Sinister: Αs if we've exhausted our emotions, there's only time and weather left

[Dimitra]

Some night earlier on this week, I went outside to walk my puppy after
having spend almost an day and a half in front of my computer. I was
surprised to find the real world actually existed out there. It seemed as
true as the imaginary one. It was dark, humid and shiny. It seemed a wee bit
magical. And it is big!! A whole city lies outside my doorstep. You can walk
down to the sea, buy ice cream and sit down looking at the lights of the
city and of some ships, and of the moon too usually, reflecting. Almost a
circle of lights, and you're sat in the edge of it. It made me feel guilty
for always saying I don't  like this place.

As I said, the world out there is big. For a moment I thought I could feel
the distance between Thessaloniki and ... wherever my friends are -most of
them in Scotland; I could feel that distance on my skin. It was heavy. But
distance is to be crossed, to travel in it.
While travelling this summer, I was always surprised of how you can actually
find yourself somewhere else. I guess this sentence doesn't make much sense.
I was travelling by train, which is relatively slow (it took me ten hours to
get from Munster, in north western Germany, to London). And still. The
thought -the realisation- that you can find yourself somewhere else.
Somewhere where things are different. Somewhere you've been thinking and
dreaming of and imagining and all. It was really surprising.

So. Distance makes me want to travel.

Today, it's a really cold day. It feels like winter. Smells like winter too.
The weather is crazy here, it was *summer* two weeks ago -it was 24 degrees
at 11 o' clock on a Sunday night. And now there's this evil cold wind that
comes from Russia blowing everywhere. Russia is a long way away, but it
really is where that wind comes from. I learned that in school; however, I
believe it. It probably is where winter comes from too. It's exciting, that
you get something from so far away -so exotic!- blowing around the streets
of your town.

The world might just be magical after all.

Travelling... when I was in my last year in school and everyone was talking
about travelling, I wondered why. And I told myself: I want to see how the
weather changes all over the world. And all the weather descriptions I had
read in books flooded my head. I wanted to know how it feels when the clouds
gather in the plains in north western Germany. How it feels on a beach in
southern France after the rain. How does the sky look when the sun sets in
England. How does the rain fall in Amsterdam. Geneva when it's foggy.
And now that I've seen some of those, I can tell you -yes, the rain does
fall differently in different places. And nowhere I've been to are summer
nights so sweet as they're in June in Thessaloniki. But I have already said
that.

I'm being told lately about dreams of living in a boat or in a big house in
the countryside.
Which floods my mind yet again with pictures I have acquired from watching
tv and films and from reading books, where people go on a holiday in a house
in a green valley. I mean, I haven't actually seen for myself anything like
that. I particularly remember a house in a Norwegian film  I watched last
spring -I won't say what it's called cause translating to English something
that had been badly translated from Norwegian into Greek would sound awful.
The house was white and small and behind it was a big tree that shed red and
brown leaves everywhere.
I miss autumn. As I said, the weather here is crazy, we go straight from
summer to winter... although I remember faintly that it wasn't always so...
In my mind also come pictures of the boat houses in Amsterdam and Rotterdam,
and I remind myself, not without some pride, that I have seen them myself.

Which brings back to travelling. I thought today, the state should pay for
us to travel instead of pay for universities. Even Auntsadie knows it,
school is bad for the soul. There are best ways to learn things than being
told about them. We should be left alone to discover them.  And travelling
is part of that process.

Oh! And everyone should have free internet and free phonecalls!! Especially
long-distance phonecalls.

Which is a way of changing the subject to list crushes and long distance
relationships . Are they a Bad Thing or a Good Thing? Hmm. What if they're
just a Thing? What if they're not that different from 'normal' crushes and
short distance relationships?
Yes. I know the difference. I feel it every morning when I wake up. And when
I walk the streets of my town and they happen to look particularly beautiful
for some reason. I've been told it's what you feel when you hang up the
phone. I don't know about that. Yet. I also feel it when I tell someone I'm
in love, or something like that. And I have to convince them I'm not crazy.
Giving them a 'please don't say that, no, it's not like what you think'
look.
But, I insist -list crushes are not that different. Not more dangerous and
risky than other kind of crushes. Someone who is 3000 miles away can prove
to be a different person than who you thought they were. Of course. but.
Isn't it that this can happen as well when you're sharing your bed with
someone? I think you know it is.
List crushes. You loose something, but you win something else. When I'm
walking the streets of my town, and they for some reason look particularly
beautiful. I know there's someone wishing he was there with me. That there
is someone who'd like me to think of him. And I always thought, or rather
no, I have discovered, that the actual part of a relationship, what makes it
*it*, is having someone in your mind and in your heart. And near your soul.

I think I've said too much.

Love, and the overcast sky, the kind that makes colours look brighter,

Dimitra


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