This pic is black and white but isn’t that how you always think of heiroglyphs? And for that matter, don’t you usually think of history and the past in black and white? But it really really wasn’t. It was as colorful as your world right now. All of it.

My moment, my breath taking, heart stopping, teary eyed moment came in the tombs. You couldn’t take pictures. You could only walk down through the corridors and look around with wonder. It sounds so cliche but I’m getting all choked up and goosebumpy just thinking about it. You guys! It was full of color, everywhere. All the hieroglyphs, the pictures, the walls, the ceilings. I looked up and the ceiling was covered in midnight blue with little yellow stars everywhere. Stars like you or I might make. Like this:

Maybe you make better stars, but this is what they looked like, bright yellow. I started to cry. I felt connected through the centuries to the people who painted this grandeur; the ones who walked those corridors, doing their jobs, really. They were as real as you and me.

It was a lightbulb moment: every single person who’s ever lived has moved through their life much like I do mine, with awe, daily routine (as much routine as I can muster lol), and the latest technology shaping their lives. I am currently marveling over AI, but what about all that came before? It was all a marvel at some time. I mean, fire…

It’s funny to think of a forged sword or candles or shoelaces as high tech. But it was. They used it to learn to navigate their world with the help of their community. Just like my granddaughter learned to walk and to feed herself and that we wear pink on Thursdays 😉. They lived and loved and lost (ha, did you think I was going to say laugh?) just like we do now. They worried, just like we do now.

The pattern is there if you look, repeating throughout history. It’s comforting to me. Civilisations rise up, new ideas create new technology, struggles play out, and we start again. Naturally, that makes me think of Broadway 🎭.

The shows eventually start touring and actors get replaced. Still a great show, still similar lines, but different actors saying the lines. They bring their own flavor to the role. I adore Kristen Chenowith as Glinda the Good on Broadway, and oh, my stars, Ariana Grande killed it in the movie as Glinda (and always in my head, it’s said like Dr. Dillamond says it – Glinnnnnda).

I guess to wrap it back around, we are truly all connected; not just here and now but forever and for always. I felt it with every fiber of my being, standing in a tomb built over 3,000 years ago by someone who was very similar to me, looking up at the stars, figuratively and literally. There’s always worry and uncertainty, and good actors and bad actors, but if history tells me anything, it’s that the show really does go on. And just like the painter of bright yellow stars all those many, many years ago, maybe we’re leaving a little something behind, too.