Day 19: Rising From The Ruin

"On my way back home I take a little detour and stop at the address in Rome I find most strangely affecting — the Augusteum. The big, round, ruined pile of brick started life as a glorious mausoleum, built by Octavian Augustus to house his remains and the remains of his family for all of eternity. It must have been impossible for the Emperor to have imagined at the time that Rome would ever be anything but a mighty Augustus-worshiping empire. How could he have possibly foreseen the collapse of the realm? Or known that, with all the aqueducts destroyed by barbarians and with the great roads left in ruin, the city would empty of citizens, and it would take almost twenty centuries before Rome ever recovered the population she had boasted during her height of glory? 


"Augustus’s mausoleum fell to ruins and thieves during the Dark Ages. Somebody stole the emperor’s ashes — no telling who. By the 12th century, though, the monument had been renovated into a fortress for the powerful Colonna family, to protect them from assaults of various warring princes. Then the Augusteum was transformed somehow into a vineyard, then a Renaissance garden, then a bullring, then a fireworks depository, then a concert hall. In 1930s, Mussolini seized the property and restored it down to it’s classical foundations, so that it could someday be the final resting place for his remains. (Again, it must have been impossible back then to imagine that Rome could ever be anything but a Mussolini-worshiping empire.) Of course, Mussolini’s fascist dream did not last, nor did he get the imperial burial that he had anticipated. 


"Today the Augusteum is one of the quietest and lonliest places in Rome, buried deep in the ground. The city has grown up around it over the centuries. Traffic above the monument spins in a hectic circle, and nobody ever goes down there — from what I can tell — except to use the place as a public bathroom. But the building still exists, holding its Roman ground with dignity, waiting for the next incarnation. 


"I find the endurance of the Augusteum so reassuring, that this structure has had such an erratic career, yet always adjusted to the particular wildness of the times. To me, the Augusteum is like a person who’s led a totally crazy life — who maybe started out as a housewife, then unexpectedly became a widow, then took up fan dancing to make money, ended up somehow as the first female dentist in outer space, then tried her hand at national politics — yet who has managed to hold an intact sense of herself throughout the upheaval. 


"I look at the Augusteum, and I think that perhaps my life has not actually been so chaotic, after all. It is merely this world that is chaotic, bringing changes to us all that nobody could have anticipated. The Augsteum warns me never to get attached to any obsolete idea about who I am, what I represent, whom I belong to, or what function I may once have intended to serve. Yesterday, I may have been a glorious monument to somebody, true enough — but tomorrow I could be a fireworks depository. Even in the eternal city, says the silent Augusteum, one must always be prepared for riotous and endless waves of transformation."

I love this piece of writing from Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat Pray Love. She reminds me that many great things can come from ruin, and that sometimes what we anticipate becomes something else. Life is full of change and we shouldn't get attached to too many things.

Once someone asked me where I saw myself in 5 and 10 years. I told him I wanted to be working on my master's, graduated, maybe a family (if it was in the cards). At that time I wanted an MBA and to be working in corporate. Well, that didn't happen. And neither has a family.

My plans have adjusted according to the course I feel I should be pursuing in my life. It has also adjusted according to need. I never intended to be a teacher. In fact, I wanted to be the farthest away possible. But looking back on my experiences and the passion I feel now, I am very content with where I am.

Our lives may fall apart, or we may feel like they are at the point of ruin, but there will always be something beautiful if we will allow it to happen. Sometimes that means letting go. And like the butterflies, if they are meant to be a part of our lives, they will return. But until then we must let go and rise from the ruin.