(mis)interpretation, by Bex Pachl

La Fornarina, by Raphael (Italy) c. 1519

(mis)interpretation

Creamsicle-coloured roofs peak through the edges of the bus windows. I watch the surroundings breeze by in a deluge of colour- stately beige, white marble, warm pastels -as our bus climbs from one neighborhood to the next. Apartment balconies are stacked like shoeboxes with cracks showing the lives inside: bicycles, potted plants, feet up on railing to enjoy a silent cigarette. I take pictures of what I see, but it is these unspoken, uncaptured moments that stay with me: standing on the bus, swaying in the tide of Rome as it threatens to drag me under. So, this is how people live, I think, the age-old American tourist dazzled by a life which is not their own. I amend: This is how I could live, and then I shut the thought, like a book slammed closed, as my boyfriend caresses the small of my back.

It's Fall 2023: I am adrift in my life, recently fired from a much-hated job as an Executive Assistant. I am now spending a week in Rome to burn the severance. I’ll regret it, but I won’t regret Rome. Back in Washington, DC, I just moved in with Johnny, my boyfriend of two years. I knew moving in together would be hard, and it is. I watched my mom, all my life, sacrifice herself for a marriage that would not, could not, save her. I watched her shrink and clean and cry. Though Johnny’s affection is constant and dependable, I find myself coming home angry and uninspired, my jammed shoulder-blades like stacks of empty cereal boxes in the entryway. Plainly, I am afraid of wifedom and its ensuing misery. I cannot tell if my effort towards this relationship is heroic or misguided, or some combination of the two, like when my mom would run the vacuum over the frayed carpet, clinging to those rhythmic motions. 

In Rome, Johnny and I wander downhill through a neighborhood and enjoy a scoop of pink gelato, grapefruit mixing with the warm October air. We happen upon a museum; Johnny has to slowly convince me to enter. I did not discover this museum in my research, which means, to my chagrin, it does not exist on my pre-arranged list. Standing on the street, I watch Johnny’s cool hands pull my fingers towards his, as his green-blue eyes gently reason that it’s okay to try the museum, to give in to the unexpected. My nervousness rolls off my back with his assurance, so we wander onto the museum grounds, walking towards the columns at the base of the marble façade. I watch Johnny’s tidy crewcut drift from left to right as we take in the thick, stone walls. We begin with old archives, letters written in scratched Italian, postcards and small prints of random objects, but soon the museum opens, unfolding into larger and larger pieces, beckoning us forward. 

Halfway through the museum, I find a painting that dazzles me. La Fornarina. Though I have never encountered this artwork previously, I am mesmerized. A young brunette woman sits for a portrait, gazing back at me. She is topless, with one hand cradling one of her naked breasts. Her legs and torso are framed by soft sheets of fabric, the silk brushing softly and then settling against her cool skin. She wraps her arms around her naked body like an embrace, one arm falls across the frame to rest between her legs. She is relaxed, and unashamed. I’ll learn later the dichotomies of womanhood in Renaissance Art- how some women are like the Madonna, virginal and pure- while others are more like the Goddess Venus, sensual and beautiful. La Fornarina by Raphael defies these expectations: neither temptress nor angel, La Fornarina is just herself, whoever that may be. 

In the description of La Fornarina, the museum writes that we do not know this woman’s name or much about her. She was the daughter of a baker and a possible lover of Raphael’s. What seems remarkable to me- as I gaze at her oval face and clear, brown eyes- is that La Fornarina appears to bear being seen, perhaps even inviting the gaze despite the art critics who will declare her boring. As one art critic wrote: “She was a beautiful woman. That is all you need to know.” These words and worse are said about La Fornarina: the Baker’s lass, a girl mired by a lover and an occupation, a woman without a name. She sees it; she knows. She does not drop her gaze. 

When I came out as non-binary in 2019, I told my friends and family I was “dropping out” - not of college, but of womanhood. After grappling with it for so many years, seeing, particularly the act of being seen, felt like another kind of betrayal, another intrusion. However, here is a woman who appears to revel in the act of being seen: La Fornarina. I watch the play of light in her kind eyes, which perceive though do not judge. As I begin to read more about Raphael, Johnny turns back to see me standing transfixed by the painting. “Of course,” he starts to joke, referring likely to my bisexuality, and the fact this is the only painting with explicit nudity. I laugh along, pained by the assumption, pained by the act of viewing and the unfortunate result: the (mis)interpretation.

Johnny and I come from different worlds, I think, as I walk into the expanding galleries, painting stretched from floor to ceiling. Our experiences and identities naturally divide us, creates sensibilities within me that he cannot recognize or know as intimately. I am drawn to the beauty of the world. I see beauty here in this museum and its sweeping gold paintings, scenes of humankind and the divine, intermixed and in motion. I see it even in the side window over the museum’s courtyard: the blue window-frame opens to a sea of green grass and lounging patrons. It seems to me that Johnny operates from logic and reason. The world, I think, is made up of difference, and that’s okay. And yet, as I wander through the gallery, thinking of the eyes of La Fornarina, I wonder about the parts of myself I give up in being in a relationship.

When the Italian passerbies and various people stream around Johnny and I in the museum, I can’t prevent or freeze the image they see. Plainly, we appear as woman and man, tethered to one another through intangible meaning, like two stars creating a constellation of light. I can’t grab these individuals to tell them I identify now as non-binary and that this, somehow, makes the image they see different from what it is. What language would I use; what words could be used to map the space between who I believe myself to be and who I am? 

When I came out as non-binary in 2020, I thought I rejected womanhood and its entrapments. Now, as Johnny and I exit the museum in silence, I realize I am operating within the confines of a heterosexual relationship, cooking and cleaning without acknowledging the gendered expectations that litter the space between Johnny and I’s sleeping bodies at night. This arrangement- man and woman, intertwined - is the thing of religion, of Biblical imagery and wars to be fought and won. The personal is political, my terrible bosses who fired me would say, motivating their underpaid employees to extend and eek out their best work. Is this life in its totality: living to extend, bend, turn over - hamper, dishwasher, sheets - to strip, open, fade?

On our last day of Rome, before heading to Florence, Johnny and I wander past a fancy car dealership, and amble into a pizzeria where we order our least adventurous meal yet: a slab of cheese pizza. It’s delicious, refreshing with an Aperol Spritz as men in brimmed hats and women in long skirts mill about in the restaurant. The sun shines; the breeze catches over the cobblestone streets and cloudless sky. I’ve been thinking a lot about the concept of a life lived well. I am not sure I can control or influence life in terms of the big things, but maybe I can manage the small. Johnny and I take another bus, using our last printed tickets as we walk onto the semi-crowded platform, wrapping ourselves around the poles in the bus’s centre and also our hands around one another. The world of Rome continues to blur through the windows around us. 

The next morning, Johnny and I butt heads on the train, fearful we’ve taken the wrong one. Next to us, as we argue in quiet, frantic tones, another American couple is having the exact same argument, only louder and more aggressively. The man is berating his brunette girlfriend, “how did you mix up the trains?!,” as Johnny asks me the same in hushed panic. Johnny and I go into separate train compartments and both cry: he for hurting my feelings; me for my deep-seated fear. Is having a romantic partner the easy-way-out? And then, I sob, tears silently steaming, thinking: does life have a way out, at all, anyways? The train to Florence strides past a countryside that feels familiar even in its newness: the creamsicle colors follow us to our next destination, waving through the fields of hay that ripple with small waves. When we get off the train (at the correct destination), I see the other couple, later, on the platform. She is dragging their luggage as he walks in front, empty-handed, anger still wafting from his shoulders. I feel, of all things, annoyance. As I watch the woman struggle with their heavy suitcases, I feel a surge of anger, unfairly towards her in particular.

Johnny booked an Airbnb in Florence with a local woman who gives us a tour of her apartment and a bottle of wine. In the living area, Johnny sits on a bench underneath four windows, backlit by late afternoon light that appears nearly white. It’s misty out with drizzling rain. Despite our squabble on the train, I look at Johnny now and feel a rush of affection towards him. Despite the risks, something in me hopes that it is worth it to be loved and to love, as rewards in themselves. He gestures at me to eat a pastry we grabbed on our way from the train station, something he picked up explicitly with the knowledge I’d be hungry later. I shake my head, tucking myself deeper in the book I am reading about young girls born in Naples, eternally flailing and being disappointed by shit men. The book, the music, the mood: it draws me back to La Fornarina. Centuries ago, Raphael captured La Fornarina and the way her shoulders sloped through his calm brushstrokes. Maybe she imagines his fingers as a force in motion, not unlike the way they sometimes traced the inside of her thighs, as she sits, relaxed and unashamed. What would she think now?

The next day in Florence, Johnny and I spend the day walking around and over the famous Ponte Vecchio, hunting for vintage clothing. We find a storefront that doubles as a woman’s home. A chic, blonde woman in her mid-forties draws me past the racks of clothes into her makeshift living room, where she begins compiling things from the racks, gesturing at me to strip to my underwear and try the garments on. Johnny lingers by the front door, looking at the jackets, and I feel strangely beautiful as I try on these handpicked jackets and blouses, feeling the soft texture play gently against my skin. I feel like a model, like I had once wanted, before my mom rolled her eyes and dismissed the fantasy. “I would rather do something that helps people,” she said to me once as I sat mutely in the passenger seat, fifteen and dripping with beauty, recoiling as if I’d been slapped. The source of my once prolific beauty has long since dulled. My body has filled out and I am no longer the ingenue. It doesn’t matter- it shouldn’t matter -but it matters to me, somehow, as I stand naked in this woman’s showroom, feeling her motherly approval as I fit into a beautiful mauve sheer dress. Johnny smiles, a passive observer. The beauty, gender roles and societal approval, Johnny swears, does not matter to him. They still matter to me, though, as I feel my fifteen-year-old self rear up with longing. 

When Johnny and I go to the Gallerie delgi Uffizi in Florence, with beautiful marble sculptures of perfect, smooth bodies, I am thinking again about La Fornarina. I see gold-plated paintings, stretching across a room, larger than my wingspan, and I see small objects in glass boxes, and the ceiling - even the ceiling! - has a cacophony of small angels and flowers and God and cherubs and men with shields littered across it. But I don’t see her; maybe I just don’t see me. Johnny lingers in museums, reading each word and considering the historical context. I take floors at a time, skipping whole sections to find the windows, which overlooks the city across the river. There’s not much moving water in the channel, but it appears like sea-glass, a deep green-blue that hints at the algae and the sediment washed down below, tumbling and languishing as my breath fogs the window glass. As I begin considering the trees and castles poking out in the far distance, Johnny finds me standing by the window. I ask him, with nervous excitement, to take a photo of me.

In this photo, I stand in front of the window with a closed-mouth smile on my face. The camera lingers on my brown skin and dark eyes, though the background behind me is bursting in colour: green-blue water and creamsicle buildings with windows like a many-eyed, benevolent creature. In the foreground of the photograph, and slightly off-centre, I lean towards the camera, with a bemused, genuine earnestness. Johnny immediately declares: “that’s the one!” I realize then with a sinking, rapid feeling of dread that my experience of La Fornarina is, ultimately, Raphael’s interpretation. The painting of La Fornarina was, after all, created through Raphael’s gaze, produced by his unique artistic expression. I feel sadness threaten to overwhelm me as I consider that I, too, am enthralled in my own (mis)interpretation of La Fornarina.

After 10 days in Rome and Florence, Johnny and I arrive home in Washington, DC. Our homecoming despite the joys of the trip feels like a massive relief. As time passes, cereal boxes become once more routinely stacked in the entryway like my aching vertebrae, and sometimes I still find myself cleaning and rhythmically arranging my emotions into pliable shapes. I am trying to live with the facts of the world and also, somehow, reach with a tender hand towards Johnny at the end of a long day, a hand that says, “thank you” rather than a furtive “you’re welcome.” I have learned that sometimes it is best to just let the cereal boxes stay where they are. 
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Two years later, staring now at the photograph from the Uffizi, I feel myself being pulled back to Florence, towards that sun-soaked window. Those familiar Florentine colours begin to return: seafoam green, creamsicle orange, muted brown and black. The whir of curious crowds- their varied footsteps and polite conversations- are draping themselves over me now like soft sheets of fabric. I become wholly submerged in 2023 and who I was then: someone learning to exist in a budding relationship and in a softening body, wondering where I begin and the roles of womanhood end. Once more, I feel the nervous anticipation of the camera’s click in Johnny’s hands: the image captured will both exist indefinitely and has already disappeared. I see it; I know. I do not drop my gaze. 
 
Bex Pachl
 
Bex Pachl is a nonfiction writer who explores themes of place, monuments and memory. Bex is a current MFA candidate in Creative Nonfiction at George Mason University and the Nonfiction Editor of So to Speak. You can find them on Instagram at @books4bex.