I enter Vatican Square late afternoon in anticipation of the first conclave vote. Security is heavy, but once inside people are playing games or lounging on cobblestones. Children chase each other in circles. It’s a leisurely Sunday afternoon picnic vibe. I walk to the front of the section and plant myself at a barricade.

As I take my place, I focus solely on three things: the actual chimney, a large screen carrying a live feed of the chimney, and my phone.

On the screen, a seagull, perching on the roof, appears like a cast member of a Hitchcock film waiting for the director to yell “Attack!” Yet when I search the roofline, the gull is indistinguishable to the naked eye.

A man asks me where the chimney is, and I point up to what could be a nail protruding from the rooftop. He seems unconvinced and pulls out his phone to map the Sistine Chapel location. I don’t blame him for doubting me.

Yet as underwhelming as the real thing is, I refuse to watch the screen. After all, I could have watched that from my hotel room. Or better yet, from Paris. 

And although I’ve committed to stay off my phone, tonight is an exception. My daughter-in-law is in labor, and I’m awaiting the imminent announcement of a grandson or daughter.

It’s all a bit overwhelming.

Then a woman lifts her camera high in the air and shoots the space behind me. When I arrived, the crowd was so sparse that it never dawned on me to look back again. I turn to find this:

How the crowd materialized without my awareness is unbelievable. My legs tremble a bit. I text Pat that I am having a mini panic attack. If I were ever to do pros/cons lists, a con for this boondoggle would have been fear of large crowds—and yes, I now realize its relevance. But it never occurred to me that I’d be wedged between a barricade and 50,000 people with all escape routes inaccessibly behind me.

Pat texts, hang in there. I glance between the chimney and my phone—never looking behind me again—and take a few deep breaths. The vote is anticipated any moment.

Then I get a text. Man these weddings are going to be expensive. 

I reply. Oh my gosh! A girl? Congrats!!

My text hangs, fails. I try again; it fails again. I turn my phone off and on, hoping the smoke doesn’t appear in the interim. Pat texts me to jump on the family chat, but I can’t reply to him. He sends more texts: 

Julie???

Are you ok???

What’s happening???

I try to call him but I have no cell service. (I subsequently read that the Vatican does this deliberately during conclave, which seems pretty tech savvy for a bunch of guys who still communicate through smoke signals.) 

Finally, I’m able to call. “Pat, I’m fine, but I can’t text.”

He says, “No problem. Have fun!”

I shift my focus to the chimney. The smoke is now 90 minutes past the anticipated time, which means I’ve been in the square for over three hours. The sky is growing so dark that I wonder if I’ll see the smoke at all. But then it comes. A wisp of black. 

Although it’s no surprise on the first vote, everyone groans and immediately turns en masse and shuffles to leave. A man behind me repeatedly yells, “Everybody hold hands. Mind your feet. Nobody fall.”  

What have I’ve gotten myself into? Can I do this again? But alas, I have no choice. After all, I flew to Rome just for this. 

It’s ultimately a moot point. 

Back at my hotel, I’m immediately sick. The next afternoon, I watch white smoke on the BBC live cast on my phone from my bed and listen to the helicopters circling overhead. The vote is so quick that most people are speculating it’s the popular Italian. Eventually, the door to the balcony opens. A cardinal announces, “Habemus papam!” We have a pope!

What I may lack in judgement, I make up for in research. I’d vetted the top several candidates. As soon as I hear Prevost I think holy smokes. The American? It’s a few seconds before the BBC commentator says, “This is unbelievable. I think that’s an American.” 

Pat texts me, the crowd is over 100,000 people. This would have been a nightmare for you. 

A friend texts me, I hope you’re safe. People are running through the streets of Rome. It’s madness. 

A small part of me rues not being there, but I’ve gotta admit, the live feed is awesome. My room is cozy and silent and dark—the sole window covered by massive brocade drapes. Were I not sick, it would be sheer heaven.

For the next four days, I remain largely in bed except to buy some medicine and a few boxes of crackers. I sleep until 11 and binge watch an entire season of Queer Eye. 

In spite of all my grand intentions, I have never been more tethered to my cell phone. My journal sits untouched, minus the six pages I wrote on day one when everything was still so perfectly on course. 

Day six, I make it home. Pat meets me at the door and tries to cheer me up. “Julie, at least you got to …”

I cut him off. “It’s fine. In the last month Jack’s five-year cancer scans were clear and our third granddaughter was born healthy. The one thing that could have ended poorly is the only thing that did. I can live with that.”

He smiles, “OK. That works too.”

Shortly though, I enter the abyss. “Maybe I shouldn’t travel alone so much. I could have used the help. What if I got sick on a big hike.” I entered a what if, what if, what if … death spiral. 

Then the next day, I have an inconvenient revelation. The shift of a June trip from Ireland to Slovakia means I will be overstaying my legally allowed number of days in Schengen when I return to Paris alone in early August. All the non-refundable airline tickets have been purchased. I say to Pat, “How hard should I try to avoid an overstay?”

“Pretty hard,” he replies, “Plan something fun.”

Fortunately, it’s only a handful of days. I start to play with options. The UK, Ireland, Jersey or Guernsey are the easiest—but way too expensive for a solo trip. The remaining options are further afield. Any flight, I decide, has to be nonstop from Paris. After 30 minutes of fiddling, I say, “Ok. It’s fixed. I’m going to Tbilisi, Georgia for a week. My apartment is only 300 dollars, so I added a side trip to Armenia.”

Pat says, “Sounds great! You’ve always wanted to go there.”

And just like that, the crisis is over. Pat is back to trusting me to do what I do. More importantly, I’m back to trusting myself. You can’t stop living for fear that bad stuff might happen—at least that’s the kind of pablum I tell myself.

A girlfriend asks me where Georgia is, and I tell her it’s nestled below Russia and above Armenia and Azerbaijan. She asks if I’m afraid to go to a country that borders Russia. “Actually,” I say, “that kind of stuff never occurs to me.”

Honestly, I hope it never will.

Categories: Ruminations

Tags: conclave, nomadic retirement, the world inbetween, Unusual retirement options