If These Walls Could Talk

Rome, as they say, was not built in a day. In fact, the Romans have been constantly building since the 6th century BC. As one strolls through the streets of modern day Rome, one might pass by a modern storefront sporting Gucci bags on one block and then come across the ruins of an ancient temple on the next. Within the city is the literally concrete proof of history -- buildings that have seen an Empire rise and fall, buildings once created to honor pagan gods that have been transformed into Christian houses of worship, buildings that housed the beginnings of democracy (which we Americans are so silly to think we invented). What amazed me the most about Rome was the experience of being able to walk the streets of history, to rest against a column where Julius Caesar might once have leaned while in conversation with a senator, to stand in the same place where first century Romans stopped to look for their seat in the Colosseum.

Ancient history so often feels shrouded in mystery. The stories have taken on mythic qualities and, yet, somewhere in the midst of the myth is truth. These people were real. These places existed and exist still. These events happened and shaped the world into what it is today. Standing on the stones where Caesar Augustus walked is an experience of having the past converge into the present and create the whole of time. Being in Rome reminded me of my trip to the Holy Land. Talk about ancient history that has taken on mythic qualities! But sitting in a boat on the Sea of Galilee, walking the streets of Jerusalem, watching the sun rise over Nazareth, suddenly the past became the present and what was just a vaguely understood fact became a reality as firm as the marble columns rising above the modern streets. Ah, if these walls could talk, they would tell the tale of who we are today.

Truly, history does not need to be ancient to take on the air of the surreal. Next week I'll travel home for Thanksgiving and will once again inhabit the room where I spent my fifth through twelfth grade years. The wallpaper is the same as when I was in high school, my moose hat rack is still affixed to the wall. When I think back twenty years or so to my junior high years, the memories are vague. I know the facts, of course, but it feels like another time, another person, like a story I once heard about a blond haired girl that the boys called "albino" and who loved to act and play music and wear hats and read and hang out with her friends. But there in that room the past becomes the present, the history is part of the whole, and I can see and touch and know how I became the woman I am today. If these walls could talk.