Email excerpt, unedited

My sabbatical is not working yet. I feel bored, frustrated and panicked. The whole thing started on Monday and has been much more difficult than I imagined. I constantly felt the urge to get up and go to c5 to do some work. I’m trying to expand the company and I spent my time on that the first two days. After that I couldn’t do anything for that project (I’m waiting for city hall to give me an approval after which I can continue my negotiations with the realtor, but city hall will probably shoot down my proposal, because they only want new stores in the area, no new offices, so I’m already trying to figure out what Plan B is going to be) so I went back home to figure out what to do next. People around me think it’s a bit funny that I’m feeling so restless for being able to rest, but for me all this free time has been stressing. I need to get something to do and while I’m waiting for my project to develop further, I’m on edge. I went to C5 every day and felt better there. Even when I was doing nothing at all. Just being there felt good. There are people there that I like to be with and the whole atmosphere makes me feel much more myself. I think I hugely underestimated how much of this company constitutes me. If that is a sentence.

I have been working for six months to make it possible for this company to survive without me, but I overlooked the work I need to do to make me survive without the company. And whenever I think that, I wonder why on earth I need to do that? Why would I? Why don’t I just keep working? So it’s the outrage that keeps grabbing me and all these questions I ask myself, where instead I should be writing or doing something else useful. I haven’t been doing anything like that up till now, I’ve done all these stupid things at home. Two weeks ago, I realized my life has never been better and I still think that (which is really cool, don’t get me wrong), but right now I feel like I’m isolated from what I love most and I need to find a new kind of balance which is stupid and time-consuming and unnecessary, so why the hell did I ever decide to do this?

2007

I kick the tin cans and colours blend together and the only thing I need to do is watch. What can I say to something that beautiful? No giving away this year. The opposite actually. Where do I send my token of appreciation. Red, blue, green, yellow, white, black, purple, pink. It’s been so long, I was surprised to find out I can get used to this. I can believe in all of this again.



If there was such a thing as a defining moment, I missed it. I’ll always regret it. But I’m here and everything goes so fast that I tend to forget. Not for long, never for long. And I’m all grown up now. I can let myself go in this whirlwind that keeps me from floating. I am brave, time will pass, it’s all me, it is real and I want all of me, eventually. Even in the middle of the night alone.

So screw it. Screw caution, or patience, or moderation. If freefalling is it, so be it. It’s been wonderful getting used to all the space.

Is it 2008 already? Can't wait to get started.

Volver

I am frightened of the meeting
With the past that is returning
To confront my life all over.
I am frightened of the nighttimes
When my dreams are linked and fleeting
And old mem’ries come to stay.
And yet the trav’ler who’s fleeing
Sooner or later must stop on the way…
And though oblivion, which destroys all being,
Has killed my old hopes, ripping them apart,
Yet I keep hidden a humble hopeful glimmer
That is the only fortune there is in my heart.

Return… with my forehead all wrinkled,
My temples turned silver by time’s falling snow…
To feel… that one’s life is a twinkle,
Twenty years hardly reckon,
And two fevered eyes beckon,
In shadows forestall you
And seek you and call you.
To live… with the soul firmly clinging
To one sweet remembrance
That makes me weep so.

Signs

End of the year

Check5 and me

Madrid

Less than one month to go....getting ready in London!

Kids

Leftover pictures