CAMBIA LINGUA / LANGUAGES

Scrappy notes from my empty room

LEGGI IN ITALIANO QUI

Boxes have been packed and moved to a friend. Tickets and travel location forms printed. Files backed-up. A tons of Netflix episodes downloaded on my tablet. The house is hovered. The last panick-washing done.
I was out in the morning and I caught all the rain. I have no dry clothes left. While waiting for them to dry on the radiator, I am lieing under the duveit. My room is now empty. Everything is so silent, so still. Sun is shining outside and birds chirping.
I can finally have a sit down and have a big breath - probably the first of many.
It has been an extraordinary couples of weeks. Since I have been back to the UK, I have just been in the move. Lots of logistics, the Kenya trip to refine, the last emails to sort. And then my birthday, and my leaving-do. All was happening at the same time.
So many emotions. So many messages and calls. So much warmth, so many human connections. An unexpected boost up of life after such a long time of emotional and practical flatess.
I feel so blessed. 

Today is the first time I sit down, breath, and have a minute of silence. A minutes for myself. A minute with myself.
I dont think I am realising the all upcoming trip just yet.
But in 24 hours I will be on that plane. I will be outside the UK again - in spite of BO-JO locking British people in this island.
I feel a bit apathetic. Maybe it's a defense mechanism to control my anxiety. Maybe it's my rationality organising thoughts and assessing the situation. All is sorted, what could go wrong?
Well, many things, indeed. I have so many paperworks with me. So many forms to fill. Covid tests to do. Extra luggages. 
But you know what? From the deep silence, from the profound stillness of my empty rooms, I am contented. 1 year and 5 months after I moved to Liverpool for my PhD, I am finally on track for the fieldwork in Kenya.
A new relocation, a new trip, a new adventure.
I am going to miss my family and friends in Italy so much - actually missing them already. And I am going to miss Liverpool too. My friends here, the socially-distant walks in the parks (aka: the only social interaction allowed in here at the moment). The peculiar smell of chips in the air in whatever corner of the UK. I am gonna miss the off licences extraordinary ALWAYS open and also the crazy weather with sun hailing and rain in only one hour time.
I dont know what will be after that. What will be after the Kenya trip, I mean. Where I will be, what I will do, how I will feel.
But so far, I am just contented and for as much as I cant explain this form of peacefulness, I think it's surely also thanks to you. 
Yeah, you, that are reading this scrappy notes on your phone, now.
Thanks for supporting me through this. Thanks for this bit of path walked together wherever I met you. Thanks for listening all the dramas and fatigue of the last months. Thanks for making your place, through which I had the luck to pass, a warm comfort zone. Thanks for the boozes, for the food shared. Thanks for the laughs and the tears. Thanks for the venting in the umpteenth day of rain. Thanks for cheering me up, thanks for distracting me. Thanks for all the calls, messages, practical and emotional support you gave me!
I wouldn't be here without all of you.
I feel ready, and all the 'unprecedented' circumstances of this year finally do not matter anymore. Or maybe they matter as never before, who knows...
I will close with De André,  my favourite Italian singer, and with this beautiful draw I found on the web. It speaks for itself!

"E ora viaggi, ridi, vivi o sei perduta, col tuo ordine discreto dentro il cuore..."

{Now you travel, you laugh or live, or you are lost, with your discreet order in your heart}

Ma dove, dov'è il tuo amore? 



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