When my husband told me that we'll be spending a week of our summer vacation in Sicily, my entire thought went to Shakespeare and his works. I was so excited to figure out where he used to stay, the memories he had with the place and the people who inspired him in his writings. And even while Vince and I were already heading to Sicilian Island, I could not contain the feeling of being at least in a place where Shakespeare had been. I thought of all his stories set in Sicily, those stories that I once only read and studied with our college professor in literature. Ahhh!It's real this time, I thought.
But then the moment we arrived at the port, this picture caught my attention. All my fantasies about Shakespeare faded away.I felt like while thinking about his past life in Sicily, my sanity was shaken and woke me up from the reality of the present time.
Even up to this very moment, migrants from Syria continue to risk the raging sea of Mediterranean and hopefully able to reach the shore of Sicily, with that very little hope they must have hold in their hearts, if not to save their very self, but to save their children.
Had Shakespeare been in this modern time, I wonder if he'd write their story. Those names written on the walls and the significance of the lifesaving object surrounding those names.
It still seems surreal when I get to take photos of places in this foreign land, but what feels more surreal to me now is the thought of how my used-to-be small world turned this big. While I remain but a tiny fraction of this universe, I still feel the need to take part and somehow make a small difference, if I cannot make it big. I wanted to write their story. I wanted to tell the world what these migrants had to go through for a dire need to survive. We may never understand their story, or we may never feel them at all, but what if..just what if, I am one of them.
Have a blessed March! Until next thought...God bless our universe!