It’s Quite Bathetic.

I’m prone to periods of severe melancholy and introspection, due in most part to a searing inability to forgive myself for the mistakes I’ve made in my life. Self-forgiveness wasn’t something I ever learned in school, and I’m a horrible teacher to myself.

A lot of people who have read my work always say, albeit reluctantly, that it lacks emotional depth, that my characters are restrained and not willing to rise to the occasion when the dramatic moment arises. I can’t say my readers are wrong. Chalk it up to fear on the author’s part. I hate offending people or making them uncomfortable. I hate conflict. I run away from it. I pick the easy exits. I would rather keep the peace than risk losing it. These are probably the worst qualities for a writer to have. Perhaps someday I’ll learn to have more courage in my life and be less beholden to fear. I’m pretty sure one of my former professors would say that I’ll never be a good writer until that happens.

At least I made clear what kind of post this would be, right?

So that was the frame of mind I found myself in while exploring Bath, city of Roman ruins and iron-infused hot springs. It smelled like wet marble, and the density of tourists was greater than anywhere I’d seen in central London.

After my literal first step in the city, right outside the train station, I immediately thought of Nagasaki, Japan. There are waterways and weeping trees everywhere. There’s a healthy balance of street performers, businesspeople, tourists, and local artists. The people possess a strong spirit; they seem to hold a sense of pride in the history and the beauty of their city.

The city is hilly. There are churches everywhere. There are cobbled streets everywhere and the sunlight can be blinding in the alleyways. It’s about as close to Rome as you can get in this country, including the plethora of tourists (though the Trevi Fountain at peak day is, admittedly, a little bit worse than the Roman Baths).

I went to the choral evensong at Bath Abbey. It was a mass with the full choir of men and girls (that name creeps me out a little bit). Odd as I found the makeup of the choir, it quickly made sense. The men’s voices are all developed and the girl’s voices are not. The difference in vocal textures made for some beautiful harmonies and allowed for more range in the music.

Something about the magnificence of the architecture, the songs being sung, and how I’m feeling lately must have done me in. It was the second time in a very short span of days that I’d found myself teary. I don’t usually cry. I think being alone and disconnected has made me feel less guarded and a tad more free to act however I want (still within standards of public decency, of course). But I’ve also just completed a program that was transformative — for me and my writing — and I feel at a crossroads of sorts, heavy on the reflection, happy to be where I am, but still lost.

I didn’t take any pictures inside the Abbey. I don’t like photographing the interiors of places of worship. I thought about how many people must have come here looking for guidance, looking for some sort of greater meaning in their life. The questions haven’t changed; the answers probably haven’t either. But we’re left to our own pace to find them, and I am slow, stubborn, and clearly not as enlightened as I’d hope to be.

After the evensong I walked around the city and relished the cold and the wind. College students huddled in groups waiting for the bus. The street vendors packed up their flowers and vegetables and foods. The tourists flocked to the pubs. I saw one homeless woman, sitting underneath a statue by the Abbey.

I gave her some of the change in my pocket and went back to the hostel where I felt fortunate to have a private room. I worked on a story I’d been thinking about for a while, and sometime around ten or eleven I fell asleep.

The next morning I got up to visit the Roman Baths. Whereas Sunday there was a queue down the street for entry, Monday morning there was literally nobody in line, and I was one of maybe ten or eleven tourists in the whole complex.

I struck up a conversation with one of the actors who walks around the baths in costume and character. Her name is Flavia Tiburino and her husband Gaius is a government worker. She comes to the baths every day and her slave does her makeup and carries her goods. She’s thinking of freeing her slave, but said it would be cumbersome to get a new one at the market. I said that if she trusts her slave then she should get the slave’s opinion on the new one. She replied that I was wise (ha, ha, ha). She likes the honey facial scrub. Tonight she has a banquet at which she’ll need to do her best to keep from getting bored.

She asked what I did for a living and I said that I write stories. She asked if they were true stories. I said that they aren’t factual, but I hope very much that they are true. She said storytelling is like alchemy, it takes one substance and turns it into another. Then she said I was fabulous, and added that fabulous means fable in Latin, but she tries not to speak Latin around commoners. (I guess that meant me.)

I told her, remarking about the heavy doses of iron in the water, that people surely come to the baths for renewed energy. She asked how I knew so much about minerals and I said that I used to be an athlete, and iron-deficiency is quite common. I told her about the ocean races I did (she didn’t quite get the concept of competitive swimming), and that I stopped in my late 20s. I said my body just got tired of it. She replied that the body simply must dedicate itself to other things when it gets older. I mentioned that after swimming in the ocean one sometimes finds sediment and scum on their face, and that it looks kind of like makeup. She laughed.

I asked if she’d ever seen a fight in the baths. She said that she had seen boisterous behavior, never outright fighting, but she promptly removes herself from that being a lady of dignity. She said Minerva inspires something (I can’t remember) that keeps people from fighting.

When our conversation winded down (it had been a good ten minutes, like I said, there was nobody around in the baths) she asked my name. I said Jason, and she laughed and said it’s such a popular name. Really? For 1984, yes. 4th century, I doubt it. Ahh, she did a good job until then. I thanked her, told her to save her voice, and bid her good day.

Thanks, Flavia, for making me feel a little bit better.

It’s only been a few weeks, but I’m glad I’m here. I know that despite the internal difficulties, this trip has been — and is — important for me.

One final thing, I took a personality quiz at the company I used to work for. One of my results indicated that I lack empathy towards others. At first I found it ludicrous, and I even used it as the basis for a satirical short story. But now I start to see what the quiz might have been hinting at. I am no good at recognizing emotions in people and, especially, myself. I suppose it’s something for me to work on. I will.