enfinblue's Bluey (credit to Fifi for the nickname!) Diaryland Diary

"I am seeking, I am striving, I am in it with all my heart." -Vinc3nt V@n Gogh

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Lessons listed. Pictures two entries back!

And oh my lord...I just tried on my super-skinny Italian-style jeans that I bought for 26E...And they actually look good.

So I wasn't being delusional whilst there. I'll get some funny looks here in Ottawa, particularly since I'll wear them with my red patent flats. But whatever. LOVE. Oh, and my daffodil dress is here and it is delicious!

I know I keep on writing and writing. I'm doing my laundry at the moment and thinking about the lessons of Italy. And I read this quote that boxx had left for swimmmer:

"Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness." ~Eckart Toll3

How a propos.

Yeah.

Or rather, I should say, YES.

Yes.

I'm here.

So I'm admitting to myself in a conscious, I'm going to actively do something about it sort of a way that I HATE my job. I loathe it. I am dead inside in a way as I go about my daily business. I know that security and pension are issues but I can't live another thirty years like this. It's just not who I am.

SO before I start throwing out predictions about what I must do, I'll write some simple things that are on my list now that I've come back.

1) Sign up for a class with the Ottawa School Board adult ed. language school (apparently this is where everyone goes) in Italian for Beginners. (It was a movie, a Danish one, I know.) I can't sign up right now as the spring courses are not done yet. But come mid-June hopefully that will be on.

Oh, did I happen to mention that one of the things that M. also told me is that he loves to watch movies? Mostly he goes home and watches movies by himself at night. YOu don't say??? And his taste was good. Remarkably, this is just one of the many very small things that are exactly identical about us. He does have more facial hair though. ;)

2) Join the cycling club. Cycling in Italy was so good for me and I loved being on the bike so much that I am now excited about my bike.

3) Sign up for a drawing class at the Ott@wa School of Art, to start regularizing my art practise.

4) Eat food of the kinds that I ate in Italy, that didn't make me sick. Take the time to always savour and make beautiful food for myself. Related to this, drink whenever I want. I mean, not at work or during the work day. :) But if I want to have a good glass of red wine at lunch DO NOT THINK LIKE A NORTH AMERICAN. Enjoy. Do not think of the health effects or the not health effects. (Really - eat and live well and die anyway.) Honestly, the drinking in Italy was one of my favourite parts of the trip. A couple of glasses of red wine a day and usually a bit of Vin Santo for dessert. OH so nice. SOOOOOO nice. I could just live in that life always.

5) Start figuring out how the career stuff can be changed. Do I do something in archival work again eventually? Do I figure out how to start some kind of a business as maybe a consultant, which would give me more flexibility? Do I really go off the deep end and try to do something artistic and something sports-related, to use my background in and talent for endurance sports? The answers won't come now. They're not here. They will require patience and thinking, an openness to seeing opportunities when they present themselves.

6) Related to the last point, definitely apply for the higher-paid job that I would like more that is with my old department. Doh! Screw the career ladder and cachet of the current situation. I hate my job. I hate everything about it and the environment makes me miserable. The problem is that there is no connection between my work and the most important part of me, the part that's now blooming again: my emotional sensitivity. This job is the antithesis to this, and it's ruining my health and my well being. Gosh, and one might think that drinking daily is bad. No, shriveling up with stress and anxiety is BAD.

7) Be whole and at peace in your spirituality. Be open to it. My favourite part of the art touring that I did in Florence and in Tuscany more generally was actually the lengthy periods of silent reflection that I did in just a handful of churches. It was the art, sure, but it was something much more. I loved the Boticellis and the Raphaels in the Pitti Palace, of course, but I felt something much more meaningful in the four hours that I spent in Santa Croc3, and in the time I spent in what has always been my favourite of the churches that I have visited: San Min3ato al Monte. That little country church at the abbey that we visited on the last bike tour and in which I sat by myself with the sun beaming through the doors (picture later) is on the list, too, as is Santa Sp!rito. St. P@ul's in London comes in on the list, too, of course;

And 8) SIGN UP FOR THAT BRITISH INSTITUTE COURSE in the fall!!! It's as easy as a plane ticket and a few hundred Euro, and getting some time off work. (I have accumulated leave that I didn't take last year, but it depends on my boss - I'd love to do three weeks to a month (though a month I probably wouldn't risk; let's say two weeks).)I know a great, cheap place to stay (my entire accommodation bill for the last two weeks was $368 Canadian - wow, huh? :))

Wow. It's interesting to feel how peaceful I am in my whole being just as I released those thoughts. My hands and body are relaxed, the jeans aren't cutting off my circulation :)...I'm so good. I will make a plan and get out of here. In the minimum I'll figure out how to put into my life more of the things about which I am passionate, even if it means staying at my government career for its security. Or, and knowing me, I think this is more likely - I'll find a way to break out of the loop of fear that I fell into after S. and I broke up, after I came back to Canada. Once this cycle is broken I can do anything.

You know, one of the funniest and most touching things that M. said to me was, absentmindedly, "If you were here you could go out for a run by yourself. And when you got back I would make you some pasta...You would accept me for who I am. You would not try to change me."

Men are funny. And you know, I definitely wouldn't try to change anyone. Perhaps I'm too narcissistic or passive to bother. :) For sure, I wouldn't want anyone who tried to change me. And don't worry, I really don't think that I could live in Italy. I've often thought that I could live in England, in spite of the cost of living. But these things aren't practical and on the radar, anyhow. Canada may be boring, but as M. said, "At least things *run* there." Teranika might dispute this but in comparision with Berluscon!'s Italy, well, yeah.

One of the things that always strikes me when I hit the ground here - apart from the friendly customs agents with blazing "Welcome to Canada" signs above them - is how you can feel the space from the minute you enter the airport. You can feel the physical and personal freedom. It may be architecturally ugly, culturally rather boorish in a broad sense, and food-wise downright horrifying, but there's a kind of liberty that you only feel in these small ratio of population to land mass places. Over the east and northern Quebec I looked out the windows and could see the massive forests. I could almost smell them. No matter where I go or what I do those forests and the north and the rocks and the cold lakes I will always be able to close my eyes and live near to. They have definitely left an indelible mark on my soul. I'm more than a little bit grateful that I was given the gift of being born here.

3:35 p.m. - 2008-05-18

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