Not at this moment in my life. Because SEX isn’t
my word right now. It has been at other times of my life, but it isn’t right now. Therefore,
Rome’s word, as it spins through the streets, just bumps up against me and tumbles off, leav-
ing no impact. I’m not participating in the word, so I’m not fully living here. It’s a kooky theory,
impossible to prove, but I sort of like it.
Giulio asked, “What’s the word in New York City?”
I thought about this for a moment, then decided. “It’s a verb, of course. I think it’s
ACHIEVE.”
(Which is subtly but significantly different from the word in Los Angeles, I believe, which is
also a verb: SUCCEED. Later, I will share this whole theory with my Swedish friend Sofie, and
she will offer her opinion that the word on the streets of Stockholm is CONFORM, which de-
presses both of us.)