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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Take care and be well.

So apart from feeling physically like a stinky dishrag, I think I'm doing pretty well.

I've been reading excerpts of the P0wer of N0w, and it actually helps. I'm reading the part about the pain-body, and it makes sense to me. Of course I'm sick and underrested, so forgive me if I'm not getting it right.

The way I look at it we have a well of sadness, a pattern of sadness and negativity to which we habitually return. For me, that deep deep sorrow is the sorrow of rejection. So when something happens that triggers a return to that place, that place, that pain-body gets bigger and more sedimented. It builds itself like a coral reef. It lures me back time and time again, but it's really just the ugly detritus of the unhappy parts of my life.

Rejection is a difficult thing to displace, but as soon as I started to step aside and look objectively at the stages of feeling and thought that I was going through last night, I could sort of control it. In other words, he's right, that Eckh@rt Toll3 person, that when you become conscious of the pain pattern that you're allowing to take you over, it sort of enfeebles itself. At least temporarily that is true.

This morning I still cried. But it's probably at least partly as much that I'm dreadfully tired and sick. I'm going to go out and buy myself some warm pants, and then sit myself perhaps in my favourite church. Learning to be patient with what "is" is a challenge. But what choice do I have?

I know I had thought of something funny to tell you about Italia, but I have forgotten already! Hmm...OH! I know what I wanted to tell you. I don't think any of you have read E@t, Pr@y, Love. I sort of regret that I did, although there were some memorable bits to it.

Anyhow. There's a character in it who is in fact a real person: a bawdy guy called Richard from T3xas, who sort of calls the self-pitying narrator on her clinging to a past relationship.

Richard is at the ashram at which she goes to pray. He's a recovering drug addict. He's philosophical and obnoxious in his expression of it.

So when I had that drink with the Aussie lady a couple of days ago, she told me that there is an *interesting* guy in our course/art history group. She mentioned that he is American.

And yesterday he became my friend! Yes, the old dudes, they like me! We've already established this, I know.

To be honest, I think he's kind of delightful. He's from San Di3go and he's called Richard! I have my own Richard from San Diego! He seems to have at least some Mexican heritage. He's a well-dressed older gent with really no knowledge of art, history, or Italia. (Yesterday, as the teacher was explaining that Medieval and Renaissance Florentines used to reuse Roman sarcophagi to show the continuity with the past, and we were looking at one LARGE sarcophagus that had been recarved on one side with trecento Florentine symbols, with the earlier Roman designs on the other side, Richard was inspecting the massive thing from top to bottom.
When asked what he was doing, Richard responded (earnestly) that he was looking for holes. This is because he thought it must have been used at some point as a fountain. This came well AFTER he had asked if the object was basically a stone coffin, and after the professor had described the people who had probably been entombed in it, so I'm not sure of Richard's marvelous magic carpet trajectory to fountain certainty.)

I actually laughed out loud at that one, and people around me didn't. Eek. It just came out, naturally. The teacher made a joke and was clearly trying to suppress a laugh as well. Personally, I don't know what there is not to laugh about. It was a funny comment. And Richard didn't seem to dislike me for it. :)

So the thing with Richard that I admire is that he told me that he'd retired and didn't want to fill his days with golf and tv like his friends. He said he made a list of things he had never seen before, never done, never thought of doing. One of the things was to go to another country about which he knew nothing. He picked Italy rather randomly. He came here for three months on a tourist visa, and then applied for a one year visa. He said he found it rather scary at first, and he got lost all the time. He doesn't speak any Italian.

He's quite a rotund and attractive-looking fellow who wears too much cologne, and he's not afraid to bellow out a question. I like this. He has no clue what he is doing, and yet he's stumbling forward. He could be my very own personal Philosopher King (capitalization intended): the very thing Fifi hoped would come and startle me out of my foolish heartbreak, yearning and despair.

Soo...before I head out to cough upon the world (cough cough), I will tell you that I have written a note to M. but have not yet sent it. I will wait for your advice. It basically says that I sense more obligation than real interest in seeing me, and I don't want him to be under an obligation. I really would like to say something like, "What would you really like to tell me and why have you been writing me for the last two weeks, unpressured by me, that you can't wait to see me?" But what's the point, really? One of the best lines I have ever heard is not at all deep. It's that when someone rejects you or dumps you or whatever...they really think very little of or about you, in general. You just don't mean that much. They couldn't be bothered to give you a true answer, especially if they are male I've found. If one day I find a male who behaves otherwise, I think I will fall off my chair AND commit to eating whatever scarf or hat I am wearing at that time.

OK. I will go. I just pray that this bug that I have doesn't get worse. I'm pretty drained. I have a sit-down lecture in the library today on trecento painting materials and techniques, however, and I'm very excited about that. The woman teaching it is a painting restorer. Exactly up my alley. Very excited. Espresso required.

Take care and be well.

10:37 a.m. - 2008-09-18

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