Day 12: The Vatican City
I've been anticipating this day of the trip before I even knew I was going. I grew up hearing things like, "That outfit would never fly in the Vatican," and "You think that is beautiful? Just wait until you see the Sistine Chapel."
As hot as it was in Rome, I felt refreshed with the knowledge that I'd travelled across the Mediterranean to get here, experienced so many different cultures, took in thousands of years of architecture and art, and finally, finally, I was going to step into one of the holiest places in the Roman Catholic religion.
I've come to find that marble statues bring actual tears to my eyes. After so many places that showcased statues: The Met, The Acropolis Museum, Delphi, it was sort of shocking to walk into a room that had entire, larger-than-life-sized statues encircling the entire space. It was as if we were being teased the entire trip with damaged or noseless statues at all of these sites, only to find that there were places in the world that had these entire statues reconstructed to their original form. Seeing art that marvelous brings tears to my eyes even thinking about it now. I feel so lucky to have seen it.
The room with the maps was like a room I've been trying to dream up my entire life but just couldn't. I could write entire novels set in that room, inspired by that room. Books filled with adventure and fantasy, elves and goblins and long-bearded seers with cloudy eyes and crystal spheres. It was awe-inspiring to see huge art like that, so delicate and intimate, stretching across hundreds of feet of hallway. I'll be dreaming about that room every day until I see it again.
For someone who loves words so much, I'm having trouble coming up with any that give the Sistine Chapel any justice. So instead I'll describe how it felt to be me in that room:
It was hot. Crowded, stuffy. People shuffling forwards, like a river with no chance of turning back or stopping. Everyone was pushed forward, crammed and filtered into this room. Even more people. I made my way to the middle, like I was told. I began to look at the art on the walls, like I was told. I reached the middle and turned around. I looked up. I looked up until my neck hurt and begged me not to look up anymore. I stared at those hands until my vision blurred and my contacts stuck in my eyes. I studied the wall, the blue that was so prominent and the cloths draped over almost all of the private places. I stared until I had no concept of time, and history and art didn't make sense, and I could not fathom something as old as what I was staring at. Couldn't hold in my head the gravity of the miracle before me.
I looked up some more. I got dizzy-- maybe from the heat, or maybe from the entrancing way that the angels floated outside of each story, the way it looked like they could easily depart from the wall and fly down to us. The way it looked as if they were just as contemplative as we were-- staring into each window of art as if they, too, could just reach in and grab a forbidden fruit.
I knew that even though I was surrounded by people, some of whom I know very well, each and every one of us were experiencing that room differently. However, it was very clear that there was a desperation in that room. It was floating around and clinging to the walls. A ravenous, anxious desperation to consume all they could, to capture this moment and hold onto it, because it may never again present itself.
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| The Tiber River at sunset. A beautiful Roman landscape. |
Day 13: Mt. Vesuvius & Pompeii
So I’m pretty sure I know this as a fact:
Most of us were singing/humming/jamming out in our heads to the opening of Bastille’s “Pompeii” as we hiked Mt. Vesuvius and walked the empty, sun-scorched streets of the city.
I could have sworn I heard the echoes of “eh eh eh eh oh, eh eh eh eh oh” from the crater of the volcano.
But I know I personally reflected a bit on the lyrics in the verses as Lauren and I encouraged each other, “just a little bit further until we get to the top” :
“But if you close your eyes, does it almost feel like nothing changed at all? And if you close your eyes, does it almost feel like you’ve been here before?”
It was a mixture of feelings between awe and grief as we witnessed the beauty, the destruction, and the perseverance of history, art, and memory.
It’s almost as if the people of Pompeii never left. Their stories spilled out of the impressive ruins of tiny houses and marketplaces, their streets indented with ruts of movement and life and freedom as a seemingly harmless and flower covered-volcano lies waiting just breaths away. Like nothing’s changed at all.
Everything frozen in time forever- until the next inevitable eruption. A city still standing for us to appreciate for them and cry with them, for us to learn about their way of existing in a world that didn’t know us yet. I’m thankful for my chance to have seen it.
The city of Pompeii was a day that felt like time travel. Despite the sweltering heat, I felt as if we all got carried away in our imaginations of what this place would’ve looked like before the walls came tumbling down.
And this final lyric to ponder in reflecting on the city and the song:
“We were caught up and lost in all of our vices
In your pose as the dust settled around us”
What stories would we tell if we were frozen in time where we stand today?
I hope they would be just as beautiful xx
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| We made it to the top of the volcano! |
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| The view from the top of Mt. Vesuvius. |
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| The sweltering heat in the ruins of Pompeii. |
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