Autumnal chills

I have realised, now that things in my flat actually work the way they are supposed to, that there is one remaining thing in my flat that does not work:  Me.  I used to be adept at getting work done even when the weather was bloody awful and I may have struggled but I still managed things.  The last few days of this miserable, cold and drizzly weather have sent me into a kind of semi-sleep.  I am tired and achy and my eyes are sore all the time.  It doesn't help that I have tried to retain some of my early morning meet-ees this week, while also packing in some boring work that had to be done.  So it's not entirely 'my' time and my time alone, as it was meant to have been.

In a desperate attempt to stay awake this afternoon, I took myself off to the bookshop cafe, in hope of writing something interesting fuelled by coffee and a bit of inspiration, but there was some kind of book launch on and it was incredibly busy and distracting as a result.  I did have a chance to wander around longingly, looking for a novel that might catch my eye, though in some ways I'm glad nothing did, because I do not have the budget for it.  I wish I could have a reading allowance from a rich aristocrat who would pay for my literary whims and would think it a noble thing to do, supporting a working class girl with middle class tastes to read more.  Wouldn't that be simply fantastic?!

Ah the idle dreams of the lone foreigner, who has just passed the one year mark of living abroad...I must be losing my mind.  (Or is it just waaayyyy too late for that?)  Yes, it has been over a year, and this time the transition from summer to autumn has hit harder (maybe because last year I was coming from a UK summer, which means of course, no sun or warmth at all to differentiate it from autumn or spring).  The distinct chill in the air today was a bit of a shock.  I woke up and had to force myself to get up quickly, and as I got out of bed to go and make some tea, I shivered, even though I had a long sleeved top on.  I had thought the pyjamas-like get-up would be enough, but no.  Woe betide the person who underestimates the chill of the 6 am October morning air.

Having said that, I am nonetheless basking in the glow of being liked, indeed loved, by the architect, since we hadn't seen each other for about two weeks and he had missed me.  He seemed full of affection all of a sudden, where normally the TV holds about equal, if not greater interest.  I would almost conclude that I should make myself unavailable more often.  But that would seem to be defeating the object, surely...

Wounds Heal Better In The Sun

To live with what is unhealable

is presumably also living.

Just don't

turn the hurt into a god.

Also do not believe

that every wound is a stigma.

The sun has its glow, the blood also.

Competition is not necessary.

But it is a firm saying, worthy of adoption,

that wounds heal well in the sun.     Anna Greta Wide

I'm gradually losing hope again now.  But Anna Greta was right about the sun.  This morning's surprise intelligent conversation whilst the sun streamed in through the window, bringing the spectre of spring on the horizon, did me good.  Oh, if only there were true hope of a carefree and enjoyable ride into summer!  The desire to run away, the longing for a chance to lie about on the grass in a field and have the sun keep me warm is as strong as ever after such a tough winter.  There has to be hope of a holiday even though I have absolutely no idea how I'll ever afford one.  I'm so tired of the struggle; the battle to keep going.  The fight to hold back the tears.  The pulling at shreds of hope to make a future.

Make up your mind world.  Either pull me in from the platform and bring me a cup of tea, or let me go just as the fastest train hits its top speed.  I honestly don't mind which.

Demise or desired destination?

I'm coming back to Cookie Mueller today (aptly but I shan't explain why) because she put a quote in one of her loveliest and indeed, tiniest books which has intrigued me for a long time and seems so relevant today.  Facetiously or otherwise, it is merely attributed to "Dr. Peebles, a nineteenth century Scottish doctor" and it reads,

"It is important that you recognise that there is no experience that comes into your life that is below your dignity."

Compare this then, with my usual, persistent principle, encapsulated so well by Jean Sarment: 

"One's integrity is no greater than the numbers of compromises one makes with oneself."

How can you reconcile the two?  It is useful to have general values and principles I suppose, but it's when you're faced with truly unfamiliar situations that these can be tested and perhaps found wanting.  I have a sense of changing my usual means of rebellion at the moment, evolving into a version of me I wasn't sure I was capable of.  It isn't necessarily progress, as we all know that constant progress is not the natural way of things.  There are always fallow periods and regressions.  Perhaps I'm going in reverse because I missed out on following the usual conventions befitting someone in their teens or twenties.

One particular case in point happened at a certain 'Čajovna' (teashop) not far from a street called 'Veverka' (meaning 'squirrel') where they do serve tea eventually, but you get the feeling that this isn't their main line of business.  As Brooklyn had its 'cleaning service', so Prague has its little 'Čajovna' where you sit on cushions and at tiny tables and feel like you've been transported into a scene from 'Gas Food and Lodging' or a similar American art house film, and await a pot of tea you're not sure will ever arrive.  The waitress looks like she only reads Sylvia Plath or pretends to, while sidelining in soft drug-dealing to hapless visitors who only came here because it was a retro-cool place to hang out.  They couldn't care less about the tea.  And when someone orders cake, she reacts as though they have broken an unspoken rule of the house, but makes a note of it anyway.  (Whether it will ever be brought to the table is quite another matter.)

I sit dutifully on a cushion and stretch out my legs to the faint sounds of 60s and 70s folk-rock songs (until they incongruously play rock and roll) and wonder how the close proximity to others will affect my opportunity to observe people.  What a fascinating place.  It isn't difficult to blend in with this student-filled crowd, especially seeing as I never progressed from that level of poverty and still wear the same kind of clothes.  No-one notices just how much I'm taking in.  

And yet I cannot concentrate.  I have another distraction.

And so I find myself, 5 days later, wondering who I've become and if it really is so far from me.  The borders I thought I'd struggle to cross have been remarkably easy and I'm still in shock.  Perhaps this was what the acting training was for.  Or maybe this is just what you do when your confidence has been shattered and you have to build yourself back up from jumbled and broken pieces.  It could be like some sort of genetic re-arrangement, like in a sci-fi film.  In picking up the pieces, I might have mixed up the order and emerged as a different creature.  I'm just not sure.  Visibly, I'm the same person, but internally, mentally, emotionally?  I have no idea.  And I can't put a time limit on this because I don't know where it's headed.  Demise or desired destination?

I have even acquired a new piece of clothing.  A red fleece jacket.  And a few other things.  I have been away for two nights but I'm back home now.  Back in my grey frilly boots, lying on my bed on my stomach with my feet in the air and thinking, thinking, thinking.  A desire to sing at full volume to favourite songs has gripped me ever since I got back.  My singing ability is crawling forward, trying to return.  I feel like I have gone back in time, but the language spoken around me begs to alter that perception.  Still, I've bought English language magazines today, and I had a luxurious bath with a glass of red wine and enjoyed my own bathroom like never before.  

Is this what it is to 'move on'?

10 Things To Get Me Through The Worst Week In January

It's already been a really teeth-pullingly tough week and it's only set to get harder.  A kind of 'searing earache and simultaneous bitterly-cold-blizzard' kind of harder.  So, to prepare myself, I thought I should make a list of things that have been and may continue to help me through:

1) The remaining chocolates from Christmas.

2) Sumptuous lavender bubble bath, shower gel and moisturiser.

3) The thought of Paris with the Faerie Godmother Trainee.

4) My 'bilingual' copy of 'The Michelin Man' by Gerald Durrell in Czech as well as the original English, which, ironically reminds me of trips to a little village in France called 'Herly'.

5) A rediscovered copy of 'When You Love You Must Depart' by Alina Reyes.

6) My Ab Fab DVDs.

7) My Anna Gavalda short stories book 'Je Voudrais Que Quelqu'un M'Attende Quelque Part' because the title and picture on the front express my current longing perfectly:

8) My naughty, budget-negating (or rather, failed 'Second-World-War-type-rationing-attempt', more like...) copy of American Elle magazine, because it's got such damned good writing in it.

9) This light tea that not only cheers me up with its Ceylon-style taste, but has a reassuringly elitist, 'intelligentsia' design and picture on the box:

10) Emails from kind people who are keeping in touch even though I no longer live in the same country as them.  It still seems strange that I can't meet up for tea and cake with these compassionate souls anymore, when once I could call up and plot to be at the corner of Westbourne Grove and Hereford Road for coffee at 6pm on a Wednesday.  (If anyone's free on Wednesday at 6pm near Václavské Náměstí though, I'm available for tea, coffee and any kind of cake, especially in one of those bookshop cafes...)