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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Scroll back one for pictures of Brighton!

So I regret covering up so quickly the photos of my wonderful friends in Brighton, but this morning I feel a need to write.

Last night I was understandably quite tired. I could have gone to bed at 7 p.m., but I held out until abut 9:30 p.m. I awoke about about 5:30 a.m. this morning.

Of course, I know that I am a night owl, so this is gradually going to change, but I do wish I could keep up this schedule. I absolutely love the early morning. It's like the late night - not many people about - but more light. I like the privacy of the morning.

So far this morning I have done the ironing, made coffee, looked at a few more photos. I also lay in bed for a while as my first thoughts of the day were of Andrea.

I think I'm handling this thing really well, because all through it I had no expectations of it continuing. To be honest, he did ask me at one point if I would consider changing cities, and I gave the truthful answer that although I would like to, I don't see how it is realistic. I have a secure job that has finally permitted me to have some financial security and the prospect of it in the long term. I am building a pension. More importantly, although I am not happy in Ottawa *yet*, I recognize that the quality of life that I have here is very, very high. The barefaced fact is that life is relatively easy here. It is possible to work and earn enough money to be able to afford everything one could ever need. We have a stable government, honest citizens and a good, publicly-funded health care system. We have the lowest rate of elder poverty in the Western world. Furthermore, this city has the advantage of being close to big cities like Montreal, Toronto and New York, and it is easy and relatively cheap to get to Europe from here. (I mean, $700 and six or seven hours will get you to London or Paris). More importantly, for me, perhaps, it is a quiet city with easy access to wilderness for cycling and other outdoor activities. I haven't really exploited these things to their fullest potential, and of course I am conflicted about needing more culture/art, but when I was in Italy and eating and driving around and constantly around people, I really missed being able to run to a peaceful lake or to hop on my bicycle.

So that sounds like a really dumb answer coming from me (to Andrea, I mean), because perhaps I would consider changing cities. But the truth is that at the moment I don't have a vision of how I would do that. Even if I stand here on the assumption that I will stay in my government job forever, move up the ranks, etc., I know that what that guarantees me is the ability to buy a home here if I choose, to buy an apartment in Florence within a few years, and to spend one month of every year in Europe or somewhere else if I choose. Furthermore, I will be entitled to leave that I will be able to afford to fund, to go and study art in Europe for three months or even a year or more, more than once, if I choose. That's an awful lot of privilege and security to toss away for a dream.

I'm not saying that one shouldn't dream and consider moving for passion. But I am aware of the costs of these things. Sure, I don't regret that I tried the things that I tried when I was younger, and my judgement with respect to men was less than solid and the whole S. experience has probably gutted any romanticism I have had) but the fact is that one needs to have a source of income and some autonomy as one gets older.

I've done a lot of study of the health economics literature in the course of doing labour market research. There is something called a health gradient. The truth is that people with more money are on average much healthier than people who are poor. It's not just because they work in physically less-demanding jobs, or that they have had fewer ill-health episodes in their lives, or that they exercise better health behaviours (eat better, exercise, etc.). WHat the researchers have come up with is that one of the big factors in wealthier people being healthier and living longer is that they have more control over their lives. It's plain and simple. When you can afford to make your own decisions about your time and your activities, where you live, where you go, you have better health.

So knowing myself and the enormous stress that I've put myself through in my life - anxiety attacks, self-loathing, poverty through lack of interest in staying put, committing to a specific job, etc. - I know that having the possibility of some control over my life, i.e. to not be controlled by others, to have the financial independence to choose, is something I can't take lightly. It's actually something that for a long while I didn't think I would ever be able to choose/commit to.

I don't mean to be a downer in this, or to seem as though I'm rationalizing. It's just the honest truth of what I know at this moment.

Let's say, theoretically, that I did pursue something with Andrea and we eventually decided to stay together. I could in theory move to Italy, but I would never get a professional job. Even if I got my Italian to a decent level, I'd be 45, say, by that time, and it is unlikely that anyone there would hire me to do work in my field. There, who you know is very important.

Of course, Andrea comes from what I discern is a fairly wealthy family. I realized that he has an awful lot of money to use because he lives in a very large apartment that his parents bought years ago when his sister was in university. That apartment in the centre - a very valuable commodity in Italy - is his, with no payments required. He is currently looking to buy a weekend property in the country.

Let's say in theory that Andrea wanted me to come there and build something with him. I could in theory revert to a traditional model and stay at home, etc. etc. Actually, Andrea himself said something to me - I can't remember the context, exactly, but I think it was when he was talking about buying a farm (his family used to own land and he used to help manage it (other people farmed it) and he has fond memories of that and of "running wild" (he and I are extraordinarily similar)) - about me doing something with tourists. For sure, I could eventually do something exploiting my native-speaker-of-English skills, or even my interest in art. Maybe I'd be remade as a business woman of sorts.
I always thought I would make a good businesswoman. But in Italy? "Um...you CAN'T do that. That's not honest!"

Yeah, well, you get the picture.

Don't get the wrong impression. I have not been sitting around imagining a future with Andrea. It's just a tangential thought experiment.

Anyhow. So I woke up this morning thinking of Andrea. I wasn't sad, exactly, but I was marveling at all of the similarities between us. He's serious and always thinking and analysing things, but he also bounces around like a child. He's intuitive. He has geeky hobbies. He loves to be in nature. Even his travel photos looked exactly like mine - sunsets and buildings from different angles, the occasional pictures of food, short videos giving impressions of a particular moment in time. I told him a few things and each time he said, "I already knew that about you."

It's very peculiar. But it's lovely.

At any rate, it's good to have had a neat rhythm with someone. It HAS to be possible with someone here. There simply MUST be someone who marches to the same beat here.

OK. Enough of that. That was my analytical side. But that said, none of it feels heavy. I feel incredibly sure-footed and light in this. I suppose I have already made up my mind.

So...work.

UGH. I have my evaluation tomorrow (for the last six months). I will be interested to hear what my boss has to say. I don't think there will be anything surprising or unusual. One thing that occurred to me when I was away is that all of the stuff I've swept under the rug (the rudeness of my big boss, the fact that often my boss doesn't read or comment on what I've done) is not OK. I appreciate that my boss trusts me to do good work and so he doesn't feel he needs to go over it carefully, but I also feel a bit adrift at times without proper feedback. I like autonomy, but I also like to be pushed in order to grow.

I was also thinking in the last week that I ought to investigate the possibility of either going to work in the international branch of my ministry (lots of opportunities for work on big Gee - _ projects or even aid projects, and lots of opportunity for international travel). Alternately, I could actually take a job with a development agency. Tonight I am going with C. to a research seminar at an economic development research agency.

Other options would include reapplying to For3ign Affairs, or even simply moving to another ministry at which I could immediately get a higher-level posting and therefore make more money (and save more money in order to meet other objectives).

Having options to work through is always difficult for me, because the more options I have the more confused I become. But for whatever reason, right now, I feel capable of working through this one.

Just sitting here right now I am thinking "But of course you should decide with your heart."

I sort of agree with that, but we don't live in a fantasy world. I lived in that fantasy world from the ages of 20 through 35. It took a huge toll on me. I was incredibly unhappy, ultimately. But at the same time I saw and experienced things that have given me great insights into myself. I value that.

I don't know if I'm being stupid or not, but I feel as though at the moment the best strategy is to live with one foot in the real world and one foot in the dream world. I keep the one foot here by working as an economist and earning my bread. I keep my other foot in the dream world by taking the art class at night, taking dancing maybe, taking a cooking class, joining a few clubs. Most of all what I mean by this is keeping the doors to my creative self wide open, the way that I was able to do this time in Florence. In Florence this time I did not waste one moment. Each day I was 100% into the art that I wanted to see. I wasn't able to do as much drawing as I wanted - partly the bad weather was to blame and partly the tourists (pretty much impossible to draw in the Uffizi with 50 persons at any one time jostling you to see a painting). That said, I did draw something almost every day. And as a subsitute for drawing when I could not, I was actively seeing. I looked. I took my time with each of the chapels, frescoes and paintings that I wanted to see. I let them come in and move around in my mind, settle in.

My friend Alan, whom I really ought to visit in New York in June, as originally planned (must see if I can get a flight on points this week), once said that to me. He is not an artist and I think he rarely draws. I remember though that he told me once that he took out a sketchbook and a pencil to a bridge when he lived in Paris and he spent all day drawing the bridge. When he did that he felt for the first time as though he had actually seen the bridge, even though he had passed over it hundreds of time. I thought that was a wonderful summary of what being in place, in a moment, is all about.

When I was in Australia the first time, in my early 20s, I remember sitting on the bus at 5 a.m. out to the sugar cane farm. We were driving through the country and I was sitting at the back of the bus of farm workers. SOme of their heads were drooping, some half asleep. Others were staring quietly at the fields and bush gradually being lit by the sun. There were kangaroos at the side of the road, periodically. I thought in that moment that I would remember that exact snapshot for the rest of my life, because I had lingered on it. I didn't own a camera at that time, which I thought was the equivalent of Alan's desire to see that bridge. I was stubborn on that point: no camera. I don't know, exactly, but I think I had it exactly right back then.

TOnight I'll post some photos/video from Firenze. For now, this one is for ANNA!

7:03 a.m. - 2010-05-27

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