marble made flesh

Light cuts through the cool darkness inside St. Peter's Basilica, illuminating the curves of figures carved in stone, and everything glows gold. Were it not for the legions of ecstatic travellers who made their pilgrimages from all corners of the world, it would be a sombre place. I was moved by the tears in so many eyes, the wide grins, the brides in marble-white, knowing how important this moment was for so many under the same bright dome. I felt an empathy, for it was my pilgrimage too.



Thirty-odd years since I first saw its image in a weathered book, I had come from North Africa for the Pietà, to look upon the miracle of marble made flesh and fabric by Michelangelo's hands over five hundred years ago. I came for the gravity captured in the little bulge of skin made by Mary's thumb under her dead son's sinking arm, for his ankles, for the grief in her young face and outstretched hand.

magic names

I've always saved Rome and Vatican City in the back of my head as places I would surely visit one day— after all, the Eternal City would always be there. Summers were meant for grand adventures like Nepal or driving through Anatolia, but this one would be a low-key affair spent close to home in order for us to complete various projects. At some point however, boredom had me looking for flights that flew out of the nearby Rabat-Salé Airport in August— there aren't that many, but there was a flight to Rome.

Rome. Vatican City. Caravaggio, Bernini, Michelangelo. The Pantheon, the Colosseum, the Tiber. Magic names that filled my heart— there were works of art I had longed to see since I first discovered my mother's art books. I remember studying every panel on every page about the Sistine Chapel— the curve of the Delphic Sibyl's upper lip I practiced in pencil until it was right. I wanted to see how Pluto's fingers pressed into Persephone's thigh, the way the light bounced through the leaves that grew from Daphne's hand. I wanted to know just how dark Caravaggio's shadows really were. I wanted to stand beneath the oculus of the Pantheon.



What on earth had I been waiting for?