Restoration

Digital art collage by Stella Kalaw

The irony of being in Rome, the eternal city, on the eve of my 70th birthday, did not escape me.

I’d been here before. But the city felt different to me now. I was keenly aware of its ancientness, of how structures eroded by time were revered. At night, dramatically illuminated, sculptures and buildings pierced the darkness − their beauty and power transcending time. It was easy to believe this was the eternal city. And easy to envy its undiminished glory − a stark contrast to my heightened sense of mortality and fear of fading away, invisible, in a world with little reverence for aging women.

The first time I visited Rome, I reveled in its beauty. I never gave any thought to its nickname. Eighteen years old, endowed with an abundance of youthful hubris, I felt immortal, no less eternal than this ancient city, blissfully unaware that life came with a timeline. But now I knew that even with health and luck, 70 was closer to the end than the beginning.

On this trip, I was enjoying Rome’s beauty and food and wine, while morosely mourning my lost youth, unable to fathom how a lifetime had passed in the blink of an eye. And unable to banish the cloud hovering above me.

My husband, Marty, and I spent the day before my birthday in the labyrinth of restoration rooms below the Vatican Museum. Our guide was a senior member of the Vatican’s art restoration team, the mother of Marty’s student now working in Rome. Petite and elegant, she welcomed us warmly, playfully tugging at the lapels of her white lab coat – shorthand for the science and seriousness of what awaited us. She spoke little English and asked if French might work. We nodded, not confident the French we learned growing up in Montreal would suffice. Her son had joined us for the day and offered to translate when necessary.

Our first stop was a sun-drenched room where on a wooden table, silver tube-like pieces lay scattered around a large wooden crucifix. A youngish man hunched over the table looked up and explained that the cross needed to be strengthened, and then reclad in its metal casing.

He showed us a photo of a recent procession inside St. Peter’s. The silver cross was steps away from the Pope, held aloft by someone younger and stronger. The project was to be completed in less than three weeks. I felt only awe as I imagined it restored, returned to its grand service.

I am a Jewish woman with no innate reverence for crucifixes. I struggle with the notion of God. But as we wandered through treasure-filled rooms observing paintings and pottery and statuary in various stages of restoration, I imagined those entrusted with these glorious treasures were − forgive the cliché – doing God’s work. It wasn’t so different from what I felt in the presence of towering mountain peaks or listening to Beethoven’s symphonies − a humbling sense of the sublime, of something transcendent.

The day’s details were ephemeral. No photos were permitted. With three languages swirling about, note-taking was impossible. I stayed in the moment, focused on understanding what I saw. And hoping I would remember the sense of awe and sheer pleasure of it.

I asked about restoration objectives. Repair? Looking new? What was enough? Our guide seemed pleased by the question. Her long and animated reply – punctuated by her son’s translation − was a revelation. It turns out there’s a large body of academic literature on this subject. At the Vatican, there is a philosophy of restoration – a rigorous protocol that restorers are trained to understand and respect and adhere to in the work they do.

My comprehension wasn’t perfect. But I understood this: the objective is not to make the object new again – the way it was at its birth, when it left the artist’s hands complete. The restorer must respect its current state and not erase or mask the marks of time. Restoration is intended to strengthen, to slow inevitable deterioration, to extend the object’s presence in the world. The repair must not be hidden, the demarcation between old and new should remain obvious.

I listened mesmerized, then blurted out that my birthday was the next day. The idea of respecting and preserving, rather than fully reversing age, was the new lens through which I would view art − and my own place in the world on this birthday.

I thought, too, that if I ever considered cosmetic restoration, these Vatican principles would guide me. I would not attempt a return to my younger self. I had seen too many faces frozen by desperate, failed attempts to recapture youth. I would try to accept the passage of time as a gift. I would try to make peace with it, to slow it, perhaps. But I would not try to erase it.

The cloud that had hovered above me began to lift. As we walked into the blazing sunshine of the museum’s central courtyard, its darkness dissolved into the light.

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This story originally appeared in the Globe and Mail’s First Person in 2025.