Two days ago when walking around the Colosso metro
stop a man shouted at my companions and I asking where we were from, after not
responding he shouted after us that we were from the land of silence. Comical
yes, but nonexistent never the less. Rome is loud. There are thousands of
people speaking various languages a mile a minute all competing with the sounds
of buses, cars and horse drawn carriages. Other than an empty room or Catholic Church
silence is few and far between. But I found it, the land of silence.
Tucked
away on top of the Palatine Hill in an archaeological playground designed for
tourists and classicists alike, there is in fact the land of silence. The coble
stone pathways allow for camera clad individuals to maneuver the site without
missing any of the sights. While the sights themselves are so perfectly ruined
that they do not allow for any conversation over a whisper. The space gives way
to thoughts that migrate between the personal and the imaginary, making each
that walk the paths an ultimate insider, but only for a moment.
The
smell found me first, just as my insider status disappeared. Roses, and lots of
them, held just out reach by green bushes. Walking through I was given a
distinct path around them, as if to marvel at their youthful beauty in contrast
to the ancient skeletons surrounding them. This area attracted many, young
couples, old women and the occasional pigeon. They moved in silence, yet their
faces said it all. They were somewhere in the middle of insider and outsider,
they were simply existing amongst the roses, only separated by carefully
constructed barriers.
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