Write only if you cannot live without writing. Write only what you alone can write.
- Elie Wiesel, Romania
I was in Rome not because I was riding the craze of the pursuit of the Da Vinci Code. It was and still remains as one of the most magical, meaningful trips I've done in my life. I felt and experienced, smelled and tasted beyond the aroma, the romance, the energy professed by the travel sites.
Not that there was any inaccuracy in the sites' reports. However I found myself at loss of where to begin to write down how that city put a change into my life. I felt one yet lost amongst her history, her people, her architecture, her religion. Sitting now in my studio, turning my iPod wheel countless times yet to find a suitable tune to fill the afternoon (from my over 6,500 songs) and feeling perplexed by how much my two terriers can really sleep in a day. I still carry with me the luxurious burden of digesting Bertolucci's acclaimed work of China's last empire, spent a great part of this morning reading an account of that period written from the perspective of the last Empress Dowager (Anchee's work gave a less biased observation on this complex soul).
Maybe it takes a confused and slow day to revive the times we had in Rome two years ago. Being in the centre of where great history took place in altering the lives of the nobel and common, chokes me into being unable to turn my breathes into discernible words. I do not understand the reason on how I feel today but I do feel clearly confused! Quite oxymoronic. But I do think that these experiences enrich one's self and that itself, time cannot rob of you.
Rome is always special in my heart. Rome rises above her Julius Caesar, her Marcus Anthony, her monuments. Just as Beijing rises and lives beyond her empires. I think I may understand what it is I am feeling now.
The utter frankness of being vulnerable, open about a sadness I feel for a time long ago.
Not even the old Shanghai lounge music coming out of my iPod soothes the heavy heart of mine. Perhaps I am just an emotional creature that yearns for the romanticism of a fallen empire, forgetting it has opened up a new era that brings more glitter and prosperity. Maybe my old soul just wouldn't allow me to forget.
What seems to be of the long gone dead, lives on.
