I have no idea how many miles I walked today, but as usual the days you just leave everything to chance are the ones that work out the best.  After a breakfast of bitter Italian cocoa and a croissant, I trekked the streets of Rome trying to find the way to St. Peter’s which kept moving around.  You can see it from everywhere, so I always thought I was close.  However, all this had a happy ending in that an East Indian boy found me and bade me follow him to a little restaurant where they were signing people up for a really cheap all day tour of the Vatican.  My troubles were over.  For 25 euros I had a wonderful guide who steered us magically past all the lines, gave us a receiver for his microphone and we entered St. Peters.  All I can say is that it is a foretaste of heaven.  Absolutely magnificent and enough to make any Catholic proud.

St. Peters Basilica

I had only a little disposable camera, so unfortunately I cannot send you pictures of the Pieta by Michelangelo, nor his mosaic ceiling of the great dome of St. Peters which looks exactly like a fresco.  (Note from David – These photos are from Wikipedia)  I couldn’t believe it was mosaic.  Everything about it is exquisite.  I could have spent all day there and not seen everything.  Then we had lunch, and I was accompanied by two Armenians from N.J.  Since they were Armenian, I naturally had to tell them about Hidden Branch. (When I got home and saw what I looked like in my fuschia outfit with my hair frizzed, I realized they must have thought I was a batty old lady, but then I am, so that’s okay)

Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel - Partial View

Anyway, by the time we finally worked our way through the Vatican Museum to the Sistene Chapel, I was dizzy from looking up.  I couldn’t begin to take it all in.  Our guide’s commentary that Michelangelo was a genius 500 years before his time (his paintings were baroque rather than Renaissance) was not lost on me.  That ceiling should be one of the wonders of the world.

View from St. Peter's Basilica over St. Peter's Square

Tonight is a bit less picturesque than last night.  The rain began to pour shortly after I arrived home, and I was too tired to face going out again, so I am dining on tap water and trail mix, however all I have to do is look out the window at the extraordinary Alladin’s castle that I think must be a monastery (I saw a monk) and I remember that I am someplace extraordinary.

The miracle is that I am in Rome sitting in a lovely neighborhood cafe tucked behind the Vatican right down the cobbled alley from my apartment.  The reason it is a miracle is because I am traveling alone, David having been felled by vertigo 2 hours before we were due to leave.  Of course, now he is perfectly well, and assures me he will join me in Cannes where we dock on Sunday.  Meanwhile I am remembering how to travel alone in a foreign country, and aside from some minor disasters, I have amazingly landed on my feet.  My hips aren’t even sore.  I’m not staying in a hotel but in some mysterious person’s apartment.  The prior tenant took my money.  I hope that’s who I was supposed to pay.  Because of a number of things, I feel that my guardian angel is with me.  I sat next to a wonderful woman on the plane and after condoling over the fact there was nothing to read in the bookstores, I gave her Laurie’s Awakening Avery and she read it straight through and loved it!

The breeze is welcome here in my little outdoor cafe.  An artist is painting at the table next to me.  I am ready for my dolce.  Then I am going to bed!  At eleven o’clock tomorrow  morning I have an appt. with Michelangelo at the Vatican.  Can’t wait.  Thank the Lord I arrived safely!

St. Peter's Basilica - Rome

Technically, it won’t end until tomorrow night when I step off the plane in Rome.  Wow.  Rome.  I have the hateful habit of dissociating from good things.  I won’t believe it until I step off the plane and into a taxi and land in our B & B. 

Right now I am so worn out from writing non-stop that I have vowed not to take my ms.  Of course, I WILL have my netbook, and it WILL be on there, so if I get antsy on our "at sea" days on our cruise, I will be able to indulge my writer’s OCD.

This is a research cruise for my second Crazy Ladies book, to be set on a cruise to the Greek Isles and Italy.  At the end, I get to visit my beloved Florence and our friends there from last October.

David is doing his unbelievable gadget thing.  His latest is a clock by his bed that projects the time onto the ceiling in red light.  So when he wakes, he doesn’t have to turn his head to see the time.  I ask you!

The thing he’s most excited about is the light he gets to turn on in our bedroom (on a timer, of course) that mimics the light from a television.  He’s gone out to wash the car, which is suspicious.  I suspect him of combing the Home Depot for more gadgets.

I wonder if they have gadget stores on the Greek Isles?

I recently realized that many of the male characters in my novels were narcissists.  Most of us know that this type of person is full of self adulation and grandiose self love.  However, one the  most deleterious characteristics narcissists is listed on on HealthyPlace: America’s Mental Health Channel (http://www.healthyplace.com/personality-disorders/malignant-self-love/narcissistic-personality-disorder-npd-definition/menu-id-1471/)

"Feels entitled. Expects unreasonable or special and favorable priority treatment. Demands automatic and full compliance with his or her expectations"

I am well acquainted with this side of narcissism, as I was raised with it.  The problem was made more intense by the fact that my parents had opposing goals for me and so I was in constant danger of enraging one or the other of them.  However, this same article also claims that this kind of disorder is usually bred in people when they are very young as a protection against trauma or abuse.  I truly believe that that was the case with my parents, so I know rationally that I cannot judge them. 

The problem of many children of narcissists, including me, is that we confuse narcissism with love, as that is the only kind of love we are familiar with.  In my case, I was blessed with a husband who was as far from a narcissist as anyone could be.  However, it was an adjustment, because I was constantly looking to him for cues as to how he wanted me to behave.  He gave none, nor would he venture opinions on such things as how I dressed or wore my hair.  I had to adjust and find out who I really was apart from other people’s expectations.  It took me years to discover my own personality.

I suppose that is why narcissism always comes up in my fiction as a form of "false love."  However, my heroines are always strong enough to ward off the "love" of such men, continuing to be themselves.  And usually, though not always, the men guilty of this behavior, reform, learning over time to love the heroine more than their "ideal" of her. 

Romance novels are full of narcissistic men who are changed by their beloved objects.  Two of the greatest and most beloved classics, Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice, have the supreme narcissists: Rochester and Darcy.  And why do we love these novels?  Because they show the tremendous power of real love to redeem and change people for the better.  It has become formulaic. 

However, one needn’t look far in today’s society to see that this form of entitlement has become rampant.  I dated far too many narcissists who were shopping, like men in a grocery store, for just the right delicacy.  In my forthcoming novel, Pieces of Paris, my very likeable, but narcissistic hero has to face a common problem: his wife is nothing like the image of her that he had fallen in love with.  He must face the decision, usually summed up as "I didn’t sign up for this.  This is not the person I married.  Do I stay or do I go?"  And we weigh his character by his decision, as we do Rochester and Darcy.

In complete contrast with this, is Christlike love.  What is its greatest characteristic?  That it is unconditional.  That He does not impose His will upon us.  That we are free to choose.  And He loves us so much, that even if we choose wrongly, even if we harm others in our choices, He still loves us and still wants us to come back to Him, and so He provided a way, through His atonement, for the penitent. 

When seen in this light, the Love of God is mighty miracle.  And yet, I have seen it in my life.  When I turned out to have a grave illness and to be a much different person than my husband "signed up for," he did not leave me.  As mentioned before on this blog, he chose instead the heroic choice of honoring his covenants.  He stood by me and helped me to find wellness.  This is Christlike behavior.

And so, as I have been nurtured and loved by a hero, it is now my turn to forgive those who were unable to nurture and love me properly as I was growing up because of their own problems with receiving true, redeeming love in their lives.  It is my turn to forebear and forgive.

And that is why this theme of the reformed narcissist is a recurring theme in my fiction.