If I ever say I’m moving again, someone throw me in the lake. This last stage of the move here has been borderline crippling with exhaustion; let’s just say that at my age, dismantling one apartment after 21 years while moving carloads in my Fiat 500 (= not a lot of boxes), so I could then clear it out in time for its sale at the end of November, has been an absolute uphill slog. Each day I had to carry boxes down flights of stairs, across the garden and down a rough gravel slope to the carpark and repeat until the car is full. Then a 45 min each way drive and a car unload at the other end. I worked my ass off trying to get a couple of rooms decorated before the lorry arrived from England with all my things from my old home in East Sussex. Then the almighty business end of all of this started… the big unpack. In between there have been IKEA deliveries, several days of flat pack assembly (hell on earth with an Allen key) and a lot of swearing and hammering.
People think I’m insane because I am frowning all the time.
Lyrics by: Michael Butler / Ozzy Osbourne / Tony Iommi / William Ward
However, huge apologies to Rosa Anna downstairs for her induction into the more flowery end of British vocabulary. The bastard washing machine blew up (more swearing), knocking out the electrics, and the mains box is almost as far away as the carpark in the other place. More swearing and up and down stairs until I got it sorted. New washing machine eventually arrived.
Lorry Armageddon
I’ve been sorting out a new kitchen as the current one is terrible and even the oven door doesn’t shut, and if you know how much I love to cook this is not good. Christmas day saw me nearly give up as I was trying to cook a chicken with a stool wedged against the oven door to keep it shut but add to that the dial is broken so it involves the use of a wrench and a hope that I’m not grilling food rather than roasting.
In the meantime, back and forth to the showrooms, buying paint, ordering a sofa and couple of cupboards. Back and forth… my life is like a never-ending plate of spaghetti, while I am slowly looking more and more like an extra from the Addams family. I give eye bags a run for their money. I’ve lost weight as would you believe painting a ceiling uses more steps than a walk in the woods. I’ve got blisters on my hands and bruises from holding the ceiling extender steady.
When the tiredness becomes all consuming
I just now need to pace myself with the work and slowly settle into life by the lake. I also need to get my locks changed as one of my new neighbours keeps letting herself in for a chat. She’s an old lady, wears a thoroughly tacky tracksuit and whiffs of fags. She’s tiny, her name is Maria, and she needs little excuse to knock very quietly… whisper ‘permesso’ , literally means, ‘I have permission?’ And appear in my lounge, chatting away at me, usually about her old cat who pees down in the garages and under my entrance stairs, or she wanted to know when I am moving in, or when it’s my turn to pay for the lights on the path, what do I do for work. The list is endless, but there she is like a Swiss cuckoo clock, using my front door as a rotating entrance. I don’t mind. It’s actually very Italian and her curiosity for her new neighbour is funny. Another neighbour appeared last week, to tell me that the day before I’d left my garage light on, she seemed more interested in what I was doing to the place, no surprise there. She’s lovely and we chat over my veranda wall, as she is below my apartment. To be fair even the Amazon man has taken to letting himself through my security gate to leave parcels by my front door, and thinks it is hilarious to ask me random things in pidgin English.
So, life is moving forwards in my new pad, and I’m unravelling all my possessions and finding them new homes, it is indeed like a plate of spaghetti with added swear words. Ironically, Italians find the concept of tinned spaghetti an anathema and more so a total food code violation, it’s almost worse than a cappuccino after 10.30am. The pasta aisles here in the supermarkets are front to back in the stores, every size and shape, fresh or dried and bags of Farina 00 if you make your own. I do miss some of the variety in good UK supermarkets, but the food here is way fresher and tastier, you just get used to shopping a little less and a little more often.
Alphabetti Spaghetti
I’ve filed to change my residency in the new town and am now waiting for the rozzers to come round, unannounced (like everyone else …lol) to make sure I exist, and I am actually living here. Bureaucracy continues to be next level, I went to the comune to make my application, they’re closed on Wednesdays (who knew), so I went upstairs to sort out paying my refuse tax. I knocked on the door which was open, and she asked me to wait outside, meanwhile her colleague walks past and told me to go in, as an open door means you can enter. But this was a ruse, as the refuse lady was on the phone, and her mate in the corridor started to laugh and tell her off for not being instantly available. She then proceeded to give me the door open/ shut protocol, while tutting at the refuse lady and eye rolling. After the comune cabaret you then have to go to the tip, (obvs also closed), to get your card, so I could start to shift the EU cardboard mountain on my veranda. Meanwhile I still have to switch my health card to the new area, I’ll save that experience extravaganza to next month.
I’ve also discovered during this whole process, that no one can pronounce my last name. it starts with an H which isn’t really pronounced here; hotel for instance is said like ‘otel. My name also contains a Y which strictly isn’t in the Italian alphabet, more difficulty … but my Christian name is, to all intents and purposes, Italian. They breathe a sigh of relief while skirting around my surname.
With that, I need some carbs and am off to eat some pasta.
I’ve always loved the poetry from WWI, not for some macabre reason, but I think we should never stop being a witness to what happened, and importantly, to keep those memories alive. A lot of it is incredible poetry in its own right, and I’ve read all of Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon’s works over the years. They’re probably my two favourites.
But I have another reason for my interest, as at least three of my family fought in WW1, and another was a code breaker stationed overseas. My grandfather was in France as an officer, but as a qualified chemist he had the job to go and blow up any bridges that intelligence had told them the Germans would be advancing across. He also went in behind the lines to plant explosives on other enemy, war-critical installations.
My grandfather’s cap badge
‘Look down, and swear by the slain of the War that you’ll never forget.’
bySiegfried Sassoon.
My grandfather was a bit of a writer, maybe that’s where I get it from, he wrote every day in his tiny diaries, the little ones the reps used to bring to the factory he later worked in, or that his father had brought home. He also kept war diaries and note books, with details of Morse code and translations, trench and bridge diagrams and little sketches and annotations.
Transcribed from a coded signal from my Grandfather’s War Notebook
A sketch from my Grandfathers War Notebook
I also have a map he drew of the area just to the north of the Somme where he was stationed, as well as his signing-up notice. I am so thankful I have all of this, so I can keep in my memory the incredible things he achieved as well as the fact he was one of the kindest men, and also very dashing with his moustache and uniform.
My Grandfather’s battalion, he is seated centre front row, holding his riding cane.
My godfather, also my great uncle, had a different story, he was much younger and hadn’t finished school yet or gone on to college or university. But when war broke out, he went to sign up. He was however a year too young and when he got into Manchester to join up, they realised his age and his mother came and got him back. But a year later he was old enough and he served in the infantry in the Manchester Regiment.
My godfather, aged 17.
After training he was sent to the front and stationed in France. It makes me cry even now thinking of what he saw and felt. During one battle in the Somme area he was crossing the battle field along with his battalion, and he slipped into a shell crater, losing his footing as they fought their way across the battle field. Another soldier was lying in there, in screaming agony with the severity of his godawful wounds, he’d lost a leg and was bleeding out everywhere. My uncle went to give him some comfort in his dying moments, and realised he knew him – it was his cousin. In desperation to try and save his life, and with enemy gunfire whistling past, screaming rounds overhead and a field full of mines and barbed wire, he carried him out and to where he could get some help. He was awarded a medal for bravery. He was later gassed in the trenches (mustard gas) and was sent home to recover.
But the impact of what he saw and experienced was for him and so many, many others absolutely unbearable. We can only guess at some of what they truly witnessed. But for years later he suffered with heartbreaking levels of PTSD, he had appalling nightmares and would awake on my grandmother’s sofa drenched in sweat, often screaming and sobbing. Having been a victim of gassing, he later developed throat cancer and died barely a year after I was born. The war stole this precious, kind man away from me, and a chance to get to know him, and have some memories of someone I know my father loved so much that he made him my godfather. Years later I walked across London all night to raise money for cancer research, I had his name and photograph pinned to my running number.
My uncle and grandfather, weren’t the only members of the family to be in the Great War, there was another relative who I also want to mention, he was William Forster, born on the 28th of November 1892 in Jesmond, Newcastle. He later went to school at Downside and then to Cambridge where he got a BA and LLB. But war broke out and like many of his generation he was enlisted. William was a private, in the Royal Fusiliers, 8th Battalion. His military service number was 10497.
William was killed at the Battle of the Somme on the 7th of October, 1916 during the Attack of Bayonet Trench; he was only 23 years old. He is buried at Thiepval Memorial in France.
He is also remembered in De Ruvigny’s ‘Roll of Honour 1914-1918’ and in ‘The Valley Remembers’ by Sandy Hunter. William also has his name inscribed on a stained-glass window at All Saints Church, Thropton, Nr Alnwick.
Image from the Attack at Bayonet Trench where William was killed. (Getty archive)
This is for my grandfather, for my godfather and also for William, and all the hundreds of thousands of lives, on both sides that never made it back.
May we remember them all today, at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.
No mockeries for them; no prayers nor bells, Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells; And bugles calling for them from sad shires. What candles may be held to speed them all?
During the infamous fun that wasn’t the pandemic lockdown, like a lot of other bored people at home I got my ass onto TikTok, not so much for my own personal content, but to scroll endlessly and laugh at all the other far more social media creative types on there.
But randomly one day a couple of years later, this entirely legit reel appeared (and yes I checked it all out) asking for someone to write to a life sentence prisoner in a jail in California. I can’t say anymore than that for privacy reasons. And no I hadn’t lost my tiny mind, been watching too much OITNB or fancied a bit of rough on a dark jailbreak night. He was about my age and no, zero attraction, I just thought well… I like writing and he said he loved to read and history and stories. Maybe I could do this thing for someone I will never meet.
And so I wrote to him, no personal details of my address, all through a secure platform set up by the US prison system. Then one day he wrote back and since then we write pretty much every week and I’ve slowly got to know more about him, about his family, his life before he got put away, for now what is over 29 years, and how from the other side of the world we have become sort of friends.
He tells me about his daily life, his cell mate who is also a Latino, his daughter with whom he has now rekindled his relationship- he did some terrible things when he was much younger for which she rightly struggled to trust him again. His son, who is in the US military and quite high ranking and all the comings and goings of yard life in searing heat and his work in the prison kitchens. He’s told me about the 18 years he spent in a high security solitary cell, with only concrete walls and a small skylight so high he could never even touch it. Those years were in part to segregate him from gang members and the risk to his life, as well as meting out his punishment.
But one day I had an idea as he literally devours books and in particular history. I’m a geographer by qualification and I decided to combine the two subjects, but take him on a mini tour of the world – choosing 30 places I’d been to, telling him the history of each, its geography and also a story to add the personal perspective of my time in those countries.
I have his prison PO Box address so every other week or so, I’d pepper his prison platform messages with a real bit of snail mail. The stories lit up his life and he saved each one until after work, reading them on his bunk. I sent him a map of the world with each place listed and marked on, so he could see where we were going to visit on his own ‘world tour’. My idea was to take him to all the places he’d never get to see. I had printed around 4 Polaroid style pictures for each place from my own travel photos and so each story could come alive a little with actual pictures.
One of mine from Siena, Tuscany
It took about a year to complete them all and we both had so much fun, both for me writing them and reliving all those years and holidays and adventures, but also for him it became something to look forward to. And you can argue after what he did, he deserves nothing at all, but I don’t judge and I now know some of what went down. What was also funny was, anything that arrives into the Prison Postal system, as a printed piece of mail, has to be read and approved by someone in the office. Now bear in mind some of these stories were over 4 or 5 pages of A4 long, he one day messaged me to say the most recent letter had been impounded as they said it was printed on cotton. A risk that it could potentially be impregnated with narcotics. We did laugh as it was a bog standard sheet from WH Smiths, but it meant I had to resend it again. This summer I was passing a hand made notepaper shop in Tuscany and started laughing at the shop window… of course I took a photo and sent it to him.
Not to be used for Inmate Correspondence
He told me when he maybe one day leaves, and he’s possibly up for parole in January, as he has done some serious work over many years to get to even being considered, that the letters and photos are one of the only things he will take with him. They’re all now pasted into a notebook and he shares them with his friends. He once told me, ‘we don’t know people like you.’ I sat with that thought for a while, life is full of weirdness and I don’t believe totally in coincidences, people come our way for all kinds of reasons and whether we realise that or even learn from it, is our choice. He even shares my photos with his support groups to illustrate how they have helped him and some of the funny and not so amusing stories we’ve told each other. But also of their importance to him in changing his mindset and perspective on life. And me, I’ve now got a slightly different friend.
We talk a lot about films, and they are allowed to watch some inside – as a now better prisoner he has a tablet, and providing they aren’t hugely violent etc he can view them. Each story, I tried where possible to reference a film he could later watch to give the story of that place some wider context, give it something to bring it alive. So we went around with so many different ones – from The Flinstones, Almodovar classics through to several Bond films, including Quantum of Solace, Spectre (Siena and Mexico City) and also The Living Daylights, which has its opening sequence in Gibraltar.
Gibraltar in The Living Daylights
It’s theme song is about facing the darkness of the world and trying to cope with insecurity and loss. It tells us that we cannot judge another’s life until you have lived theirs.
Comes the morning, and the headlights fade away
Hundred thousand people, I’m the one to blame
I’ve been waiting long for one of us to say
Save the darkness, let it never fade away
In the living daylights
Lyrics by: Morten Harket ‘The Living Daylights’ Sung by Ah-Ha
We also both love music and when I can, I add a song in too – the Gibraltar one for instance, included the story of my uncle, who was a taxi driver. He was picking up a fare from the docks one day, waiting in a line as passengers disembarked from the QE2. A very beautiful and elegant lady got into his cab. He asked her if she would mind if he listened to a Maria Callas broadcast, as she was his all time favourite. If you’ve been reading my blogs from the start you will know my uncle and I used to listen to her cassette tapes when I rode with him in his old Mercedes around southern Spain and Gib. The beautiful lady said yes and as the music was playing, my uncle realised she was singing in the back, in absolutely perfect unison. Now in those days there was no social media including TikTok (where this all started) and pictures on the news or papers only now and then. But there in the back of his cab singing Rigoletto, Act 1 Gaultier Malde – Caro Nome, was Maria Callas herself.
If you’ve watched the incredible film, The Shawshank Redemption, you will know the scene this made me think of, where Andy locks himself in the governors office, puts on a record of “Sull’aria … che soave zeffiretto” which is a duettino, or a short duet, from act 3, scene X, of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s 1786 opera The Marriage of Figaro, K. 492,
Andy Dufresne played by Tim Robbins
Red (Morgan Freeman), famously narrates;
“I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is, I don’t want to know. Some things are best left unsaid. I’d like to think they were singing about something so beautiful, it can’t be expressed in words, and makes your heart ache because of it. I tell you, those voices soared higher and farther than anybody in a gray place dares to dream. It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made those walls dissolve away, and for the briefest of moments, every last man in Shawshank felt free.”
The obvious connection and irony between this story, prison life and my friend far across The Pond was not lost on either of us. We had a few laughs in our next messages.
And so, if you have a minute listen to this, and I hope for a moment it sets you free, as Maria sang like no other beautiful bird;
Years ago, I used to play Pontoon with my father, he was an avid card game player, and while Bridge left me napping on the sofa with boredom (never got past the snooze-worthy basics), I loved playing this particular game with him. The 5 Card Trick is a special aspect of Pontoon that adds to the challenge. Understanding this can help you develop your game. To achieve a 5 Card Trick, you must collect five cards without exceeding a total value of 21, which requires a delicate balance and careful decision-making, and a lot of sniggering at our particular card table.
If you manage to gather five cards under or equal to 21, it counts as a 5 Card Trick. This hand is highly valued and often stands out compared to other hands with a total of 21. Each time you decide to twist, you’re working towards forming this distinctive hand.
Now my papa was, unlike me, little Miss Dyscalculia here, a steely mathematician and somehow, to his dismay he had not only produced someone who was shit at maths, but also horrific at science (he was an industrial pharmacist who studied at Imperial in London). But he didn’t just have a clever mind, he snuck in the sneaky parental trick of helping me a bit with my number ineptness, while dealing on top of that the family tradition of being ultra-competitive. In all he had cleverly found a game that he and I could really enjoy together. The keeping the tally bit for me, played into my will to win, as well as track over time, who won last time, it was like another edge to the game, having those rolling score cards and league tables. It was a smashing way of giving me some number confidence back, as well as spending time with one of my favourite people on the planet.
When my father died, and we were sitting down deciding who had what from the house. I asked for the antique card table, it’s one of those ones that swivels around and opens up with a lovely green baize circle inside. But when I eventually got it home, the absolute gem in my hand was one of our old score cards, still tucked inside the table drawer with a wedge of old wax crayon we’d used to mark the cards. It was like holding my very own King of Hearts.
But more recently, I have just binge watched my way through Sneaky Pete on Netflix. No spoilers but it’s about a confidence trickster, and this got me thinking about not just those sly types that slide into your life over the years, but particularly how money and control, amongst other abhorrence’s makes some people turn into absolute wankers, of this there is no denying.
I’ve met a few tricky sods in my time, but sometimes I’ve trusted my belief in humanity rather than my gut instinct, and you know that’s okay too, it’s their badness, their trickery not yours or mine. I’ll let you into a secret, you can worry yourself about what’s been, the trick dear reader, is to decide how it’s going to be. At the end of the Sneaky Pete series and without giving it all away, we see him realise a lot of things and that in one way or another is a learning for him. By repeating his tricks over and over and by teaching others he sees the value in… well, you will need to watch it to find out exactly what. But it deals back to my experience with my father, that practice is in itself a learning trick, while achieving self-belief is another altogether.
From ‘Sneaky Pete‘ (Netflix)
But what about the tricks your body or mind can play on itself. Fairly recent social media has been covering the so-called rapture, most of which was absolutely hilarious. But some people actually fall for this nonsense, and I’m not talking about your faith but the really mind-bending bollocks that this was.
Religion has a real and defining place in many people’s lives, not least of all mine. I’d go so far as to say, that particular faith aside, being brought up with a belief taught me to be a better, kinder and more honest person. Most people I know will tell you; I find it impossible to lie, and that’s not some religious guilt, it’s just an honest to goodness default setting to be truthful. And that for me is a good trick to have up your sleeve, and no I’m not going to say ‘the truth shall set you free’, but a lie, in my book takes away the person you are fibbing to, their own right to choose based on the truth. If you tell someone you are well, when you are actually sick, for instance, it takes away their ability to care or to help.
I’ve rambled off track here a bit, as usual… but what I wanted to say, that finding your trick, that ace up your sleeve, be that a post-it note stuck to your forehead, or a rhyme that helps you remember; – that version of your own card trick, which can be as mind bending as a mathematicians puzzle or finding your own equivalent of that old Pontoon scorecard, to remind you, that like me, you can at least now add up to 21. There’s no gambling with those odds, but your chances are always good if you play life with truth and love at the centre of your deck.
How do I do it, what’s my trick with for instance my recent country-moving decision. Yes, I get scared sometimes, like for instance, have I done the maths correctly (eeek) have I got enough in the tin to live off until I shuffle off this earth? Fear is just that, it’s a mind trick – it’s a feeling rather than a reality, the reality is I’ve got this far on my own, and now moved to another country. So, excuse me if I dust off the superwoman pants even for a moment.
Tricks aren’t just for the brave or the calculating miscreants, we all have them up our sleeves for when we need them. Call it self-belief if you want to.
You can go your own way
You can be true
You can go your own way
You can be true
Lyrics and Song: ‘Sail with Ease’ by Liam Bailey from Sneaky Pete, soundtrack
P.S My papa was one for some hilarious top tips, he once told me while helping with the Sunday lunch, that the best trick to get clean finger nails was to make a crumble. And that is exactly the person I got my sense of humour from, …well, I did warn you.
Readers of my cancer blog will know I didn’t hold back on the horror of that particular time, now this story isn’t about that period of my life, in fact it was several years earlier when I was oblivious to that missile heading my way. But, I will nevertheless tell this story in all its somewhat gruesome detail, so if you are the queasy type then scroll on.
I was heading to Annaheim for a food show, the irony of this will come later. Never a Disney fan, too much schmaltz for me, but heading for Disneyland country I was. Turns out alongside all the rides and Mickey Mouse the town makes its money from a big portion of an events, exhibitions and conference sideline. Who knew.
Get in…
My flight was in the morning which meant the horrible early start heading for Heathrow, I’d not had time to eat much breakfast and grabbed a family sized bag of Peanut M&M’s on the way through the airport. I scoffed them down and boarded my flight. Less than an hour in I felt like I needed to do the largest burp, and this was without the gaseous intervention of a can of 7-Up. But I just started to feel worse and worse, and eventually I thought oh crikey I’m going to be sick, and as luck would have it (not) I’m in the middle of a row of four seats and had to climb over the snoozing woman (one foot on either arm rest, style… come on, we’ve all done it) next to me and sprint down the aisle to the bank of toilets, mid cabin. Well I thought that was that, glass of water and back to my seat… you know watch the film and eat something resembling cat sick (excuse the pun) out of a foil tray, but no… and still many more no’s. If I said this went on the entire remainder of the flight I would not be exaggerating.
Ate the lot (no shame)
In between inflight turbulence and trying to blag my way at speed into the First class loos, I spent most of the flight in one toilet or lying on the floor outside another, and believe me sticky plane carpets don’t bear a close inspection, or being handed yet another sick bag by a flight attendant. Long distance porcelain phone calls and cuddling those god awful plane toilets for hours with only brief islands of calm before it all began again. It all got really grim as I had to be seated for the final approach to LA, it wasn’t a smooth descent either, but yes you’ve guessed it, I kept on yacking. The poor people in the row behind me were passing sick bags forward for me in quick succession. The lovely lady, I’d climbed over earlier was holding my hair (I had loads of it in those days) and mopping my forehead with those hand sanitiser wipes. At least part of me smelt vaguely of lemons.
Artist’s Impression in Case You’re Already Feeling Queasy
We landed eventually, and I was told to stay in my seat while they got everyone off first. The poor sods sitting anywhere near me, almost ran off the plane. The flight deck had radioed ahead to get me some support. By this point I couldn’t stand, I was so ill and exhausted, they helped me off the plane with rubber gloves and face-masks. I thought I was hallucinating when I saw Dolly Parton waiting for me with a wheelchair on the ramp. I squinted through my sickie hair and sweat exhausted eyes, nope still Dolly Parton.
DAVID CROTTY/PATRICK MCMULLAN VIA GETTY IMAGES
“We y’all hear you been sick on the plane darlin,’ she said.
I really was either unconscious or they’d slipped me a Mickey Finn on that 747. Dolly wheeled me at a fair lick through the airport, turns out hours of inflight barfing gets you through passport control at speed. We arrived in the luggage hall and I’m eyeing the carousel and it’s rotating just like my head feels, the smell of rubber is well, making me feel… yep one last throw on the arrivals floor (at least it was tiled). I looked sideways at Dolly and said “Are you… ?” And she said, “No darlin’ I’m just a Dolly impersonator and I work at the airport for extra dollars. But you sit tight now, … we can rely on each other,” and she grinned and winked at me. How did she know to choose a line from one of my all time favourite Dolly songs?
Well thank f**k for that I thought as we burned a hasty trail through customs, and she unceremoniously tipped me out onto the pavement by a bus stop, adjusted her ‘you know what’s’ and apologised for not staying with me but she didn’t want to be vomiting tomorrow when she had a show to do. I waved her off and looked for a taxi… the fresh air hitting me square in the face.
I spent the next 48 hours in my hotel room barely moving and room service had been instructed to leave my food outside the room and just knock. I felt vile. Norovirus had left me like an old peanut shell husk. But the story doesn’t end there, and after the exhibition Rasta Prom closing night with Ziggy Marley, by which point I was much better, I weaved my way back to LAX and the flight home. I’m sitting at the gate and I spot the lovely lady who’d been so flipping kind to me on the way over. I asked how she was and she looked weakly at me and said she seemed to have picked up a sickness bug and was ill for most of the trip to California. I bought her a drink and apologised profusely. She was as kind to me as I’d remembered. I did make sure my seat wasn’t next to hers this time, didn’t want to risk a repeat performance.
Moral of the story:
Don’t have peanut M&Ms before a long haul flight. To this day I can’t eat them.
If you think you’ve seen Dolly Parton you probably have.
Always take an extra sick bag.
The kindness of strangers never ceases to amaze me. Just make sure you give some back.
You do something to me that I can’t explain
Hold me closer and I feel no pain
Every beat of my heart
We’ve got something goin’ on.
Lyrics by: Maurice, Robin and Barry Gibb
Sung by: the one and only Dolly Parton & Kenny Rogers.
I’ve always loved a good signpost, I think it’s the geographer in me, that loves maps and navigating and they’re all wrapped up together. That and my ironical innate sense of any direction, makes them vital markers in my brain. The word ‘sign’ itself is derived from the Latin signum, meaning “mark” or “signal’. But signs aren’t just about the ones telling you the train is coming, to stick to the footpath, how many miles it is to the next town, or when to turn left. They can be as vital as sign language or even those small things that you see and then interpret; the look on someone’s face, their tone of voice or that they are always late, return your calls on time, always know what to say … the list is endless. We all have our little markers in life those signals, that tell us what we feel we need to know or understand. Star signs, a white feather, road signs, up in the bloody air signs, they are all around us. Hearing your neighbours arguing continually through the walls, can be a sign it’s time to move house, or the summer waft of grilling burgers may be your sign that as a barbecue enthusiast, you have landed on your upturned burger bun-loving feet.
But what are my signs? Well for one, I’ve been thinking a lot of a friend of mine lately, she died a few years ago of the unmentionable C-word, she was a life force and my lasting memory of her is dancing on the stage at the Breast Cancer fashion show, while Tony Christie belted out “Is this the way to Amarillo.’ But more than that, she loved rainbows, and since she’s gone whenever I see a rainbow I feel she’s here giving me a little sign. She was hugely encouraging, when I first started seriously thinking of moving to Italy, and her fierce bravery for life is one in which I often seek comfort.
For Rachel
The seasons here in Umbria are shifting, a couple of storms later and while it is still toasty in the high 20’s during the day, the mornings up here in the mountains are swathed in mist, making it seem like I’m living in the clouds. It’s quite beautiful and worth getting up early to witness.
But it’s a sign that winter is coming and cooler nights (hallelujah) and finally I can think about wearing the jeans I brought with me 5 months ago. But those few rainy days, brought some stunning rainbows, and if I needed it, a sign that I am where I am meant to be. The fields that were full of sunflowers in June are drying and being harvested, another sign of shifting daylight hours as those golden heads darken and droop. Did you know sunflowers are a sign of our condition of being?
And weirdly for some reason I’ve been feeling more anxious lately, the purchase of the apartment I am buying is seemingly endless with complications. I’ve never moved house, without there being some delay, major stress or nightmare survey, I am sure this has played a part, too many bad experiences. While this one isn’t falling into that pot exactly, I’ve noticed that I’ve begun to check my phone a lot, for any updates or replies, and how that’s been making me feel, tense and worried. Time is ticking along. That was my sign to find a way to relax, so while I still had my phone in my hand, I booked myself into a hot spring spa about an hour away in Tuscany for an afternoon of relaxing. The last few months have been fun but also exhausting; navigating bureaucracy in another language that I am far from fluent in, but also solo. We all need to pay attention to those signs that it’s time to switch off, and I had a super afternoon for the sum total of 29 Euros, floating in hot natural springs. It was fabulous.
A Sign to Relax
Italians seem to love signs to the point of oblivion and confusion. Pretty much every road junction and bend in the highway is cluttered with a stack of often conflicting signposts, don’t get me started on when there are two facing opposite ways for the same thing. But my point here is don’t let those signs in your head stack up like a mad Italian crossroads, listen to them as they are rarely ever wrong.
Sign, sign
Everywhere a sign
Blockin out the scenery
Breakin’ my mind
Do this, do that
Can’t you read the sign?
Song and Lyrics by – Five Man Electrical Band
PS If you need a sign to go exploring one night in the dark, drive up to that hilltop and wait for the lunar eclipse to appear through the soft clouds on the horizon. This is my sign to you to not miss those experiences.
Lunar Eclipse over Perugia
PPS This could be your sign to ask me to do some content writing for you, I can be reached at writeupymystreet@btinternet.com
Am drifting back to an earlier Clint inspired post here, but you know when you watch an old spaghetti western, when the desert heat is palpable in those hot, dusty and sweat drenched, exhausted faces; that lingering quiet in the highest temperature of midday, just as a dried husk of tumbleweed rolls and bounces past.
Well, in case you’d not been reading the news, Italy is in the midst of an unprecedented heatwave since early June. It’s normally not this hot until mid-July, but day after day it’s been hitting the 40s centigrade or very close. Your skin feels like the moisture is being desiccated by the second and on top of that the mosquitoes have been out in force. My back looks like a join the dots map of Italy and I’ve been eyeing the spare cheese grater as a means to reach those places in the middle of your back, you know the ones where only those with arms like an orang-utan could have a hope of reaching.
Mosquitoes, the world’s most pointless insect after wasps.
Once the sun sets and the air cools a few meagre degrees, windows are opened to let in any semblance of cool night air. I’ve got a fan running non-stop to keep my two cats at a comfortable temperature. Although after one of them took to sleeping in the bidet I bought her a pet cool mat. On the upside my laundry bill is minimal as unless you are going out, seriously who wants to wear anything more than the essentials in this heat.
In other news I’ve been sweating my way through appointments at the local municipality office as I went through applying for Italian residency, while on the other side of the security screen there is a whirring A/C, my face is dripping. I’m literally sweating like a nervous dog. But some good news, I am now officially a resident here, and one step closer to Italian health care and have been able to sack off hiring a car and buy one. Having finally stopped getting rinsed each month, I’ve splashed out and bought a little Fiat 500 in pale blue. I am pretty sure Avis are glad to see the back of me, as two weeks ago I was driving down the hair pin bends from my apartment to the main road below when an old man was coming the other way and didn’t see me swerving out the way or honking my horn like a loon, and smashed into the front of my car. My driver’s side door wouldn’t open, my leg was whacked against the steering column (nothing cut or broken so phew…) and I now have a smashing (‘scuse the pun) bruise and a bump on my shin. But thank the car hire gods for reminding me to take the extra insurance as all covered, as it was close to a write off. I had a few days of feeling the shock and felt a bit wobbly inside, but I spent the weekend making deserts for a friend’s barbecue and helping out with the catering at a pizza party, which helped to take my mind off it all.
Pear and Gorgonzola Pizza (which was divine)
I’ve also been house hunting and had found a lovely apartment made an offer which wasn’t accepted but was told the owner would only take full price. So, I upped it and then he decided he couldn’t be arsed to sell and took it off the market (silent inward screaming).
Back to the drawing board… and I found a little Cielo-Terra (means sky – earth) in a hill town. About 500 years old and restored, lovely … however, the ground floor rooms were so damp the plaster was coming off, the owner is an architect so he should know better but he not only hadn’t got permission for all the alterations he’d done to a very historic building, but he’d also neglected to get a certificate of habitability. We all know what happened next… back to the drawing board.
I’ve now found another apartment near the lake here in Umbria, and the other day got the magnificent news that my offer has been signed and accepted and should be moving in late September. It needs a good decorate and freshen up, but I will have all the time to do it up and make it home. I will be sitting on that veranda with the lake in the distance having a well-deserved Aperol.
Lake Trasimeno
It’s 3 months since, I arrived, and it’s been baking hot, tiring and at times bewildering; the cats are slowly accepting the new billet, (little do they know we’re moving again) and Jack as per the pic below, has taken to sleeping in the bidet when it gets super hot.
But my Italian is slowly improving thanks to weekly lessons, and I have not once regretted coming here and taking that enormous leap. So, you could say, car crashes aside, Italy so far has my heart.
Ricordo ancora il suono: “Click, boom, boom, boom” Senti il mio cuore, fa così: “Boom, boom, boom”
Lyrics By Rose Villain
(I still remember the sound, Click, boom, boom, boom
Feel my heart, it goes like this, boom, boom, boom)
(Live without fear) This post has been a very long time in the making, not just typing it out and composing the words but also having it quite certain, or as certain as it can be in my head. I’ll take you back a few years first; About 21 years ago I bought a little apartment in Italy, it’s part of a 12th Century castle and it’s all it should be with beams, tiled floors, a leaky toilet cistern, a fireplace and a view out onto a garden filled with lavender, rosemary and olive trees. I can still remember the first time I saw the place; I was with a friend from work who had come along with me on my viewing trip to Umbria. We drove around some winding mountain roads and as we turned a corner, to one side was a stunning medieval hill town with the valley in the distance, perched on top of a rocky outcrop, like something other worldly, but to the other side, was a tiny bell tower on top of a hill.
That bell tower, built by Franciscan monks and housing a bell brought from Rhodes (so the story goes) belonged to the castle, and it was a little more than love at first sight (rose tinted specs went right out the window). It all began even further back, following a short lived marriage and once the dust settled on the divorce papers, I realised I needed to make some kind of future proof investment. Or at least buy part of a castle in Italy. I opted for the latter. Every year since, apart from the unmentionable joy that was Covid, I have been over at least once. It was the first place I wanted to be once I’d recovered from breast cancer and not surprisingly after a couple of years of more recent life ups and downs, the place I want to be at most of all. It has something magical about it, it rebalances my brain and rebolsters my supply of shoes. I’ve been there enough now to have chucked the pink tinged glasses in the bin and stopped a long time ago from wondering why the DIY shops are shut on Saturday lunchtimes, when surely that’s when they do most business. I only needed telling once, ‘well they have to eat’ was the stellar reply. A country where they take their food seriously and also use, believe it or not very few fresh ingredients to create some of the best food in the world. Plus also, of course some lyrical inspiration from George.
‘In the absence of security, I made my way into the night’ – George Michael
And so, I made an enormous and life changing decision to move to Italy, for good. I completed on the sale of my house last month, loaded everything apart from a car full of luggage plus my cats, into a lorry and moved myself into a little flat for a couple of weeks while the cats underwent all their EU vaccinations and AHC’s. Then, we boarded LeShuttle and started a 2 ½ day, one way, road trip to Umbria. I had my last hair cut at the salon I’ve been going to for over 20 years, said goodbye to friends and family (who I am fully expecting to visit asap) and we headed into what was to be one of many tunnels. Night one was in Nancy, a fairly basic hotel, I just about fitted my case and two cats in. Zero sleep that night, and the next day dragged into a further series of tunnels as we snaked our way across that corner of France. The Vosges mountains couldn’t be dented by the rain and drizzle as we crossed into Switzerland. Weirdly Switzerland isn’t what I expected, or at least all the bits I saw. More or less every valley was occupied by a pharmaceutical factory, these things are vast and the towns were less than idyllic, that is until we swung through the last of the next batch of (yes, you’ve guess it…) more tunnels. I also discovered the role of being in the front passenger seat in a RHD vehicle; you’re chief in charge of toll booth tickets and payments.
Somewhere in Switzerland
Since arriving it has been to say the least a week of unexpected light and the sadness of the death of Pope Francis. Let’s hope the next one fills his well-worn shoes, I won’t say who my Euros are on, in case I jinx it.
Conclave starts on May 7th.
I’ve made a restart (after last summer) on house or flat hunting, seen a few definite no’s and one possible contender. The cats are slowly settling in, although living in a medieval castle is at times quite noisy, all those hard terracotta tiled floors carry every sound from your neighbours. One of the cats keeps hiding in the wardrobe while the other is a little braver and has realised, she can jump off my hand painted cupboard and land squarely on my bladder first thing in the morning. The spring festivals are underway and so far, cheese, tulips and asparagus, plus I found the most amazing fresh pasta shop; waddled home with a bag full.
They say you should follow your dreams; life is too short, and you only live once… you know all the rest. For most of us we say these things and don’t do it, or at least not in any way that truly constitutes following a dream. But I’ve sailed too close to death myself and lost too many others, wondering what is coming next, to hesitate anymore over what has on one side been a tortuous 10 months of selling, decluttering and getting rid of over half my possessions, not to mention an awful lot of shoes, while on the other looking forward to a life in Umbria. Time can be a storm in which we allow ourselves to be lost, but it can also be one that brings us joy, gelato, homemade pasta and all the Aperol’s. I’m going with the latter.
And to end appropriately with a quote from one of my most favourite songs;
Ah, might as well jump (jump!) Go ahead and jump Might as well jump (jump!) Go ahead and jump
No, not that kind of breakdown, I mean the sort where we look at our emotions, take them as categories, if you will, of feelings and our response to life situations. Examine them like an emotional science project. What causes us to feel like this, and we’re talking the good, the bad and the ugly here.
Zero apologies for using this image
Can we square up to them and see what’s contributing to our emotions and how when we need to cope better or even just a little, how do we do that. Well, this is my take on all of this, so if any of this helps spin that wheel of emotions, read on as I’m going to take a little dive into some of the following.
What’s contributing to this
How does loss grief impact us
Are emotions whatever they look like, okay?
What has helped
Why do we push through
Coping strategies
I finished my last blog with how music and also notably bad dancing lifts me up and how in addition, I guess, writing and art are important to me. Not just as coping strategies but also just as part of who I am. They are a core that runs through personality, I try and see life around me as art, whether that be my shoes, a plate of food, a painting, an advert, the way someone moves, life is all about art, and without it we become lesser beings. In my view anyway. Paul Cézanne the French Impressionist painter when he wasn’t swigging Absinthe with Vincent Van Gogh, summed this up, perfectly.
“Life is art. Art is life. I never separate it”. Cézanne
I curated an art exhibition once, it was one of those times in my life I will never forget, I got to organise and buy art for an incredible gallery in London. It was my kid in a toy shop moment. Making it all work, look right, sell right I just had the best time those weeks of planning and proofreading, learning how to hang not to mention carry a life size lion up The Mall. So, ask me again what helps me push through, what’s one of my coping strategies, it’s invariably a painting so beautiful it makes my eyes leak. Whether you like a painting or not, it should conjure some emotion, even if it’s just a snigger, and you see that’s that flipping emotional wheel exactly to a tee. If something helps you, you use it, if it doesn’t find your thing and hold it close for when you need it.
I was watching an Italian series on Netflix the other day, it’s called Storia della Mia Famiglia, (The Story of My Family) and I highly recommend it, even if you need subtitles. I’m not going to go all waxing lyrical about my own family, but the series is a masterpiece in what life is like, the shit end and the bloody funny end. It tracks across a vast array of human emotions, taking in grandma to the children, it somehow (spoiler alert), meshes in drug use, mental health, cancer, death, fear, self-forgiveness and the importance of dancing or at least finding your equivalent thing; remembering what gives you joy or calm, peace or a smile etc, That it is okay to grieve, to worry to be angry and to also (as this was Italian)… throw plates. Italians do emotions out loud and, in the film, each character encapsulates all the sentiments we can think of on that pinging back and forth emotional wheel.
They lie to each other, they are angry, exasperated, happy, hopeful, impatient (of course), they show contempt and are judgemental, even the nuns upstairs are included with their gratitude, sense of humour and belief. But this shows us with every moment, that they are all real emotions, and they are all part of life.
Then the main character dies (more spoiler alerts), with the story moving between before and after his death and how he knows each of his family will suffer, but also how he knows them and what might be their way of coping, not forgetting him, or not feeling sad but of a way to see the light. What emotions he aligns with each of them and how he can get them to see, after his death that they can be happy again. He gives them each the gift of a personalised coping strategy, in asking them to tell him what they love about him, it’s his way of opening their eyes to help them when he is gone.
He says this so perfectly with the words.
‘Ragazzi quando sembrate tristi semplicemente ballate,
ballate perché quando ballate la tristezza si disintegra’
(Kids, when you seem sad just dance,dance because when you dance the sadness disintegrates)
So how would you describe yourself, be honest? People tell me I am funny, confident and smart – that I have great style. (I spend a literal fortune on shoes, I’ll have you know). But I don’t see myself that way, well not always. Been times when I have felt like I am sitting on the outside of everyone around me. They’re in the middle having fun, chatting, getting on, I’m looking for a quiet corner alone. I thought this was because I thought no one liked me or wanted to speak to me, or that I didn’t know how to articulate my feelings, my brain didn’t know how to even begin to express all of this.
Somewhere in the middle of all of that, I think I’ve realised that I did as a child, on occasions, feel stupid, plain, less well behaved, less valued. So, I backed myself away into that quiet corner, over and over again hoping no one would see me or notice. Then I could disappear and not have to face someone telling me again I was less than them. Eventually, I didn’t know how to get out of that corner, so for so long I stayed there, thinking that it was my safe space, but the truth is, that all that corner did was solidify those feeling of being ‘less than’. That it was in fact contributing to how I was feeling. It didn’t matter if they wanted to sit with me or not, it was about how and why I was feeling. It was about allowing myself to accept the bare minimum. What has helped, apart from Fausto getting us all to dance (and he was right by the way). Recognising those emotions and then unlearning those behaviours is vital, knowing that they were never too much.
You know what else; everyone is scared sometimes and that’s okay. At least I’m not always alone in my corner. The film uses all the emotions and gives them all free range to be what they are, and it also teaches us that happiness and joy and all the other thoughts and feelings, however big or small things have a place. That mental health, fear, sickness, love, openness, humour, etc are all normal they are all 100% bloody okay.
This is all about finding a way to turn around and look at life’s emotions in a different way, which has at times been very hard and I’ll be honest at times I didn’t even know it was possible or a thing. I just thought that corner was where I belonged. But now I have to trust myself to turn up the music; to find my tune and to trust that not everyone wants to see me alone and that indeed if they do, they are not worth my time or my joy. My joy is all mine, better still, it is actually there in front of me, not behind, or in that sodding corner.
A real lesson in that Italian series was that sadness can be a good thing, like any emotion, and I mean any of them. Do not shy away, you just need to look hard at it, without fear and discover what is causing those tears or a downturn in your smile, is it grief? And that is totally okay to feel loss and sadness, to be bereft of someone you loved. We need that to understand how to feel happy again. To find a way out but without being scared of going back. Sorrow, sadness or even fear are all emotions that we should respect and sit with them while we can see why and where and how. Then we can find the love again, but knowing that sadness and all the other emotions will pop their heads in from time to time. When we are really happy, and calm and at peace, what and why are we feeling that, can we pop that down in a notebook, can we take a photo to capture it? So then we know when another day or week is causing us to feel the flipside, we can use that time of happiness to cope.
I’ll give you one of mine, (back to music again, by the way). A few years ago, I went to a Peter Gabriel concert, anyone who knows me will tell you he’s my all-time favourite. I’ve not missed a tour since I was 16. I’d been given VIP seats; 4th row from the front and to see the soundcheck and meet Peter. I was beside myself, but then it got way better, I got an email asking me to be on camera for a film they were making about the tour. Not only was the whole evening amazing but just look at my face. I’ve popped that whole evening in the coping bucket, it’s there when I need it and it’s there when I don’t just to make me love that whole concert all over again.
‘This is the new stuff (This is the new stuff) I go dancing in, (We could go dancing in)‘
From Sledgehammer by Peter Gabriel
But back to emotional stuff, I wonder sometimes if grief is so hard because we have to eventually find a way to even let go of that sense of loss even a little, in order to have a better life ourselves. But that very letting go, can maybe seem like you have forsaken that memory, but the truth is maybe a little different; what if that letting go was just allowing our pain to ease but that we never forgot the good times and that we take inspiration from those moments.
When we experience a traumatic event, we can sometimes pre-empt any kind of joy, by a sense that it won’t last, or that it might be too good to be true. It’s our way of self-preservation. On the days when our hearts feel full, and to others we seem really happy, we have that sense in the back of our minds that it will be stripped away from us. The thought of this happening can be so detrimental, adding to that cycle – and we can be especially vulnerable to this if you’ve had your happiness crushed by someone, or lifechanging trauma. It becomes like a constant state of preparedness, the bad news, the let-down, for something to go wrong. It makes that corner a safe space, in both our hearts and minds.
Working towards hoping for the best and allowing it to happen if it does is a step forwards. But also understanding that a bad day, doesn’t mean a bad day, every day. But this hoping for and that state of preparedness can trap you in a constant ‘pause’, from life, from, well… from being entirely there in that moment. Think back to me in my corner, what might be your equivalent.
Not wanting to go all psychoanalyst here, but you know what I mean, if you have one foot on the brake, you can never actually drive down the road into the proverbial sunrise. And as Fausto rightly said, when you dance the sadness disintegrates. Its understanding that balance, that need to let go, to remember what it feels like to ‘dance’ or whatever your release is, and to know that it is perfectly okay to feel crap, to process that and to understand what that crap feels like, but also allow yourself to have that dance, it’s your life after all.
And so that’s the point of this one, is that no matter how back to front we feel (Peter Gabriel fans will get the pun), or right way around, or inside out, its actually the right way, for right then. Whatever brought us to that space in time, is right where we are meant to be. And trying to do what I usually do, and block any fearful feelings is not what the universe has in mind, we’re supposed to sit there and experience all the fun, the crap and the in between stuff. Its life.
If you don’t learn how to embrace your emotions when they happen when you feel them, then to protect yourself you go and sit in that corner, and stay there until you find your song, your light switch, your poetic confidence, your favourite shoes, the beauty or energy to see it and not hide from it. Because that hiding keeps it there, trapped, and each time you don’t look at that moment of less than perfection, square in the face, no matter how hard it is… well guess what, it just grows each time you add another piece of sadness, anger, worry… grief. The bucket gets deeper.
If you were lucky enough to grow up with someone who showed you that it was okay to be sad that if you felt sick that was okay too, you had support, someone to explain and sit with you, rather than maybe gaslight or even punish. Not everyone keeps their dream job or has a parent who tells them how amazing they are, passes all their exams and doesn’t miss their train on a cold dark night. Although it may seem like one more thing, or a why me moment… it is absolutely okay if you feel like crying, hiding or even running away. If you hold all that inside you, all those things you hid from in your corner, that pain let me tell you is a sneaky joy sump right there. But you can come back. You can always come back, that’s okay too. It’s life isn’t it. The ups and the mother fucking downs. If you need help or just a hand to hold. Ask for it and keep asking until you find the right support. We don’t always meet the right person first time you look for love. Same goes for support, sometimes the strangest opportunities and people fill that space for you, when you’ve felt others have let you down. I’m telling you, don’t give up.
To finish up with some emotional cheese. How can you help deal with foreboding joy?
Practice gratitude: Try writing down what you’re grateful for and why you’re grateful for it
Practice mindfulness: Pay attention to the present moment
Thank your worries: Acknowledge your worries and dread, and tell yourself that they’re no longer needed
Stay until your love is, alive and kicking
Stay until your love is, until your love is, alive
Last week I was heading into London to get my hair cut, I parked my car at the station and headed over the footbridge, there is a lovely view for miles down the straight track, with the South Downs in one direction and the castle in the distance in the other. But last week, there was young man standing crying, and I mean really crying. His face was red, and his eyes were that blotchy swollenness, that told me he’d been sobbing for ages.
I stopped and asked him if he was okay, and the flood gates opened as he cried even harder while he told me his father had died and he just couldn’t stop the tide of grief, it was constant, and he was broken with abject sadness.
I noticed someone from the station staff edging closer, and I realised the potential seriousness of the situation. But I kept talking to him, and I gave him a hug and said how sorry I was, and said he was obviously really close to his dad, and how special he must have been to him. He then told me, that his father had passed two years ago, and he just was not getting beyond his overwhelming sadness. I could see the panic in his face, as he felt literally trapped and had no way of knowing which way to go with his pain.
I shared with him my own sorrow, that my father had died some years ago and that grief has no timeline and it’s always okay to cry and to miss someone so much your heart feels like it’s cracking open. How the smallest things will set you off at random, for me it could be at a supermarket and seeing a massive bar of Cadburys wholenut, my father’s favourite, or just simply out of the blue for no reason other than my eyes just decided to leak like their life depended on it. The times I have stood and turned my face away from others, as the loss of my father was overwhelming, not wanting to share my hearbreak. But it’s okay, to miss someone you loved that much.
I offered him my Mars bar as by this point, I was trying to keep him talking and distract him; he had a dairy allergy. From my other pocket I produced an apple… he laughed a little through his tears. I said I always have a small buffet on me for emergencies, you never know when you need a snack.
I asked him which train he was getting, and it was the same as me, so I asked if he’d walk with me (sneaky distraction technique) as I had bad knees after my surgery. As we walked, he told me how he used to work with his father, and they lived together and bit by bit the love he had for him just spilled out of his every word. He was absolutely broken with grief. A few more words and tears, and he told me he was going into London for a medical appointment as he’d injured his neck in a bike accident years ago, his dad would have gone with him, they’d have had a day out. Now he was on his own. If you could ever tangibly feel sorrow, it was in that moment.
The train came and we got on, I could see he wanted to sit alone so I just sat a few rows along and let him know if he wanted to come and sit with me if he just wanted the company that was okay. He showed me a photo of him and his father, must have been a family wedding, peas in a pod and both so happy. I showed him one of my papa and me, and it all of a sudden reminded me that this month was the anniversary of his death. In that second, I realised that I hadn’t just helped him, he’d helped me as well. By sharing my experience of grief, I’d put into words how I feel and also how I try and manage those raw emotions when they do hit me. And they still do. Often.
He wanted to know if it gets easier, not really, I replied, but somehow you learn to cope with it, most of the time. But there are also days when it just is okay to cry and feel that your heart won’t be the same ever again. I like to think it won’t, in a way I think that’s how it should be, when someone you loved that much passes.
One of my favourite films has a quote at the end, which puts this into far better words than I can … and I’ll paraphrase, as it’s in Italian;
The secret of memories, is that everyone leaves a trace of themselves with you.
That way you are never alone.
(from La Finestra di Fronte)
They say that the most important light is the one that you cannot see. That there is so much to life that goes unnoticed, and while it’s unbelievably hard some days to recognise positivity, it’s there. There will be days when that light helps you go forwards, like some sneaky torch just leading you on a little bit nearer to the hope that life can wrap sunshine all around you. But also, that loving someone and missing them is entirely okay, just know that there will be days when you can feel life is good.
Write Up My Street 