I Found Mary

High school orchestra: three words that do not particularly arouse excitement or, ahem, anything else. However, those three words to me, meant that my Spring Break of sophomore year was spent touring and playing in the various churches of Italy for unsuspecting locals.

But the memories of actually playing in the churches to a crowd of faceless Italians are so blurry, that most of them are forgotten. It was the wanderings with my friends that hold the most vivid, technicolor filled memories.

We were in Orvieto, Italy set to perform in Teatro Mancinelli in the evening and were given the afternoon off (I think, but there is a very good chance we skipped rehearsal, whoops). So there we were, a group of awkward high school students dressed in ill-fitting clothing ranging in color from my green apple North Face to my friend’s red and black striped sweater, seeking adventure on a cloudy grey day.

No idea how we picked which way to walk, and we no idea where we were going. All we saw around us were grey stone buildings set on top of grey stone roads lined with grey stone walkways. Every narrow road, every small piazza was grey. They weren’t even different shades of grey, just this cement colored grey. Now that I think about it we probably looked like delegates of a Gay Pride Parade with all our brightly colored clothing.

My friend was chattering in my ear about something as I tried to plant my feet on the cobblestones without falling. And then I felt something warm hit my face and I looked up – it was the sunlight reflecting off a golden mosaic on the front of a church. My head cranked all the way up and my eyes absorbed every ounce of golden warmth, skimming over the image of Mary. The mosaic hugged a circular glass window near the top. It was so radiant and so arresting that I had stopped moving and heard nothing around me. It made time slow down, like a scene from a movie where dust particles hang in the air and every blink takes one minute. It wasn’t a very big church and it probably wasn’t very famous, but on that day it was one of the most magnificent things I’ve ever seen. My friend’s callous covered fingers yanked me out of my revere, dragging me back to our group.

To this day I can still recall the reaction I had towards this church. I can’t direct anyone to it or make a guide to try to recreate the feeling because sometimes everything just works out in a way that it shakes you to the core, sears you, and imprints itself on you forever.