On a visit to see family in Florida a couple of years back, I stopped at a burrito joint while out running errands. I looked up from my lunch to see a large, bearded man dressed in camouflage stepping into the line. He had an assault-style rifle slung over one shoulder, and a holstered pistol and a few tactical pouches on his belt. Several diners stared openly, but he didn’t seem to notice.
Who is this guy, I wondered. Had this become normal? What was he afraid of? I couldn’t stop watching him.
Then a man in line leaned over and whispered in the big guy’s ear, and they both laughed and then fist-bumped. A woman turned around and gave him a thumbs up.
I couldn’t read the room. Were other diners as uneasy as I was? Or were they gazing at him with admiration?
I closed my eyes and took a breath. I’m not in Italy anymore.
In a recent post, Almost Roman, I compared the long, slow process of becoming a Roman to an asymptote -- the elegant mathematical curve that approaches a line forever without crossing it. Rome feels like that: welcoming but wary.
I finished writing that post on another trip to Florida, where I stopped to eat at the same burrito place (decent burritos are not easy to find in Rome).
