The City of Kings
by Jorge Vargas
Passion. Love. Violence. Intrigue. Crime. Friendship. Life. Life is
what we find in the great cities which we’ve built in the past centuries.
We, who have romanticized city-life to magnificent proportions.
I have seen many cities, some fair, some not. I’ve seen the great steel giants of New York, while witnessing the grandeur of London’s gilded halls. I’ve heard a man from Cameroon speak of poverty while Malaysians complained of oppression. I’ve seen the great cathedrals of Europe, along with the cathedralesque chapels of the United States. I’ve dreamed of the rolling savannah of Africa, and I hope to one day see the man-made mountains of Taipei. I once spent time in the antiquated cities of Cusco and Florence, along with the young cities of Philadelphia and Boston. I’ve slept in small villages like Annapolis, and in the majestic isle of Manhattan, with dreams of one day visiting the magnificent Muslim mosques of the Middle East and modern Moscow. Tales have reached my ears of filthy Parisian nights, crime-ridden Latin capitals, and the wonders of Roman Catholicism. I’ve watched with joy as I heard Spaniards tell of the wonders of their no-doubt wonderful country, while they simultaneously try to warn the weary wanderer about crime, and I’ve listened with a slight sense of jealousy as others have told me of the wonders that can be found in the Asian subcontinent. And it is only through photography that I’ve enjoyed the majesty of the ancient and colorful halls of Thailand. It’s with joy that I remember the sun setting over the deceptively calm seas of the Caribbean. I’ve spent time in Miami, one of the ultimate hot spots for a fun time in the United States, while I’ve heard talk of revelry in Rio de Janeiro. I’ve watched the sun setting from the Andean cliffs of my native land, and I’ve watched nature’s glory in the far reaches of the Amazon and what remains of the North American forests.
But in none of these places have I seen, heard said of, or appreciated what I’ve found in the City of Kings. In the city founded in 1535 by a Spaniard with dreams of conquest and glory, in the name of Catholicism and the Spanish King. The city which served as the center for the Spanish Crown in South America, a crown which was replaced by local aristocrats, which then became politicians and shared power with the military, an arrangement that, to this day, continues to haunt it. It’s a city of great history, with bristling palaces and cathedrals, alongside beautifully-built high-rises which overlook the Pacific coast. It’s a city of criminals, beggars, aristocrats, and, in all spheres of life, people trying to get by. It’s a city of solitude, separated from all others by the ocean, the mountains, and a desert, with only a small port as its neighbor. But she’s also a city of passion, of romance, of lovers kissing as the sun sets on the Pacific, raising in every human the question which burns within us as we wonder what it means to live.
God, or whatever force you choose to believe in, put us on this planet with life, and we pretend to understand God but in fact, we don’t even understand what life is. I am no mystic or priest, nor am I a politician, so I won’t lie and pretend to know an answer to the question that burns within all of us: what is life? Or, to phrase it in a better way, what does it mean to live?
I’m not referring, here, to the abortion and stem cell arguments but to something even deeper. What does it mean to live a life worth living? Does it mean living a happy life? A life in which you put others first? A life in which you constantly question your own reality? Does it mean that you create your own reality?
Lima is the city of which I spoke. Lima is the city which charges you with adrenaline from the instant that you step outside of the customs area and into the crowded airport filled with families, friends, lovers, and the occasional thief, and it’s adrenaline that keeps you going as you get into a car and are taken from the airport to your destination within the city. Lima is an impoverished city which holds the title of capital of the Republic of Peru. The city is marked as being one for great parties and festivities, boasting a soccer stadium of 80,000 people, with all of the wonders of Spanish architecture mixed in with more modern works that have created high-rises that cities in the ‘West’ aspire to attain.
I love the city of Lima more so than any other place which I’ve had the pleasure, or misfortune, to visit or hear about, not because it’s the city of my childhood nor even because most of my family resides there. Those reasons make me miss Lima, not love it. I love my city, not because of the picturesque street scenes and sunsets, but because of how the city makes me feel. The sentiment is one that can be described briefly without much need for fanciful language, so I shall spare you: Alive.
The
chaos and adrenaline, the beauty and the passion, the constant feeling
of every moment counting for something, these are all things that I’ve
encountered in other cities but never all at once and never with such
intensity. But feeling alive is not the only reason for why I love my
city. In fact, the feeling is even deeper than that, and here one jumps
from a relatively understandable thing to a thing which is, undoubtedly,
too personal for most to understand, and, for some, a thing which might
be too personal to share, but I hold no such self-restrictions upon
myself. Lima, with its grandeur and beauty, also makes me feel guilty.
If you keep your eyes open, a day won’t go by without noticing the poverty
which has gripped that metropolis so tightly for so long. The poverty
which makes you stay up during the night as you realize that you were
one of the lucky ones, for you were spared that sentiment of desperation
– and I use the term ‘you’ here not because I lack the skill to use
another pronoun but rather because if you can afford to own a computer
and be reading this, you were spared that sentiment. The issue isn’t
merely guilt, but, more importantly, gratefulness.
Christianity teaches us to be grateful, and it’s likely that most other religions have similar messages, but how many of us ever feel grateful? Who actually thanks God, or whatever put us here, for allowing us the luxury of a computer to read my words which are no doubt irrelevant in the grand course of life? I’ll admit that if it weren’t for the city of kings, I never would. We think in terms of comparisons, and without a bad thing to compare against, how would we ever see the good?
Perhaps, when you go to sleep tonight, you might just thank God, or whatever you believe in, for giving you good things in life. I would have completed my task in this article if all you do is think about thanking God.
