Rome — The Pope is dead

The Colosseum pulled a strange sigh out of me. Not the kind that comes from your chest, but lower — from somewhere in the gut. I saw it for the first time from the Vittorio Emanuele monument, small and distant, and it felt like seeing a memory that wasn’t mine. I stood still. I thought: “Ah, so it was real.”

The Trevi Fountain made me look away. Not out of disappointment, but out of awe. I found myself watching the people more than the fountain. And maybe that’s always been the trick. The marble catches your eye, but what holds you there is the vibration of the crowd. That warm murmur blending with the sound of the water. That microclimate that isn’t fully Roman, nor fully tourist. It belongs to both.

And in St. Peter’s, I nearly kneeled without meaning to.

But the city — like any good Italian — had another dramatic scene tucked away.

The Pope died.

Flashback to London, two years ago: there I was when the Queen passed. And some inner voice goes, “This can’t be a coincidence,” even though you know it is.

It doesn’t matter how many times I say it. The Pope died. And even though we all knew it would happen — because everyone dies, even those who seem like they won’t — something breaks anyway. Not because of religion, but because of symbolism. When someone so deeply embedded in our collective mind dies, it’s not just them we lose. We lose a small piece of what we thought was eternal.

And here I am in Rome. Not postcard Rome, but a more intimate, more lived-in version — a Rome made of skin and closeness. I walk down streets with no souvenirs, and suddenly it hits me: I’m not just passing through — I’m in. And I mean that seriously, not in the cliché way people say when they fall in love with a city. This feels different. I feel like I belong. Like I’m from here.

People touch me here. Literally. They grab my arm to give me directions. They look me in the eye when I speak. They ask questions as if they care about the answer. There’s a kind of warmth that isn’t performance or politeness — it’s something offered freely, with no strings attached. And that undoes me.

I’ve never had this much physical contact with strangers. In Italy, the body speaks. They hold you without you noticing. And it feels good. It undoes me, but in undoing me, it puts me back together.

And right in the middle of all that, the Pope dies. As if history taps me on the shoulder and says: “Pay attention.”

I don’t believe in signs. But I do believe in the humility that arrives when the world shrinks. When you realize no one is immortal. Not Popes. Not Queens. Not you.

And in the middle of all that, I’m walking through Rome, doing what I want, unhurried, unburdened — and I feel grateful. Not in a spiritual way. Grateful just to be alive. To witness. To not need to understand everything.

I feel like something’s teaching me how to look differently.

And maybe that’s what traveling is too.