Tuesday 20 April 2010

On Comfort

It's one of the few times in my life when I realise that I am comfortable. It feels very strange, unexpected, and somehow undeserved.


Weather
I seem to be starting all my blogs with assessments of the weather, but, being British, I just can't help it. I am a product of the British weather. Even the uncomfortable, ever-changing, ever-so-slightly-colder than pleasant weather has been pleasant, sunny and welcoming lately. For longer stretches than usual. Even the forecast is another week of staight sunshine with a weekend of warm sun. This vaguely reminds me of time imemorial when most days were sunny, in Romania where I grew up. There is something very comfortable, and very satisfactory, in lying down on the sofa on a sunny day, reading a book, without feeling guilty that you are missing out the rare chance of basking in the sun outdoors. Because you know the sun will be there another day as well, so you can simply relax and enjoy seeing it outside through the window. There is a compulsion that I feel, as a Briton, to run out as soon as the sun is shining, and sunbathe or spend every minute of daylight in a park or walking on the sunny side of the pavement. A longer stretch of sunny days makes me relax and cast aside this compulsion.

There is also something more to this feeling of comfort. I am at a point in my life where the balance is near the point of equilibrium, where a lot of the oscillations have got quite small, after long periods of large and difficult swings.


Work
Work is calm and comfortable. I still like what I'm doing, after three years and a half, and I have a peaceful, constructive boss with a sense of humour. I can't ask for more. Right now it's slow, and boring. I like being busy, and usually if I'm not I find things to do to fill my time productively, but for now I feel as if I've exhausted all my ideas. Perhaps this is a blessing in disguise, as I can rest a bit and I can write at my blog, which wouldn't otherwise happen. And I know that when work picks up I'll dive right in with double the enthusiasm. This is something strange, but I prefer to be stretched, to feel the day rushing by and finish it knowing that there is still a lot left to do, however unsatisfying that feels, rather than watch time drag along at a snail pace. Like this, I find the comfort of little work disturbing. I wonder how security guards and country train station attendants spend their days. What goes on in their minds. How can they cope with so little to work on, so little to worry about. I'm not made for an easy job, I'm sure of that now. Not this kind of easy. I can see now that only something that is hard, busy, and keeps me on my toes is enough to give me satisfaction.

Why is it that a slow job feels uncomfortable? Is a job our main definition - something like I work, therefore I am? Is a job the main source of self-esteem? Then how can some people go on without working and still feel happy? Or is it that we just need to be active, productive, and this keeps us happy, something like a sport and daily exercise? I am not talking here about earning money - this is a separate topic altogether. I am merely talking of being engaged in regular, useful activity. I don't know about others, but for myself, I'm sure I like to be doing something useful, something that I can see contributes to something good.


Relationships
I am also in a phase of my life where I feel balanced and happy in a relationship. A stable, comfortable, predictable one, without much drama. A relationship that has been there reliably for the past year and a half. I have been longing for it, having gone through long-distance high-drama, highly virtual relationships. This is a relationship of quaint movie-watching, cooking, walks together, dinners and shows in town, the odd trip here and there. This is a comfort that I wonder at. It's the sort of normality I had come to believe I don't deserve, can't find and might as well give up hoping for. The comfort of companionship, of relaxing together, of needing no more than each other's presence to feel safe, wanted, calm. Sometimes not even presence, but just knowing that he is there, somewhere.

What is it that makes a relationship so simple? Why is it that the simple presence of my man in the house, pottering in a corner, makes me simply relax and feel completely at ease with anything in the world? Is it that I need to feel protected? Belonging to some sort of group? Wanted by someone? Or is it just because it's natural, the way we are meant to be?

Whatever the answers, I am just grateful for all my comfort, and I hope and pray it will keep going, with added interest, but remaining comfortable.

Tuesday 13 April 2010

Reading a book

I have spent the whole of Sunday lying on the sofa reading a book. Now this may seem trivial to you, but it has been a very long time since the last time I've done this without being on holiday, in my precious 20 days a year holiday. I was lucky enough to find a book that was that engrossing, captivating and funny and deep at the same time. It was a perfect Sunday: sunny outside, my flowers in bloom on the window-sill, orchids and geraniums, great music on last.fm online radio, and me devouring this book and laughing out loud.

I had forgotten the feeling of wanting to get to the end of a novel as soon as possible, to find out what happens to the characters, and if they all come out fine in the end. I had forgotten the rush to turn the pages to see what happens next, the bitter fear that they are turning too fast and this rollercoaster ride will be over soon, and the satisfaction of knowing the denoument, accompanied by the sadness of saying goodbye to those characters that have become, for this weekend, my family.

OK, I'll tell you: the book was Marina Lewycka's 'We Are All Made of Glue'.

I remember this feeling of relishing a book since my teenage years. I remember the luxury of a few free hours, with absolutely nothing better to do, or guiltily stolen from things like learning by rote a history lesson, which I avoided like the plague, or vacuum cleaning as a grown-up, which I now avoid with the same gusto. Somehow, deep in my heart I would never feel that reading a good book like this is a waste of time, unlike watching movies, which, however great or famous, still leave me with a lingering feeling of "What have I been doing with my time?".

There is something about a good book that completely and deeply satisfies my craving for using my time well, almost like a good talk with a clever and funny, stimulating friend. There's something very deep in a good book, a close intimacy with the mind of someone else, the author, who wanted to take you on a journey, to tell you things that she has been pondering, or that made her laugh, or that she simply observed in daily life. It's the solitary talk of someone that reaches someone else in their solitude, and somehow fills this solitude with a fascinating conversation. Informative, mundane, descriptive, funny, or fast, every passage just takes you into the world of someone else who wanted to share it with you. And it doesn't have to be all very clever or deep, indeed it's not and probably it can't all be so, otherwise it would turn into some heavy philosophical treatise. The simple pieces that tell you how they went shopping, had a coffee with a friend, saw someone else or a group of people having a barbeque, those pieces give you the satisfaction of a glimpse into someone else's world, a surrogate friend or a mock party.

The feeling of watching through someone else's eyes, reading their reaction in their words, their compassion, their sensations, the smell of places, this adds up to something that completely fills my awareness. And their deep pondering of life, alternating with brief and sharp observations of it, sometimes with a running commentary of their mental voice, makes it so close to my experience of life. Somehow this just becomes so cosy, as if someone else understands me, I am no longer alone, someone cares and has been through sensations and feelings and thoughts that I have also been through. Or has been through others, unknown to me, but cares enough to share them all with me, and considers me that important as to tell them to me. I am a worthy confidente, worthy to be told all this.

Maybe I am sad, maybe I lack gossiping, maybe I live too alone and I talk too little during my daily routine. Maybe old women who live in villages and meet every day and spend their life chatting have this satisfaction often, but I don't, and this kind of reading gives it to me. Maybe it's just a basic need to gossip that somehow my urban life has narrowed down to a need to read. But God, it's so great to have it!

Thursday 8 April 2010

Lunchtime Holiday

Today is one of those glorious days when London becomes a holiday spot. It's sunny and 16C, and altough I took a good book out with me in my lunch break, I didn't read a page. It's warm, the London ubiquitous wind has died down and I found a little garden spot near the Spitalfields market with a stretch of daffodils in bloom and with magnolias with a bad hair day. I sat down and all I wanted to do was just sit. Simply sit and look at spring flowers.

I closed my eyes and sat in the sun, feeling the warmth on my skin for the first time this year. I felt my forhead slowly warming up, my face, my black work dress. It's so pleasant and warm I need to open my coat, and I think how we people are so much like plants, opening up our thick warm coats and shields to let the warmth in. Behind my closed eyes I can see a dull orange colour, which I vaguely remember from the last time I've sunbathed last summer. I thought this would never come again. It was near the sea, and just the thought of sunbathing near the sea suddenly relaxes me. I take my coat off.

I look at the flowers. The sun is lighting them almost as if they are lit from within, so they shine, translucent and deep yellow. This is backlighting, my favourite photographic effect. I promise myself I'll bring my camera and take pictures tomorrow in my lunch break. After all, people come from far and wide to see this city, and I almost forget its beauty, I almost forget to see it. I know, it's normal, when you see the same streets for years, to ignore them from habit.

And yet the spring brings novelty. The small green buds are also translucent in the sun, and against the deep shadows they shine like Christmass lights. All of a sudden, the bare branches, the bare buildings are decorated with the novelty of green. It's uneven and fresh and delicate, and it surprises me from day to day, budding, growing, sprouting tassles, opening flowers. The world, nature is changing, opening up, coming to life, and it takes me by surprise.

The winter has been harsh. Grey, very cold, dark, wet, snowy, sleepy and simply boring. Something about this winter has made me just want to hibernate: come back from work, go to bed. Early, snug, outside is dark and that's all there is to life. I used to pick myself up and do things, go out after work and sing, study, see people. No matter what weather, no matter what season, no matter how dark. Somehow this winter has quietened me down. I have discovered the joy of sleeping early and waking late, and a new dexterity at getting ready in 10 minutes in the morning.

Now, in the new found daylight and sunshine, even of relative warmth, I feel like a surprised bug. This is how a bug must be feeling after being numb for the whole winter, when the summer arrives: dazzled, blinded, startled, suspended in disbelief. I've been waiting for the spring, counting days, looking up the number of minutes the daylight increases every day - it's 2 minutes, by the way - but I haven't expected it to actually arrive. And now I am slowly moving my antennae, numb still, but hoping it will be on time for me to register it's here, before the cold and the grey snatch it away from me again.

There's something about sunlight and warmth that makes me open up. My coats open up, my eyes, my spirits soar, and my imagination bounces from under layers of winter residues. I suddenly remember things I could be doing, places I'd like to visit, even my favourite London places which I haven't been to in ages, like the streets of Notting Hill and Holland Park which are a delight in spring. I want to see people again. I remember friends I haven't spoken to in a while. Don't ask me where they have been - it seems they never call unless I do. But then I forgive them that. If no-one makes the phone-call, we'd never know anyone.

I bought a bunch of daffodils for £1 and they sit on my desk now like a sorry bunch of spring onions. I can see them surreptitiously getting more yellow, from one hour to the next, and ever so slightly opening up. It's my favourite thing. Opening daffodils, and summer dresses. And summer holidays, and taking pictures. Ok, I have a lot of favourite things. See, the spring enthusiasm is starting to take over.

There's something about this lunchtime holiday that makes me feel grateful. I'm grateful for the warmth, I'm grateful for the flowers, I'm grateful for the green buds and the silly magnolia. I'm even grateful to have an hour's break at lunch.

Tuesday 6 April 2010

Spring and change

It feels like the first official day of Spring in London. The air is sweet at 17C, it has been uncharacteristically sunny all day long, and, altough I'm in the office, I am savouring the spring. The first flowers of spring persist in my memory from yesterday's walk: it was Easter weekend and I took my camera and a book to St James' park. The cherry blossom is out and the daffodils cover the ground in incredible, generous yellow spreads. I still cannot believe this is spring for real and these are real flowers, but the day is definitely longer and I actually see the front door of my building when I go home - as opposed to getting there in the dark and wanting only to snuggle up and hibernate.

Today I had the first real proof of real Spring: a delicate whiff of cherry blossom scent, calling out to me on my way back from my lunch with my friend G. In my home Bucharest every season has a scent of its own, something I miss in London. Here I can only smell rain and wind. My spring means the scent of dry pavements, new, freshly washed dust, and flower scents. Finally, the cherry blossom scent that caught up with me took me right in front of the villa around which I'd walk in the spring evenings in Bucharest, taking some fresh air before some scary school test the following day.

I think the visible change in nature around us made us think about change. We talked today about change at lunch-time. G wants to move to another country. She has studied the language, religion, dances and literature of it, made friends there and visited it a few times, and now that she met someone who can potentially help her find a job there, she is scared. Scared of change, scared to move.

Why is it that all the people I know in London want to change, want to move, want to leave London? Is it that there are more opportunities here? Is it that the weather, the cloudy, windy, cold and changeable weather of London is so unfriendly it never lets you feel settled here, like the dry and warm climate of, say, Paris or Italy? Or is it that most of my friends are rolling stones, uprooted from one country to come and live here, and now always ready to change? Do we all feel that, once we have made the big change of country one time in our lives, we can always do it again? And, even, we should do it again? Why do we see change as so compelling and inevitable?

I don't know why, but I certainly feel uncomfortable sometimes to realise how comfortable my life is. It has been so uncertain and full of changes, of big shifts, for so many years, that now I wonder at its stability and think - "No, this can't last!".

For the past three, almost four years, I have been living in the same house, working at the same job, with no financial or visa worries. Yes, I changed from a long-standing relationship that lasted 6 years to another one - which is now one and a half years old. I almost envy myself for how stable everything in my life has been since this relationship started. One year and a half of a smooth, predictable, comfortable ride.

It hasn't always been like this. I am 30 this year. I came to Britain when I was sixteen, and between then and now, a parameter always had to change: I changed schools coming here, then I had to change to go to a university, this was plagued with uncertainty because of the university fees and what we could afford. Every year in university I felt uncertain - I didn't know if we could afford it, and then my father became ill and we were uncertain how long he would be alive. After university I was uncertain of the visa I could get for a job, it was in the times Romania wasn't part of the EU. My first job only lasted one year, and then another big change came with setting up in business on my own so I could get a working visa. Every year I had to have my visa renewed, and to work really hard to get new clients and stay in business. It feels like between the age of 16 and 27, that makes 9 long years, every year has been uncertain as to where I would be and what I would be doing. No wonder then that I still feel like I'm bobbing up and down on the waves of change, and I hold on for dear life to the little stability that I grabbed in the past few years, in the shape of my British nationality, my job, my little rented flat and my boyfriend. And my small circle of good friends and family.

I do relish this lack of change, this stability. Yet something in the back of my mind keeps saying - "No, you are lazy. You must change. This is not enough. This is too good to be true." But is it, really?

I change my routine often, always seeking novelty to colour my existence. Which makes me wonder: how much change do we need to enjoy stability? And what kind of change? Change, challenge.

Where in the years past, it used to be visa criteria that I had to fulfill, the only thing that I change now is the evening courses that colour my existence. I think this is what makes life in London pleasurable. I have gone through Italian, Spanish, German, Meditation, Gospel singing, Salsa, Bachata, Tango, Pilates, Creative Writing, Assertiveness and swimming. Even this can be too much sometimes, and for this season my new challenge will be the art of doing nothing. But more about this in the next post.

Let me know your feelings and stories about change and stability, and about Spring!