June 19, 2020

On the Colosseum at Golden Hour, teeming with people // 2019

There’s something really fascinating about seeing ‘old’ pictures of this beautiful city teeming with people from all over the world. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again- being in Rome these days feels like being on a movie set. Maybe life feels a little like that too. There are a lot of truly dystopian, beautiful, painful, growth-inspiring, conscious-elevating events happening all over the world. And this lovely monument happens to be in the little corner of planet earth where I’ve built my life.

I’ve spent the last few months reviewing and reflecting on a 10+ year love affair with a city that has been loved deeply by so many over the past three millennia (!!!). I’ve realized as much as I thought I knew Rome like the back of my hand, in reality there is always and infinitely more to discover.

So what I really want to write about is this: I hope that when we start to travel again that we do it with tenderness and care. I hope that we (the collective we) decide to spend more time learning about other cultures, discovering secret corners, meeting locals and eating bizarre foods we’ve never heard of. I hope we look with compassion on the less fortunate in the cities we visit and I hope we spend more time absorbing and less time checking experiences off on a pre-determined list of city highlights. I hope we take less selfies and spend more time connected to our surroundings. I hope we are able to appreciate the richness and beauty of a place rather than finding it’s flaws or comparing it to our own personal history of experiences.

I hope when we travel in the future that we are able to slow down. If I’ve learned one thing from the Italians (and I’ve learned oh so many) it’s to appreciate la dolce far niente. Slow down, appreciate the present moment, do less. Life is anything but ‘normal’ these days, yet I remain eternally optimistic (in the Eternal City) that moving forward, we, collectively can do better.