A weekend in the white city and more
I am back. And I feel good. I have projects and light shoulders, a clearer view on what I can do and on what I want to do, I have even got hopes. Things seem to be less bleak and more sunny, like the sun that has embraced me for the past four days in beautiful Trieste, the White City on the sea, Joyce’s second home town after Dublin.
I arrived on a sunny Saturday afternoon, and walked for hours, admiring its old and fascinating buildings, up to the main square, golden and breathless, an open door to the port and the sea, where ships were arriving and leaving, and the sea was shiny and wonderful, and the smell of salty water filled my mind entirely and it was like I was back in Swansea. I walked and walked for three entire days, taking pictures, chatting, looking around; we stopped for fantastic ice-creams, and for drinks before having dinner in fancy restaurants (the first night in an Indian restaurant and the second in a Japanese one, for my very favourite food – after Italian, that is). We went to a walk by the sea where people simply laid down large towels and lied in the sun, the sea being too cold to dive in, although we did immerse our feet, just to feel the water. More pictures were taken, more walks in the city followed, and a final homey dinner was eaten before watching two very interesting movies, “Equilibrium” first, with Christian Bale (wonderful movie indeed, folks. Highly recommended by yours truly), and then “Harold and Maude”, straight from 1971, sweet in a bizarre kind of way, however very enjoyable. A movie night with friends, on the couch sharing a blanket at the end of a relaxing weekend, after being away from this suffocating valley and this bleak clouds hanging over it…that’s exactly what I needed.
So as I said, things have sort of cleared in my mind, although I am taking this week off serious acting in order to think a bit more: I am giving my lessons to my boys (of the six trainers at the gym I am teaching 4…not bad!), and tomorrow I am going to send a cv to a bookshop of Trieste where they are looking for personnel…and my fingers are going to be crossed for the next weeks until I get a reply…It would be too wonderful and perfect if I could get that job, exactly one of the things I’ve most loved doing, and leave my hometown for a while, change air, literally.
Anyway…this is only one of the dreams I am cultivating at the moment, and it feels great to have dreams again. To be able to dream again, and think with a peaceful mind about the actions to take, about the calls to make, the letters to write. I seriously did not think I would ever get back to this feeling.
I am a lot calmer and more lucid, so much that I also think that I can quit with the shrink, after next session, which I am doing because we are going to play this “transformation game”, for a whole afternoon, and I am curious about it, but then I think that I will quit. The fact is, I have acted in a hurry after resigning from my job, and called her on the spur of the moment with no real intention, only to make mum happy; I guess we were both looking for a miracle and she seemed the quickest way to get there. I don’t much like going there anyway, to be honest: she only makes me talk, and brings in ideas for more reflections that put me into more depression than I can –or want to – bear. And thank you, I don’t need to pay 35 Euros per hour to be told that I must free my mind from the obsession of being accepted by other people by first accepting myself. As if nobody told me before, as if I didn’t already know. It is something I have always worked on by myself, so I guess there is no need to be helped through this process by somebody who so far has only told me that the beauty is in the eyes if the beholder, and that I should invest more on my femininity (or something of the kind), only to contradict herself by remarking that she didn’t even know if she had brushed her hair that day. I mean, are you saying that I should work more on what I have and feel better by using the simple feminine tricks of “hair-make up –clothes”, or are you telling me that beauty is in me no matter how I dress and make up? Oh, bother..
But what I understand now, is that there is no way I can have a miracle, as long as I brood over the past and my mistakes; ok, the past 10 years have been an embarrassing sequence of mistakes and bad actions, taken in a hurry, almost desperately. But not all of it was negative: I chose to go to that university for the wrong reasons, ok, but if I had not gone there I would have never:
- studied the subjects that fascinate me so much now, meaning gender and the likes;
- won the scholarship for Hull, which resulted in my meeting the most fabulous people of my life (yes, David, Lisette, Charlotte, Rigmor..I am talking of you); not to mention the fact hat the Hull year allowed me to get a good view on the English student way of life; and then I studied one of the most interesting subjects of my life, film adaptation, which is still one of the things I love reading of and studying.
- Lived in the beautiful Bergamo and discovered its streets, its cinemas, the lights at Christmas and the sky in summer.
- Worked in the university bookshop, which has always been on of my dreams (working with books, in general), where I made friends with some more great people and learnt and read and talked so much of every single thing one can think of.
What I mean is: it hasn’t been all that bad. Of course I could have done things better, like getting a better mark with my thesis, and studying more for that exam of linguistics and the one of philosophy of language; sure, I could have chosen another university too, and lived an entirely different life, and maybe now I would be a media scholar with a Phd running in cinema studies, who can tell? Maybe I would have found a boyfriend and be married by now, how do you know?
But I cannot turn back time; I can only try and accept what was, nothing else. Remember the good things, and try and learn from the bad things, even if thinking of them makes me sad and regretful.
Now it’s time to work on a better future, and I am going to take my time: keep your fingers crossed too, please. Good will is ok, but a little luck is always useful.
I arrived on a sunny Saturday afternoon, and walked for hours, admiring its old and fascinating buildings, up to the main square, golden and breathless, an open door to the port and the sea, where ships were arriving and leaving, and the sea was shiny and wonderful, and the smell of salty water filled my mind entirely and it was like I was back in Swansea. I walked and walked for three entire days, taking pictures, chatting, looking around; we stopped for fantastic ice-creams, and for drinks before having dinner in fancy restaurants (the first night in an Indian restaurant and the second in a Japanese one, for my very favourite food – after Italian, that is). We went to a walk by the sea where people simply laid down large towels and lied in the sun, the sea being too cold to dive in, although we did immerse our feet, just to feel the water. More pictures were taken, more walks in the city followed, and a final homey dinner was eaten before watching two very interesting movies, “Equilibrium” first, with Christian Bale (wonderful movie indeed, folks. Highly recommended by yours truly), and then “Harold and Maude”, straight from 1971, sweet in a bizarre kind of way, however very enjoyable. A movie night with friends, on the couch sharing a blanket at the end of a relaxing weekend, after being away from this suffocating valley and this bleak clouds hanging over it…that’s exactly what I needed.
So as I said, things have sort of cleared in my mind, although I am taking this week off serious acting in order to think a bit more: I am giving my lessons to my boys (of the six trainers at the gym I am teaching 4…not bad!), and tomorrow I am going to send a cv to a bookshop of Trieste where they are looking for personnel…and my fingers are going to be crossed for the next weeks until I get a reply…It would be too wonderful and perfect if I could get that job, exactly one of the things I’ve most loved doing, and leave my hometown for a while, change air, literally.
Anyway…this is only one of the dreams I am cultivating at the moment, and it feels great to have dreams again. To be able to dream again, and think with a peaceful mind about the actions to take, about the calls to make, the letters to write. I seriously did not think I would ever get back to this feeling.
I am a lot calmer and more lucid, so much that I also think that I can quit with the shrink, after next session, which I am doing because we are going to play this “transformation game”, for a whole afternoon, and I am curious about it, but then I think that I will quit. The fact is, I have acted in a hurry after resigning from my job, and called her on the spur of the moment with no real intention, only to make mum happy; I guess we were both looking for a miracle and she seemed the quickest way to get there. I don’t much like going there anyway, to be honest: she only makes me talk, and brings in ideas for more reflections that put me into more depression than I can –or want to – bear. And thank you, I don’t need to pay 35 Euros per hour to be told that I must free my mind from the obsession of being accepted by other people by first accepting myself. As if nobody told me before, as if I didn’t already know. It is something I have always worked on by myself, so I guess there is no need to be helped through this process by somebody who so far has only told me that the beauty is in the eyes if the beholder, and that I should invest more on my femininity (or something of the kind), only to contradict herself by remarking that she didn’t even know if she had brushed her hair that day. I mean, are you saying that I should work more on what I have and feel better by using the simple feminine tricks of “hair-make up –clothes”, or are you telling me that beauty is in me no matter how I dress and make up? Oh, bother..
But what I understand now, is that there is no way I can have a miracle, as long as I brood over the past and my mistakes; ok, the past 10 years have been an embarrassing sequence of mistakes and bad actions, taken in a hurry, almost desperately. But not all of it was negative: I chose to go to that university for the wrong reasons, ok, but if I had not gone there I would have never:
- studied the subjects that fascinate me so much now, meaning gender and the likes;
- won the scholarship for Hull, which resulted in my meeting the most fabulous people of my life (yes, David, Lisette, Charlotte, Rigmor..I am talking of you); not to mention the fact hat the Hull year allowed me to get a good view on the English student way of life; and then I studied one of the most interesting subjects of my life, film adaptation, which is still one of the things I love reading of and studying.
- Lived in the beautiful Bergamo and discovered its streets, its cinemas, the lights at Christmas and the sky in summer.
- Worked in the university bookshop, which has always been on of my dreams (working with books, in general), where I made friends with some more great people and learnt and read and talked so much of every single thing one can think of.
What I mean is: it hasn’t been all that bad. Of course I could have done things better, like getting a better mark with my thesis, and studying more for that exam of linguistics and the one of philosophy of language; sure, I could have chosen another university too, and lived an entirely different life, and maybe now I would be a media scholar with a Phd running in cinema studies, who can tell? Maybe I would have found a boyfriend and be married by now, how do you know?
But I cannot turn back time; I can only try and accept what was, nothing else. Remember the good things, and try and learn from the bad things, even if thinking of them makes me sad and regretful.
Now it’s time to work on a better future, and I am going to take my time: keep your fingers crossed too, please. Good will is ok, but a little luck is always useful.
Labels: depression, dreams and plans, weekend
posted by Peggy @ 8:22 PM
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