There are always moments in your life where you realizes who you are, where you are. There is this beautiful experience that is only tangible in a small moment. It flashes before your very eyes and you ache for it again. You cling to the tendrils of what you knew and realizes that you have to experience the moment. That sliver of humanity is what keeps us moving. We are forever searching for the time where you felt the most alive. The most whole. The most awake. Awake is the key to my experience. It is key to Rome.

I wonder if I can ever recreate the first moments here in Italy. Swooping down from a 9 hour flight, I crash landed into the culture. Vespas roaring down the street, daunting, waiting to strike you down for daring to cross their path. The smell of pasta and bread pour out from the open bistros in the piazzas.  The buildings echo the sounds of Rome’s past and its present self. My eyes are open, taking in the brilliance of sunlight on stucco walls and marble facades. The first thing my feet touch in the city are marble sidewalks. The fissures under the smooth surface whirl me into a stupor. I am here. I am in Rome. This is my first taste of the energy bubbling inside me.

I came here to find something within myself. I want that sensation of knowing where I stand in the world, and to myself. I found myself drawn to the old structures of Rome. They sit in the middle of the city, surrounded by busy foot traffic and roads that stretch as connective tissue between our present world and the world of the old. What better way to find myself, then to look at the ancients for answers.

We started our trip off with the ancient dome of the Pantheon. It was indescribable. The structure towered over my head. I can see where the whispered the sounds of God. I wanted to lay under the center of the dome and watch the clouds roll by, telling the secrets of Rome.  We ventured to the Trevi Fountian and found ourselves savoring the gelato at Giolitti’s. It is amazing that you can experience so much in one day, that you forget where you are. It wasn’t until the second day where I felt the sensation of being in another country.

We were heading to the Coliseum, taking the dark and musty smelling metro to get there. Being from the middle of no where. I never believed I would be comfortably traveling the graffiti infested trains. When we got off at the right station, we climbed the stairs. My feet touched the concrete and I felt the sun beat down on me from above. When I decided to look up from my shoe, I was blown away by the magnificent beauty of the Coliseum. It was like walking from from darkness into light, death into life. I felt my chest tighten. I couldn’t breathe with the weight of it pressing down upon me. I felt it then. The tingly sensation. I felt a pull in my heart attached to the ancient stones. I felt the world fill me in with its secrets.

Rome housed me in its loving embrace. I felt aware of the ancestors before me who walked down the same walkway. I felt the thriving pulse of modernity in the distance. I swallowed the duality. It settled in my mind and now I can’t escape the connections: to people, to Rome, to Italy.  I feel like I saw myself in that moment being where I was supposed to be. I felt like I was whole, open to the secrets that Italy has to offer in its history and culture. If I can conquer my new awareness from Rome, then whose stopping me from the rest Italy has in store?