Keep walking and have a drink

Last night I stayed in the office longer than usual. There was some research to do and I played some Pink Martini – I usually listen to music only in my headphones, but this time there were only a few colleagues left in the office and they did not seem bothered. One of them even told me the music was great and really worth listening to, as compared to their usual trance or house distractions. Somehow I felt this was a good step on connecting. Music really does bring people together. (So does walking in the evening Bucharest after a nice drink ;) )

Well anyway, these days held a bit of depression, as some more things are changing around me. Only now do I get used to my recent job change, and it seems that my plans for the next year will also need some re-think. When change happens permanently, on professional and personal level, it starts getting a bit annoying. Yes, one can adapt and yes, it is recommendable to be able to adapt, but sometimes it can become alienating. Each one of us can only take a definite amount of change around, and when suddenly half a world (or what seems like it) tumbles, then we are at best left confused about what is going on.

Just hang on, hang on to the vine
Stay on, soon you’ll be divine
If you start to cry, look up to the sky
Something’s coming up ahead
To turn your tears to dew instead
(Pink Martini, Hang On Little Tomato)

Somehow you make it better

Most of the people who write blogs do so, I gather, either because they are selfish exhibitionist ass-holes who don’t find a soul in the real world to listen to them anymore, or simply because their writing ambitions have been killed off at some point – maybe by the need to earn a “decent” piece of bread, or maybe they thought they were not good enough for the part. I find myself in none of the categories, though maybe some of you who do read me have another opinion. Two years ago, when I started blogging, I was trying to cure an advanced phase of workaholism, which I’m sure hasn’t passed for good. Even now, most of the posts I write are based in some way or the other on my work, although I try not to give out any real names or point to any *real* seeming situations. Most of the times, the posts are some kind of dumb attempts to fix broken things – be it in my life, or in other’s lives. Sometimes, they are even a good replacement for it.

There were evenings when, on returning from either work or getting drunk with friends, I thought that I should finish the blog – just tell you that the fun is over and delete all the posts – but couldn’t help myself not to. In some way, it keeps alive one of the things I’m thinking about doing sometime in future: writing. And so I move on, boat against the current, excelling and finding an own sort of happiness in words never spoken.

A silly girl with silly ways I hear this I'm pitiful
I'll be that girl can you give me the strength to be free

Lifting me I don't know how you do it but it's lifting me
Keep lifting me I don't know how you do it but it's lifting me, yeah
(The Corrs, Lifting Me)

Litany against Fear

We fear many things – that we won’t get the right mark in our exams, that we will not be loved, that the ones we care about will die, that we will not get that promotion we wanted so badly and worked for... We do not admit to fearing, because fear gives birth to uncertainty, and our actions may look less composed if there are cracks in our armours.

So how do you take away the fear? Is it with love, the tender warm care that keeps you focused on the other and forgetful about the demons? Or is it by self-righteous forgetting, the long hours spent in looking at the shadows projected on empty walls. A long time ago, I took a long walk in the night of a foreign city, when I faced all the demons in my head and gave each one of them a name. They were in reach of my hand, and each time I tried to turn my face away, they re-appeared, endlessly multiplied by my ardent imagination. My fear of darkness died that night, and maybe there was more calmness in the way I saw the world from then on, knowing that demons can only tempt you and not take anything from you, if you don’t let them.

Anyway, of late I have noticed how many people still fear – fear itself, or maybe what they fear might happen (or not), pouring their energies into defenses so frail it could make the real fear burst into laughter. There is little we can do to to help others step outside their little castles built to fend off fear. What might work is to receive them into our lives with no expectations and letting our own fear of closeness go.

Chiquitita, tell me whats wrong
Youre enchained by your own sorrow
In your eyes there is no hope for tomorrow
How I hate to see you like this
There is no way you can deny it
I can see that youre oh so sad, so quiet
(ABBA, Chiquitita)

Just like honey

When people sleep close to one another, are the dreams they dream the same? And if they are not, do they see one another from their dreams and wave? Or do the dreams fight one another to stay private? Or even more so, do dreams compete to be special and be dreamt?

The morning sun is in my eyes
It doesn't hide the lines
It does not bare
A great disguise
Happy birthday baby
Happy birthday
(The Cranberries, Every Morning)

Pretending to be an angel

During childhood, I was led to believe that love stories lasted forever, and if they did not, it was due to the death of one lover, which immediately led to the death (physical or emotional) of the other. Things did not shift much, they remained within controllable patterns. It is less of a disturbance to think in patterns: you minimise the risks of hitting the bottom of thinking by trying to attach logic to the astrays of emotionalism. However, as I learned after archiving my storybooks in the attic, relationships do not always end good (eg marriage, loads of children, big house and Nirvanic happiness). In fact, the ones that do are quite suspicious :). What people realize less is the impact of their termination upon the others. After a couple of friends have broken up, we cannot go out with both of them any more; separate meetings are necessary, and of course the subject of the relationship must be avoided. New people enter their respective lives – and ours – and sometimes we cannot help ourselves but to compare the present state with “what used to be” and finding exactly those differences which make us regret the older days.

Does it make sense better live alone, rather than inflicting the pain of changing the status quo? This all depends on the base we make our choices on. Were we here only to care for the happiness of others, maybe it would make sense to store our inner self in others, and hope they will keep it safe. But we can’t – because we do not trust others sufficiently (more about this in a next post) – and maybe because we have no idea how to do it.

Who else is gonna bring you a broken arrow
Who else is gonna bring you a bottle of rain
There he goes moving across the water
There he goes turning my whole world around
(Rod Stewart, Broken Arrow)

The less I speak, the more I get to sleep

There is an advertisment I like very much, for a telecom operator. It says: “The things you do not say are lost” (RO: Lucrurile pe care nu le spui, se pierd). I’d extend it to say the things you would like to do but don’t are also lost. And generally, every attitude you would have liked to have but did not have at the right moment, does not define you. Or every little word you would have liked to say in a certain context, or that hand you would have liked to hold out for a friend, or that kiss you would have liked to give… They are all lost forever, for that particular moment will not return, and the ever changing context will lead to different situations, out of which probably the least will prove satisfactory.

It’s like always telling oneself “Tomorrow I will kiss him” or “Starting today I’ll give money to all the old beggars I see” – and never doing it. These negations create expectations in oneself, and not fulfilling them leads to a state of inner turmoil that never seems to cease. It’s not like you should really say everything that crosses your mind (some stuff might *cross* people around you) – but just remember this is the life, these are the opportunities, and this is what you can or cannot make of them. Pondering risks and evaluating possibilities is ok – as long as you do not get more involved in thinking about the structure than about living it out.

PS: There are some of you who told me they would like to read the blog in Romanian, so I’m pondering the idea.
PS1: Much activity and a great idea from Mihai on the Musicblog lately. Check it out: http://www.musicblog.ro/

I'm hearing images, I'm seeing songs
No poet has ever painted
Voices call out to me, straight to my heart
So strange yet we're so well acquainted
I let the music speak, with no restraints
I let my feelings take over
Carry my soul away into the world
Where beauty meets the darkness of the day
(ABBA, I let the music speak)

Apology for not answering the phone

Sometimes we think that people think the way we do and act as other models of ourselves. That is not right, and we know it, but still we react nervously whenever they do things that seem wrong to us – wrong not because they would be so in essence, but because they affect us and because we can not find the meaning we would like to find in them.

Sorry for not picking up the phone when it rings and I do not recognize the number… It’s just that I don’t really enjoy speaking on the phone, and I truly appreciate the ones of you out there who send me SMS or write to me :-)

I’m the darkness in the light
I’m the leftness in the right
I’m the rightness in the wrong
I’m the shortness in the long
I’m the goodness in the bad
I’m the saneness in the mad
I’m the sadness in the joy
I’m the gin in the gin-soaked boy
(The Divine Comedy, Gin-Soaked Boy)

There is no Briony

We declared Friday night a movies' night and I finally saw Atonement, one of the Oscar-nominated motion pictures this year. It was nominated in seven categories, including Best Picture. Probably it will also win some – my movie sniffing nose has never been precise in knowing who will win and who won't.

Anyway, as we saw the film at nearly 3AM, there is little of the dialogues I do remember, and probably they weren't even meant to be that interesting, as the cinematography was absolutely dazzling. This is a classic movie, with classic pictures and some annoyingly good scenes, set in a rich mansion of the 1930s England, some time before the war began. The love story (yes, there is one) unravels quite suddenly but is predictable, except for the double perspective, which is not something you necessarily expect; the watchers are shown what really happens and also how the scenes are seen by a 13-year old Briony, the main female character's sister. Not having yet outgrown the innocence of her age and thus only understanding half-truths of her sister's love story, she tells a lie which changes lives and gives life to a book she will analyse years later.

With the epic storyline, you would expect some more intricacy on character level – but they don't become very complex, although well played. It's the usual He (James McAvoy, really cool) in love with Her (Keira Knightley, at her most beautiful), not knowing if he will return from the war safely to marry and love her, and it's the She who only shines in the pre-war moments (the rest is a combination of “Come back to me” mantras and arrow-looks pointed at the younger sister). What “Atonement” does, however, is to erase the thin line between what is real and what can be imagined as being real in love. Briony is trying to find atonement for her childhood lie by restoring what should have been real, the life that should have been lived. The end of the story gives little encouragement, though. You start wondering if there was a point – at all, and if a few moments of bliss could justify the suffering. In Cold Mountain, for example, there was a sort of an ending, because both character's travels were directed to the future, to the hope that they would see one another again. In Atonement, all you can ask yourself is if forgiveness should be granted to the story – or to the deceiver.

Hair that twirls on finger tips so gently, baby
Hands that rest on jutting hips repenting
Hurt that's not supposed to show
And tears that fall when no one knows
When you're trying hard to be your best
Could you be a little less
(Madonna, Do you know what it feels like for a girl)

Every time we live together

To find a meaning in life and easily spinning around finding that perfect thread to solving the mental intricacies that keep us away from our purpose – kills writing. Sometimes you secretly wish your problems wouldn’t go away – for your sake, and maybe also for the others’ sake, who seek models on the outside to reflect their own discontent and their own incapacity to deal with themselves.

Life unwinds more easily than one would expect, and meanings are always glued to actions we cannot always comprise in the glimpse of a moment. The funny thing is – one does not always need to search for a meaning. I’ve met someone not very long ago who decided to restrict his life to only a few actions outside work. He was striving between a parallel living made from photography and his unwanted IT life. Although his formation was actually different from both his money-making activities, he seemed to somehow have been drawn to fixing himself on a certain path, only in order not to lose the broader view.

But does happiness really lie in these trivial details?

Spacing from paris to new york
Silver sunglasses
Silver phone
Connect us to someone
Who doesnt know
About these feelings we cant control
(Hooverphonic, Renaissance Affair)

Buon giorno, principessa!

Sometimes, we are hurt by the bare image of dawn descending, or the tip of a sun-ray touching some dry roses left over from the last birthday we celebrated with them... the eternal “them” who hurt us, maybe unknowingly or maybe as a demonstration of power. Either by saying the words, by not saying the words, by mumbling the wrong sentences or murmuring too many of the right ones, it is the great unknown “them” we share our lives with who have the greatest power to hurt us, of all.

So how do we escape the land of despair? One of you must keep the emotional balance and continue to feel. The moment both are lost behind the wall of so-called protection, chances are that you are going to lose one another, and develop deep seated depressions you will hardly find a way out of. Instead of remaining bruised and indulging in the thought that loneliness will grow fruit, choose to live in the sun. Yes, there are small happenings, here and then, when you think that maybe you would have been better off if you had not reached out at all. Just think of the costs, for a second. If we accept that the purpose of our lives is to be happy – and make others happy, as well, then we will also accept consequences such as the inevitable hurt more easily.

I believe that the warmth in our hearts can help hidden hearts also see the sun.

I will meet you at the Blue Cafe
Because, this is where the one who knows
Meets the one who does not care
The cards of fate
The older shows
To the younger one, who dares to take
The chance of no return
Where have you been?
Where are you going to?
I want to know what is new
I want to go with you
(Chris Rea, The Blue Cafe)