Ghosting with High Fidelity on The Beach

My favourite reads of the last few months have probably come into my life with some kind of reason...

It started with The Beach of Alex Garland, which I have read after coming back from Thailand. I didn't devour it as it was dense and tense, and rough and spicy, and exotic and random, and funny and cruel... But I loved it. I specifically remember the bit about the amnesic effect of the beach (when you are in paradise, you forget all about the world, all about your family and friends, all about your normal desires and it all becomes a needless state of beatific reality) and how little it had in common with the movie.

Accidentally, High Fidelity of Nick Hornby fell into my hands and filled my commute with laughter. I read it with a bit too much haste, but I couldn't help myself. It was as good as a cupcake with a large latte. Actually no, make it black coffee with no sugar - a bit of bitter sweet unromanticised love drama... Nothing to do with the movie at all...

I found Jennie Erdall's Ghosting in the Pound Shop. Thought that would be a random buy. But it turned out to be a good book, which reminds me of my own aspirations to write... It is a beautifully written tale, with deliciously chosen words, which unfolds as a unobtrusive melody and really make me think of how little I know about writing still...

I wonder what do they all mean in my life?... The Beach talks about a spoiled paradise and how futile is to believe in recreating a perfect society in a dream location, advising us to just go back to living our normal lives - we're better off. High Fidelity talks about settling/or not in a relationship... And about music and a lot of pathetic stuff. Ghosting talks about writing and how everyone should write for themselves. I am still to find out their meaning in my life. Perhaps there isn't any. Perhaps they are just wonderful books that make my life a little bit better!...

When everything is starting to make sense

I find myself sometimes thinking about things. Surely spending time alone has helped. It was the kind of period when I kpt on cleansing myself. Sometimes when life's too busy, you realize you carry so much waste around, simply because there is no time to discard it and with people always around, it's a hard thing to do. These days I feel like I'm going through all sorts of stages and every day brings me closer to where it want to be.

I now look back at my life and realize I am the kind of person who believes in one great love, the kind of person that truly believes in a life long relationship and wants it with such a passion that it sometimes seems unreal, the kind of person that has always wanted that. Some people marry young, due to circumstances or simply because they didn't know any better, and by the time they're in their 40s, they want out of that marriage. They secretly wish to live the single life, unattached, sleep with different people anytime without a sense of responsibility, they want to taste life for themselves, they want to find out who they are. Ever since I can remember, I wanted to be in a relationship, I wanted somebody by my side, to make me feel less ugly, less undesirable, less disatvantaged, I suppose I secretly wanted a father figure to give me the sense of security I've never had when I grew up. Somehow, I never got what I wanted, but the kind of life other people may wish for: freedom and total flexibility (they only things I own are my clothes and my shoe collection..). I now find myself at 30 years of age looking at other people and wondering how do they do it? How do they meet? How do they decide they are made for one another and decide to share lives? I am dumbfound by the mistery. And even after so many years of going through a lot by myself, of having proved to myself that I am capable of being my own father figure, I still look at young couples on the street wondering how come they found eachother the same way I used to look at other kids' fathers thinking how come they were so nice...

I try to believe that my hippie existence has a higher meaning and that I must use my flexibility as best as I can, but all I secretely wish for is a lovely little house and a bunch of kids... Oh but I bet that once I have that, I'll be running away to South America to try and save the rain forest, or at least what's left of it... By trying to bring the stability he has never offered me into my life and not finding it, I am afraid I have become my father. A restless soul, never happy, never really free...

(Disclaimer: these recent posts are a mix between reality and a study for future writing. Do not take it all seriously, don't call the ambulance, I am not mad :) not yet... )

Tonight I'm staying in!

It's Friday night and London's been blessed with amazing sunny days. On an amazingly warm Friday night, one would just about look forward to the end of the working day to hit the nearest pub and have late night with friends or workmates.

I must admit that I felt terribly inclined to do the same. Despite the tiredness of the past week (packing, moving, cleaning and, oh, on top of that, working!), I fancied the idea of going out drinking this Friday night and carry on with an activity that has since long become a habit or perhaps even a lifestyle. When I realized that feeling the need to go drinking, getting attention and messing about has become something of a necessity, I decided it was time for detox. That's right, a Friday night in all by myself, watching TV, writing or even dinking a cider, while writing in front of the TV, nevermind; reflecting upon all the things that make me feel needy, and insecure, and unstable and jumpy, and incosistent. I decided it was time to lock myself up and try to exorcize all the demons that have haunted me lately, get a bit of hold on myself and regain control upon my actions and feelings.

I still feel that I want to be out there, bantering with people I know or total strangers, be flirty and outrageous and do things I will surely regret the next day. So what if I have one too many drinks? - it's Friday! But tonight, I'm staying in! I am not sure I don't want to be out there, but I am sure I must do something about mental integrity. Changing job, moving house, hasn't been quite easy on me and I felt really restless and highly insecure. Drinking hasn't helped in the least. I am taking the mature way out of insecurity and try again. I hope to emerge stronger. I have no choice...

Living with Death

I keep my side of the escalator, holding tight to the gripping rubber. Sometimes at the rush hour on your way to work, you don't have much time to think about. You have to appreciate the posibility of sneaking into the Central Line overcrowded carriage just about the time when everyone else has already given up and mentally calculate how many minutes you'll be late today. You feel rather cheerful that you might be late actually only about 5 minutes, which is an achievement. Being constanly late at work is a sign of lack of excitement and I already know it in my heart that I ain't looking forward to much. Not even that large Costa latte as I am again obviously late.

I am keeping my side of the escalator looking at the faces passing me by in the opposite direction. Somehow I get to thinking that all of these people passing in front of my eyes will all be dead one day. It almost smelt of fresh corpses... I stopped for a moment to think of why in the world such thoughts occur and what I realize is that I am filling my lungs with air (to be fair, not the freshest air but air nevertheless) and try feel that air coming in and out of my lungs as if that would ensure my immortality. These days I find breathing a wonderful way of reminding myself I am alive.

I think of all the people that may be filling their lungs with the same or at least similar air and perhaps with the conscience that their future is a matter of days rather than a matter of years. How do you do it then? How do you carry on living when you know you are going to die? How do people think when Death is imminent?... I have always found conforting the fact that the future may be yet an unwriten page and I wonder what do you do when you know your future's been already written?...Perhaps by a doctor's hand writing down a diagnostic... What do you do first? Cry, scream, be angry, deny it, start running, fall on your knees, pray to
God, hope?...

It's funny how we don't manage to be able to acknowledge death.. Death has been given to us at birth and somehow we live our lives as if we are supposed to live forever, as if one day things will turn out the way we want it and all we have to do and sit around and wait for that amazing future to happen. What if it doesn't? What if we wake up one day and notice our time's up? Do we regret not having spent our lives better? Not having made fools of ourselves and pursue our silly little dreams, send those flowers to that person we are in love with, not having told the loved ones enough times how much we love them, not having closed our eyes when breathing in an out and be paralized with the happiness of being alive.
I keep my side of the escalator and look blankly at the advertising passing by. One day, different people will buy different things. For now, we are the ones alive!

Hunting for life

Flat hunting, job hunting, dating, it's all the same. Important, terribly exhausting and unsettling. Whether you're looking for the perfect job, the perfect match or a decent room, it's all about whether you'll just take whatever comes your way or keep looking until you get what you want. And, boy, I have plenty of experience in all of these aspects. Though lately I have consumed all my energy on viewing rooms and coming home to the point of exhaustion that I am telling myself before going to bed that I can't possibly look at any flats anymore and tell the story of my life for the hundredth time in a row, I know I have no choice but to keep on looking. And sadly it's the same in all the other aspects, though sometimes you simply feel you just have to give up.

The truth is no matter how much you liked a place a people that live in the house, you'll be waiting for a call back from them the same way you might be biting your nails waiting for that guy you really liked to follow up on your date. Or it may be the case that you get desperate calls from a household asking you to make up your mind and move in as soon as possible, the same way you are trying to convince a guy to stop pestering you. Or it may be that as much as the flat is nice, you just don't like the area and, the same way you had to refuse a job in Leeds a year ago, you'll have to pass on this one as well. And when you thought the sky will collapse on you and you'll find yourself on the street with a million boxes that basically summarize your life so far..., a friend or two step in to give you shelter while you are still looking for that place which you can call home, even if it's just for the next 6 months or so...

They say a person's happiness is somewhere in the middle of a perfectly formed triangle where love, job and home/social side meet. No wonder I've been feeling so strange these days: I have a new job which I am still adjusting to, no place to live and, unsurprisingly, no man in my life. No wonder I am unsettled considering I am running around in circles in the middle of nowhere, not even close to the life triangle, not to mention in the middle of it...

But thankfully, I have friends to get support and help from and, though the road keeps getting bumpier, my vital engine keeps getting stronger to make sure I'll get there someday. And if I have learned anything since I've started wining on this blog is that worrying is useless, things will work out one day, one way or another. You just have to keep on hunting. For a room. For a job. For love.

It's nice to be in Nice but it's so much nicer to be back...

Before starting this new post I wondered why google posted links about products that help with smelly feet... Sure that nothing I have written before had anything to do with sweaty soles, I decided to plunge into the subject o fthe day and start by saying it's nice to be in Nice, but God I am thankful that I live in London.

There has always been something about the French Riviera that has fascinated me since I was a child. From Brigitte Bardot movies and the decadent 70's style to Louis de Funes and his Gendarmes series, from Nice to Marseille and of course, Saint Tropez and Monte Carlo, that part of the world has played quite a remarkable role in the way I define my style today, altough I only set foot in Nice for the first time on Thursday this week.

Not that I thought I would find streets paved with gold and coquette mademoiselles wearing a head scarf and oversized Chanel sunglasses while driving a convertible, but Nice of today had nothing to make me go wow! What I found in Nice was that people had an annoying tendency to shush us everytime we had a conversation that could be heard, that restaurants hosts don't feel the need to explain why they let us waiting for 10 minutes before bothering to ask what we needed, that ocassionaly shoe shop assitants gave us the frown when asked to bring a shoe in a different size and that the beach is covered in pebbles that in all honesty hurt your feet so much when walking that it makes one forget all about the ice cold water.

However, what else I found in Nice was that in good company, every place in the world is a joy, that the plat du jour is undoubtfully the best meal choice, that my French is actually pretty decent, that the sun can be really pleasant even when lying on stones and that generally speaking I am absolutely grateful to be living in London, the city where you never get shushed, the place where you have the luxury to complain if you don't get served the way you should be, where people are generally friendly to people with an accent and where from I get to go away to the French Riviera everytime I feel like it and bring only the best back with me...

For a very long time, I felt that I had so many issues and so much unfinished business with myself that I had to write it down and put it on this blog as a form of possible therapy. These days, I feel that I have made peace with myself in so many ways and somehow this helps my disposition to writing. I think that since I kind of managed to be in control of reality, I may be able to start making fiction...

Nostalgia

This week I started a new job. It is a really lovely place with really lovely people and I feel that my life there will be a very good one. I know I have made the best career decision and I know that since, after just two days, I am hands on with one of my accounts.

Still I can't really explain the tears that just won't stop running down my cheeks, smudging my make-up and blocking my nose to the point of making my breathing close to impossible. I am crying for a very long time and when I think I am ready to stop I remember what made me cry and I start shedding tears all over again.

This is a post I am dedicating to Hogarth, the company I have just left. I can't stop crying because I remember that in this company I was genuinely happy. It is without a doubt the first place in my entire working life where I was truly happy. I did enjoy waking up in the morning, putting on something nice to wear, meticulously applying my make-up and feeling like a million dollars every day while walking down Shaftesbury avenue from High Holborn, sometimes stopping to pick up a cappuccino on my way and walking on air, feeling fabulous. I did enjoy the company of so many wonderful people which I dare to say they are my friends and if there is anything I can do about it, they will stay this way. I did enjoy the feeling I had of looking forward for every single day.

I cry because I am ultimately an extremely social being and Hogarth has provided me with the best social environment and has made me bloom and boost my self confidence and repossessed me with a new thirst for life and love for people.

Yes, I cry. I cry because it finally kicks in that it is now over and I can never turn back the time. I cry because I am fully aware of my decision of accepting to go somewhere else and I stand by my decision, but I guess that I need to mourn a bit over what were the most happy 10 months of my working life and I guess it is not as easy to let go of memories as I thought. I am human after all and still amazed by how time is something that just keeps on running and sometimes it leaves scars. Or really wonderful memories...

Here comes the next chapter

It came sooner than I thought, sooner than I even planned. After only nine months in my curent job, I have received another job offer and before I knew it, I was saying goodbye to all the lovely people I had the blessing of working with and making it all official, I realized there was no turning back. Not that I wanted to turn back but an ending chaper always requires a moment to take it all in, a few embarassing tears and that split second thought of, what if I am no doing the right thing. Somehow I trust my lucky star that no matter what I am doing the right thing. Not even once I had taken a job regretting it afterwards, nor did any of my jobs represented anything else than a step forward.
I gave myself a few days in between to get my mind set for the new chapter and after serious debating with myself I reached a serious and very important conclusion: instead of running away as I always do whenever I have a few days off, I decided to stay in London and come sunshine or rain, make the absolute most of my time before starting the new job. I am pleased with my resolution and I am pleased with my mind set. It all kicked off today with a pub crawl in Camden under pouring rain, which, believe it or not, was a fun thing to do and, despite me being completely soaked, I did have a wonderful time and still got home before midnight. In normal circumstances I'd find this pretty depressing, but it certainly looks like a new and improved version of myself is getting ready to write the next chapter. Bring it on!

The Nature speaks

Eyjafjallajokull sounds like a Scandinavian deity. Actually I have no idea how it sounds like but they way it's written makes me think of a God with mad eyebrows and a scary frown. The famous Icelandic volcano that put a stop to flying in the last few days makes me think of how sometimes Nature decides to show us who is really in charge on this planet.
We forget that flying planes is a luxury that allows millions of travellers to wander around the world and take over. Planes are to blame for the herds of post-hippie wannabe travellers that I so loathe, planes make globalisation possible and have brought the world into the crazed pace that has finally been stopped if only for a few days. I feel sorry for all the people stranded somewehere in the world, maybe in a place they want to leave behind as soon as possible or maybe in a place where they had a wonderful time but is no longer welcoming. Everyone is trying to get somewhere simply because it is possible. If flying wasn't an option I wonder if we didn't prioritize our lives differently, if we tought it would be that easy to leave everything behind and just leave somewhere, anywhere...
The way the world is structured today it makes it impossible to live without planes, internet and mobile phones. It makes you wonder what would really happen if we didn't have them anymore. Would we still manage, would we be more creative, more attentive to the world around us? It may be that it is all about the journey and not the destination...

The real New Me

I find myself in a New ME. I don't know when it exactly happened and I don't know why but all I can think about is that I am most grateful that I have finally put on the methaporical clothes of the New ME.

It is a New ME, but it's the newest of them all. I've had many New MEs especially lately and each and every one of them added new layers of good to my aura and scrapped away little by little the residues of sadness, shame, cowardice, disappointment, tears, fear and insecurity. Every New Me smoothed the path to the Newest ME, the one I am today.

The ME I am today suddenly feels that she no longer has needs and expectations from other people or from the outside world, but she makes things happen. She finally understands that unless she knows herself and accepts herself with all the wonderful things that are within, along with all the shameful and regrettable things that belong to her as well, she will never be able to truly love and enjoy life. She feels full of forgiveness and understanding. She feels sure of what she knows and no longer afraid. She knows that life is purely what you make of it and she wants to make it a blessing. She wakes up in the morning being grateful for her health and her luck and walks away thinking of how to make things better.

The New ME is no longer suffering and sees things with an incredible clarity. She is not afraid of not meeting the right person because she is perfectly equipped with recognizing him. The New Me is happy with the little things in life and trusts that her destiny will be fulfilled at the right time and knows that things in life sooner or later fall into place. I like the New ME.

Looking for the exotic

The famous "Beach". When I saw this movie back when it was first released, I didn't even dream there will be a day I'd actually be stepping with my own feet on that white sand and actually be in that exotic world that seemed as far away as if almost on another planet.

But truth be told, the exotic IS on another planet.The Exotic has always represented that romantic dream of the "civilised" yearning for that land that is not only different than anything else, but perhaps bearing secrets the same way Fantasia did in "Neverending Story" or helping people discover things about themselves they never knew they existed. The Exotic is that place (sometimes I ever wonder if it's real or just the fruit of our imagination) that puts us in touch with our divine core and make us think things that make everything suddenly feel real and wholesome.

I saw "The Beach" for the 5th or 6th time last night. I watched it after coming back from Thailand first time two years ago and I have seen it now again. I have been looking over and over again at the holidays photos and now I feel compelled to see movies like "The Beach" to keep the exotic alive.

I am stepping on concrete sidewalks and breathing the fumes of the passing by cars, while trying to remember the sensation of the sand on my bare feet and the salty smell of the hot air caressing a skin that's never been happier. I am wearing high heels and fashion seems as useless as a paper hat under pouring rain. I am trying to find ways to keep myself happy in an urban world, but all I am thinking about is how to get away and reach the Exotic.

The more I think about, the more it feels like I am an amateur esoteric reader trying to find the philosophical stone that even the wisest of alchemists weren't able to grasp. I think of a world where nature is pure and unspoilt and the herds of stupid travellers don't exist, but the reality is that countries that posses the Exotic must survive by allowing these herds into spoiling the magic of it... I dream of a world where I can go and feel complete and free and new, but the reality is I will be exactly the same wherever I will find myself in this world and I MUST keep myself as happy as I can possibly be in the absence of the Exotic, even if by this I will have to pretend I live in a different place, even if I must construct my own Exotic bubble and walk the concrete sidewalks wearing a thai jasmin scented aura while remembering that superb feeling that took me over while passing my bare feet through the whitest sand I've ever seen...

Sunset on the sea

Two weeks ago I was lying on one of the very civilised chaise-longues on Kata Beach in Phuket when I decided to lie there a little bit longer and watch the sun set. It was still weird watching the sun set at 6pm...
I read a few pages of my book and suddenly I saw it all happening. The sea was particularly restless that day, wavy and unsettled, singing its ever admirable song while caressing the sand. I found myself dumbfound while looking at the flaming disk attempting to approach the sea with an impossible slowness. I concentrated all my senses to carve that moment in my memory forever: I tried to look intensley at the falling sun, listen to the humming of the sea and the birds chirping in the background, smell the salty air and try to figure out why I had tears in my eyes.
I had tears in my eyes because I suddenly felt inundated by a deep happines that came from inside my being, from a place I didn't even know it existed, and realized that the most magnificent things in life are free.
There was a mixture of pure happiness and difuse sadness as I still heard a voice at the back of my mind reminding me that I was going to go back to London and not be able to enjoy a little something like a glorious sunset on the sea...

Bangkok

I came back into Bangkok armed with patience and the knowledge of someone who's already been tricked. I was going to spend two days in Bangkok and give it another chance. I owed it to myself.
It turned out to be quite a smooth and pleasant experience. Not only I managed to avoid all the taxi touts at the airport and made my way one level down to public taxis, but the hotel where we were staying was nice and located on probably the nicest street in Bagkok - Rambuttri Street, just a few minutes away from the noisy Kao San Road.
Although I still didn't manage to see the "Big Budha" this time around either, I did enjoy a nice boat trip down the Chao Praya river an its canals, went around the Temple of Dawn and actually managed to fall in love with the city as it was, noisy, crazy, hot and somehow still very friendly. This time around I managed not to fall sick at the orgy of smells invading the streets and actually had a pad thai from a street vendor. Would I go back to Bangkok? It is definitely a city of hidden treasures which I can't even dream of having uncovered...

Post-Thailand / Pre-Easter thoughts

I wondered for a while why it took me so long to write it all down. I guess I needed a few days to shake off the jet lag, get sadly reacquainted with the famous British weather and generally give myself some time to understand the kind of revelations the Thailand trip has offered me this time.

There were a lot of thoughts going through my head every day while I was out there and I even managed to write some of them down on a notebook I was carrying with me, but right now I don't wish to go into details (this will probably be discussed in a separate post). What I really want to communicate is that I returned from my trip "enlightened", liberated, wise ( for real this time) and with a clear mind set.

I owe some of this to the conversations I've had with Kendra. A lot of personal issues have been resolved either side and a lot I have learned while trekking through Chiang Mai forests, sleeping in a village with no electricity but items for sale, riding on the back of an elephant or kaiaking on the calm Andaman Sea under a red setting sun. I have asked myself a lot of questions and prayed for help to find the answers and maybe because it's Easter or maybe because it is simply the right time, but I feel that so many of these questions have found an answer already or at least it feels like I know which way to go to find them.