The past is never dead. It’s not even past.

I'm reflective of romancing Iberia tonight. Which puts me in mind of my 2010 week in Rome. I doubt I'll ever be able to live that time.

I love Roman Holiday. The film is anything but silent, yet when I visited Rome in the fall of 2010, I discovered a quiet reverence that emerges late at night—especially in the piazzas, where mist settles on the cobblestones and the noise of the day finally gives way to stillness.

Rome is so saturated with iconic imagery that no single vision can define it: the Colosseum, the Vatican, Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps. A city of many faces and thousands of years, it offers as many impressions as it has visitors. But once you’ve walked its streets—smelled the roasting chestnuts, watched lovers linger near ancient stone—Rome distills itself to a single memory.

For me, it was a stenciled portrait of Audrey Hepburn.

We had spent the afternoon beneath golden leaves in the park outside Villa Borghese, then made our way through the winding streets back to our lodging near the Pantheon. It was late, quiet. We passed through an alley when a lime-green graffiti tag caught my eye. There she was—Audrey, staring out from the wall like a ghost of cinema past, etched into the stone like she'd always belonged there.

The first thing I did when I got home was cut my own stencil of Audrey Hepburn.

To most people, it means nothing. But to me, it’s a private seal. A reminder of that trip, that night, that reverent stillness. Of a city always caught between the ancient and the modern—where history echoes, but sometimes whispers.

#travel #sketchbook #rome #journal #memoir

2025-07-10 21:00:00

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“May your seas be wide enough for wonder, your harbor always waiting, and your light never fail when another soul is searching.” – The Lantern Keeper