One last of everything

This is a note I wrote a while back on Facebook, to keep my friends in Sardegna updated. It was partially a rant, and this is why it belongs to this blog. Every moment being unique though, I have slightly re written the not to fit my present mood. I should add that this note was started an indefinite number of months ago, and my mood has shifted many times since then, yet that fits it nicely, because I might have gone through even more "last ones" than I realized, every moment being filled, potentially, with one of them.

This time, I will open with someone else´s words:

Narrator: Because we don't know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well, yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number, really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that's so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more, perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless.

The line, courtesy of the IMDB, is from the movie "The Sheltering Sky", which I actually have not even seen. I saw the line on a friend's profile on Facebook, and found later that Brandon Lee (R.I.P.) had quoted it from the book by Paul Bowles. I checked the trailer and it was so cheesy that it made my kidneys, liver and brain shut down in protest, but what can you expect from a tagline (delivered by the deep actorial voice that does ALL trailers in the U.S.) like "A woman´s dangerous erotic journey beneath...(highly dramatic pause, pans out to breathtaking African landscape)...The Sheltering Sky".

Still, the worth of the line stands...

...As I was saying, sometimes I like to take stock of a situation, upgrade the plotted course with fresher coordinates, new readings of the sun and the stars. I am in Berlin, right now, and there is a lot to think about, all the time. For example, the thought that some things hardly ever go as desired or planned (which is why I almost stopped planning), and that some times, when they do go as planned, it is probably because of luck, chance, fortune, and not intelligence or skill (I care not if Obi Wan disagrees, seriously).

I actually wonder if intellect and instinct are just two tools designed to minimize damages. Before anyone worries, I am 99% referring about my job in this obscure line.

Anyways, things look bright these days. Work is causing a lot of pressure, but it's not like I am friggin' deployed in Falluja, so I will do my time and try to do a good job. While I keep myself busy with that, I wonder from time to time what some people that I know are doing. While I am filling a spreadsheet (BTW I have become bloody Raffaello at that, they almost look like art!), during a set at the gym , during a bike ride, I do ask myself whether they are having fun, bumming around on the internet (chances are), travelling, reading, or if they are seeing each other.

I did and do wonder whether there are cycles in life, and for how long will they keep repeating themselves. Perhaps they will get longer and longer as one grows older. I wonder if there are stages in life which, like a good telefilm, like me staying in this town, reach a natural end, and fill us with the desire to move on.

The lesson is, I suppose, that this time will come again, and soon, and like it has happened before, a lot will be lost in the transition, and precious little will be taken to the next stage. Which is what I said before. A certain thing will only happen a certain number of times, and they are not that many. And you will get to the point when you will be able to count down, in your head, how many times you will see that sequence of shops on that tram line on your way home; how many times you will have a latte macchiato at that place, or how many times you will see that bridge or that tower or that ice cream vendor. The last time, for some months, that I will see my cat spread-eagled on the windowsill, roasting her tummy in the sun. The last time that two people, well into their senior years, will see each other. They will part ways, after a life of seeing each other occasionally, with meetings fewer, shorter and further between, and they will speak not a word of what they think about seeing each other again, just hoping that it will happen.

With all these change, I like to remind myself that my peace of mind and health of body are not a God given right, that the ones I love and love me back are not always going to be there, and that at some point someone will leave my stage, and I theirs. Sometimes, out of nowhere, four countries, six languages and three thousand miles will just jump in the way between you and those who were, until then, adventuring through life with you. We will see each other again, at the next intersection, perhaps a bit wearier, and perhaps will will have grown a bit distant from each other. Where once we needed not words to speak, but just a pause in the breathing, a gesture, a hint of a look, there will be words and complicated explanations, but it will still be all good.

I leave you with another quote, from a great movie I saw sometime ago in Sardinia. It was perhaps meant to be used in a different context, but I believe it somehow fits what I have rambled about so far.

Morgan Freeman, as Eddie "Scrap-Iron" Dupris : He stayed with me through my last fight in San Berdoo. My manager was off getting drunk somewhere and it was just Frankie and me. I was taking a hellacious beating. Everybody's got a particular number of fights in 'em. Nobody tells you what that number is. Mine was 109. I just didn't want to admit it.

Fourth round, this... this cut opens up. Blood starts pouring into my eye. They should've stopped the fight, but, hell, I was a black man in San Berdoo - Blood was what I was there for. Round after round, I kept getting Frankie to patch me up. He's talking about throwing in the towel, but he ain't my manager, he can't throw in nothing. Round after round, he's arguing with me. And I’m almost laughing, cos, hell, it's getting more to him than to me. I go 15 rounds, lose by decision. Next morning, I lose the eye. In 23 years, he's never said a thing about it. Doesn't have to. I can see it in his face every time he looks at me. Somehow... Frankie thinks he should've stopped that fight. Should've saved my eye. Spends his life wishing he could take back that 109th fight. See, I wanted to go to 110. Thing is... if you want to get to the title... maybe he's not the one to take you there.

Million Dollar Baby

Aftermath and wrap-up

The battle smoke clears, revealing a field littered with wreckage, billowing black curtains rise from the smoldering craters. It is hardly a pleasant sight, if you have just arrived.

But if you have been there while bullets where whizzing by, your shouts covered by the boom of shells, the crack of flak and the drone of engines, and if you have had your nose filled with the thick smell of burning diesel and gunpowder, and your skin soaked in oil and baked in dust and sand, and your eyes filled with flashes, sudden and white, and the taste of bile has filled your mouth and throat for days, if all of that and more is what you will remember looking back at those days, then that silence, that clear blue sky, the plain and neutral smell of clean air will fill your soul until you cannot hear the buzz of your own thoughts anymore; then that too will vanish , memories will fade, mix and merge, become vague and confused, the sounds that once were loud and sharp will become muffled and distant, until all is left is a feeling of accomplishment and the sound of your own heartbeats in your ears.

Fear will occasionally flare up again, in sudden bursts, a quick-paced montage of images of those days that will sneak up on you when you least expect it, at daybreak, in the deepest of the R.E.M. phases, just before waking up; but even those moments will become less and less frequent, until you will not remember that they ever happened.

It is all behind us now, and we can enjoy again the sun on our skins, the freshness of water down our throats and the sound of our own laughter without a feeling of guilt. It is back to routine, and more manageable challenges, little problems to deal with, and simple decisions to make.

We will not win this war alone, and the outcome of the last battle could still be negative, but I do not care right now. We fought it, and we fought it well, and we never turned our back to them, or to one another. We are tired, perhaps defeated, but happy and a stronger team right now.

Thanks to all of you, brothers (and sisters) in arms.

Ossian

Deadline

It is baking hot in the office. A bloody heat-wave which makes thinking straight almost impossible. Still and stale air, nowhere to hide from it.

We have been running against the clock for the past 2 or 3 weeks. Two (important) hands left the deck and workload is increasing, not always with maximum efficiency in mind. Something like "while you save the Future of Mankind, could you pick all the green smarties from the tube and stack them neatly to the side? Then you can move to the red smarties...". And it is not like we had a good idea in the first place of how to complete our task. Plus, the "target" is so into paper pushing and filling forms that I do not know where to start describing it!

So far we have experienced: drop outs, a diplomatic struggle, a VISA nightmare, meetings after meetings, a financial revision, the preparations for an audit, too many / too few contributions from partners, one team member M.I.A. due to the living hell which is organizing a conference in a certain country south of Turkey (just go due south along the meridian...).

To make things easier (sarcasm here) the World Cup is going strong and we hear the cheers coming from all around the office. Neat. This hell is supposed to give us a break in less than eight days.

More updates after the final of the Cup.

Over and out.

The Sol star makes one wonder...

Hail to You, o people of the internet.

It´s been a while since the last post. I started the blog with the best intentions, then life happened and here we are, a solid month and a half from our first acquaintance. Now that you are all rant-starved it is time for a new dose, although a mild one.

I am not that moody today, for some reason. It could be the massive viral infection that got me back to bed on Friday, just after I thought I had recovered from a cold. Bad season for health, I guess, which fits nicely in what you will read below, come to think of it.

Thoughts on the Sun and paganism

This place got me thinking. I know this might come as a surprise to those of you that have known me for a while, but it is exactly what happened. I have been recovering from a damn virus all week, and I am still feeling weak and mushy. This, and the weather outside, have turned into a sick joke which is not funny anymore. Not a hint of the sun, if not for the occasional flash that darts through the low clouds ceiling. Wait, why the plural? It is not clouds we are talking here. It "A" cloud. It is one, and it seamlessly stretches over the whole town. A huge blanket, several kilometers wide, low and heavy. It must be quite a sight from the upper atmosphere, this one cloud over Berlin, a tiny blotch of grey water hovering just a few inches off the surface (more like a thousand meters, but if you look at it from afar, it really is just a skin tight film of moisture, snowflakes and thunders....).

However, occasionally the sun showed us his face again (or her face, if you are a hard-core Tolkien fan) over the last week and a half. Now, when you live in a place kissed by the sun most of the year, you almost welcome a bit of shade. Winters become but a short intermission, when you can reflect, kick back a little bit, stay at home if you wish, enjoy the comfort of a warm house and the presence of the loved ones, snug up in blankets and all the cozy stuff that an average CocaCola commercial will throw at you between November and February (also, I believe I am going to gag just by re-reading the line above).

If it snows a bit, like it happened in Porto Torres last week after 24 years of no snow, it becomes in fact the stuff of wonders, with people rushing out to take shots of the snow capped shore and the crisp blue sky just before the snow melts without annoying anyone. A quick visit, to pay her respects to a long lost friend, and she is gone. So, all in all, you never really lose hope, that spring may come and bring the sun again, and eventually summer. In a place like the Mediterranean, eventually, you give some thought to what the sun can actually be.

Well, after 2500 years of calculations, philosophy and the occasional nose dives into barbarity (ironically coinciding with when the Roman Catholic church held sway over Europe) we have all come to the agreement that the following is the truth, at least until disproved, and only on the material side of things.

Big Numbers?

Awesome though the figures might sound, the sun is a ball (well, sort of, kinda flat at the top, a bit like a clay vase on a lathe) made of Hydrogen and a splash of Helium, with smidgens of a bunch of other elements (though in the sun's 0,0030 % Iron there is probably enough ore to coat the whole Earth in full plates, ten meters thick). Yes, it is big, but only relatively. It takes about 1.3 million Earths to fill it. Puny, compared to other stars. Hot? 15 million Kelvin... I am sure there is hotter stuff out there. You put the sun into proportion, and it becomes just a star, one of the billions of stars that shed light, give off heat and radiation, projects a gravity well and stuff. It was born, when the a cloud of gas and dust collapsed under its own gravity some 4,5 billion years ago, sparking a fusion reaction that still kicks it, and it will eventually die, in just about the same time, becoming a cold shapeless rock in the immensity of vacuum.

However...

...if you happen to be so lucky as to spend the winter in Berlin, you might see things under a different light. All your science, and all your numbers are always there, one wiki away, to comfort you, but they can go only so far against what your senses tell you when you look out of the window or when you leave your flat. It is not just a matter of cold. It is a matter of light. In other places it gets just as cold as here, but you do get the crisp blue skies. It is in fact even colder, because the lack of clouds makes what little heat there is happily leave the ground, so it is all right in direct sunlight but deadly freezing in the shade. But the sun is there, up in the sky, yellow and bright, bringing up the happiness chemicals through your very skin.

So it is no wonder that so many people imagined the end of the world to happen at the end of a long, enchanted, bewitched winter. Fimbulwiter, they called it, and it would last the length of three years, at the end of which Ragnarok, the Gotterdamerung, the Twilight of the Gods would happen, and everything would have to be trashed and incinerated before starting over with a new cycle.

I am trying to stretch my imagination back in time, and as I am feeling increasingly happy about the return of the sun, I remember distinctly how its lack was gradually turning my soul into a dull shade of gray. Now, what must have been before all the numbers and all the science, before the compasses and the telescopes and the algebra and the understanding that came with time, for those who faced winter here? Who would assure them that sun would eventually return? Would you feel lucky and take chances, or would you go out of your way, doing everything you could think of, to increase the chances of seeing spring again? Back then, with no safety net whatsoever, when everything depended on a timely cycle of winter and spring, a week´s delay could mark the difference between life and death by starvation. There would be no sick leave, or HR department to tell you that according to law XYZ you can excuse yourself from ploughing the land, fever or not. No heating in the apartment, no surplus food.

Now, in the secularized XXI century, I found myself asking "when will it end?". I found myself craving for the light, for the radiation, for the feeling of warmed skin, for the blue of the sky, for a glimpse of waters that flow unhindered by ice. Well past the stage of "nature is resting before it can blossom again", I just wanted it all to end, and end soon.

I wonder what it must have been to see the light again, to wait for hope and relief from beyond that vast cloud, come March, after endless weeks of uncertainty. I wonder how could one not greet the returning Sun as a full blown Deity, mercifully bathing the lands of men with its healing light, the heat fending off for a few months the demons of Winter.

Now, as I am recovering from the flu and other nasty ailments, I peek out of the window and see that on February 20, 2010, the sky is blue again. Just a few arc-seconds off the skyline, I cannot help but asking myself "should I offer a sacrifice to that"?

Well, never mind that, I am just glad it´s finally over...

...where I start ranting.

Which is what I am quite skilled at, apparently. Yes, I am a whiny bitch like no 70 year old aunt Telma who sees you just for Christmas asking why you still do not have a girlfriend can ever hope to be. I blame it on the stress though. I AM A STRESS-BALL. Live with it. I do, at least.

I have been musing over what to write for the first post. There is this Blog virginity issue, which makes you want to start it with a spectacular one, something memorable, witty, funny yet with a core of food for thought. It will not happen. I am way too focused on the moment I will sit back at my desk in Berlin, and the tide of amphibious organic matter will flow neck-high. The dreadful "to-do" list is visiting my nightmares already, with all the tasks that were left pending when I hastily departed for Italy, just before the last solstice.

Last-minute rounds of salutations are stacking already, eating away at the little time left for me in the island of Sardinia (from time to time I shall refer to said island as "Atlantis", the full reasoning behind this choice being more fitting for another post). One good thing to flag: it is so warm and sunny here. The downside is that I will be back to -20°C in less than 72 hours.

So, enough of the above, let us just get this over quick. My name (if you do not already know) is not important to you. My age? The number is high enough to vote for the ludicrous farce-country I am a citizen of, and small enough to still kick enough ass to sooth my ailing ego. My interests? You would call them geeky stuff (but please, see above for my age before you do). Whatever feeds the imagination, basically. Movies, books, music, games (loads of board games and role-play games) and all the encoded nonsense drivel that keeps Comics Convention packed with visitors all the time. I also like astronomy, though I kinda suck at math, and I love being near the sea.

This will be a blog where I will mostly rant about whatever drives me insane, and I will mean every word you shall read. Blogging away I will try to zero in on the causes of my distress and generic unhappiness, and probably do nothing to fix the problem.

I guess this is it for now. Moody Bastard to Earth, over and out.

M.