A list of things that I find important:
1. The touch of the sun upon my skin.
2. A certain quality of daylight that makes the colours of the world vibrate.
3. The sensual proximity of the sea.
4. Stimulating friends.
5. Simple wholesome fayre: goats cheese, fresh tomatoes, oregano, whole wheat paximadhia, olives and barelled wine.
6. Maria.
Six should do it. And of the above? What do I have? Well, let me post here something I wrote from around about this time last year. Trust me, nothing has changed: as I look out the window here at work I see rain... and it has been raining for about as long as I can remember.
... I´m sitting in the office at work once more, once more alone, once more bejacketed, once more rubbing my cold fingers and nose and every so often reaching over to the radiator for warmth. It is cold. And what´s more, it is very, very wet. The sky is grey and it feels like it has been raining steadily forever. I cannot believe that I used to walk around outside wearing a swimming costume... and that that was only l0 days ago.
On Friday after work Maria came to pick me up from the school. Whilst walking to a bistro through the pissing rain we decided to go to an industrial park the following morning to pick up some shelves, a mirror and maybe a washing machine.
The next day we woke late and shagged away the morning. So it was that we reached the bus stop - through slanting rain and wind - at 2 o´clock.
On arriving at the bus stop, Maria decided to be hungry and, as we had 20 minutes to spare before the bus, we went in search of Käsestangen (whatever).
On reaching the bakery, it decided to be closed, so we walked for a further ten minutes into town because she wanted a specific kind of Kasestange from a specific fucking bakery. Needless to say that although we got the pastry, we missed the bus.
It was, she assured me, OK. We would take the bus from the other bus stop and make it just the same. We waited under the rain at this bus stop for half an hour before it transpired that in reality, no such busses as the ones we required had ever passed this way nor indeed were planning to do so in the near future. We walked desultorily back through slanting smir to our first bus stop.
When we got to the industrial park, it was even more dark; the rain a little more persistent. We found the warehouse in the bleakest zone imaginable and the mirrors and shelves it contained. But, we thought, we might find something better and cheaper at the recycling centre that we had visited once, briefly, two and a half years ago. We left the shop, centre bound.
Some time later, as we emerged from the relative shelter of an arboreal tunnel which we had found through lack of knowledge about where the fuck we were going, it started to rain heavily. I mean it pelted it down. I mean there was donner and blitzen. I mean
the rain was horizontal. I mean it was a fucking monsoon.
As we sheltered in the doorway of Hansel and Gretel´s hardware store (closed) wondering where the fuck we were and in which direction civilisation might decide to be found, we realised that this was not a hardware store at all but the recycling centre. Hurray! we thought, unbowed by nature´s torments, then, sortly
after: Shite! It had closed down and moved next to my school. This last we knew because we read the sign: "Grand Opening at new premises on Gisselberger Strasse 33, Sat. 7th of September." (naturally, I have translated, but note the date.)
Once more we walked once more through the rain once more desultorily this time back to the grimmest zone of the industrial park. On arriving simply drenched to the skin we bought the said items and emerged out into... more rain.
She took the mirror, I, a large twenty kilogram pack of wood that had the potential to be shelves. We walked to the bus stop through slanting rain.
On arriving at the bus stop, the busses decided not to run after 4:30. It was a quarter to five at this point and though I remained as cheerful as one can be when one is carrying a twenty kilogram block of wood through an industrial estate with wet clothes, I was
becoming a little weary. We walked to another bus stop, only ten minutes away, through slanting rain.
We eventually got home at 6, lay down our things, took off our clothes and sank into the bed. I was bloody knackered and just wanted to sleep. However, unfortunately I had somewhat shortsightedly offered to cook Maria a tortilla when her brolly committed suicide in the monsoon. As I now learned, she had, at the time, fantasised a tortilla with a specific kind of cheese from a specific shop down in the unterstadt. The rain continued. Maria pulled the duvet up around her ears. I pulled on my squelching
shoes and went out once more into slanting rain.
I do not have sun. In fact, I do not even have sky at the moment. Just grey. It is cold and I miss my paximadhia. But I have Maria and all is well.
Like I said, nothing much has changed.
... I´m sitting in the office at work once more, once more alone, once more bejacketed, once more rubbing my cold fingers and nose and every so often reaching over to the radiator for warmth. It is cold. And what´s more, it is very, very wet. The sky is grey and it feels like it has been raining steadily forever. I cannot believe that I used to walk around outside wearing a swimming costume... and that that was only l0 days ago.
On Friday after work Maria came to pick me up from the school. Whilst walking to a bistro through the pissing rain we decided to go to an industrial park the following morning to pick up some shelves, a mirror and maybe a washing machine.
The next day we woke late and shagged away the morning. So it was that we reached the bus stop - through slanting rain and wind - at 2 o´clock.
On arriving at the bus stop, Maria decided to be hungry and, as we had 20 minutes to spare before the bus, we went in search of Käsestangen (whatever).
On reaching the bakery, it decided to be closed, so we walked for a further ten minutes into town because she wanted a specific kind of Kasestange from a specific fucking bakery. Needless to say that although we got the pastry, we missed the bus.
It was, she assured me, OK. We would take the bus from the other bus stop and make it just the same. We waited under the rain at this bus stop for half an hour before it transpired that in reality, no such busses as the ones we required had ever passed this way nor indeed were planning to do so in the near future. We walked desultorily back through slanting smir to our first bus stop.
When we got to the industrial park, it was even more dark; the rain a little more persistent. We found the warehouse in the bleakest zone imaginable and the mirrors and shelves it contained. But, we thought, we might find something better and cheaper at the recycling centre that we had visited once, briefly, two and a half years ago. We left the shop, centre bound.
Some time later, as we emerged from the relative shelter of an arboreal tunnel which we had found through lack of knowledge about where the fuck we were going, it started to rain heavily. I mean it pelted it down. I mean there was donner and blitzen. I mean
the rain was horizontal. I mean it was a fucking monsoon.
As we sheltered in the doorway of Hansel and Gretel´s hardware store (closed) wondering where the fuck we were and in which direction civilisation might decide to be found, we realised that this was not a hardware store at all but the recycling centre. Hurray! we thought, unbowed by nature´s torments, then, sortly
after: Shite! It had closed down and moved next to my school. This last we knew because we read the sign: "Grand Opening at new premises on Gisselberger Strasse 33, Sat. 7th of September." (naturally, I have translated, but note the date.)
Once more we walked once more through the rain once more desultorily this time back to the grimmest zone of the industrial park. On arriving simply drenched to the skin we bought the said items and emerged out into... more rain.
She took the mirror, I, a large twenty kilogram pack of wood that had the potential to be shelves. We walked to the bus stop through slanting rain.
On arriving at the bus stop, the busses decided not to run after 4:30. It was a quarter to five at this point and though I remained as cheerful as one can be when one is carrying a twenty kilogram block of wood through an industrial estate with wet clothes, I was
becoming a little weary. We walked to another bus stop, only ten minutes away, through slanting rain.
We eventually got home at 6, lay down our things, took off our clothes and sank into the bed. I was bloody knackered and just wanted to sleep. However, unfortunately I had somewhat shortsightedly offered to cook Maria a tortilla when her brolly committed suicide in the monsoon. As I now learned, she had, at the time, fantasised a tortilla with a specific kind of cheese from a specific shop down in the unterstadt. The rain continued. Maria pulled the duvet up around her ears. I pulled on my squelching
shoes and went out once more into slanting rain.
I do not have sun. In fact, I do not even have sky at the moment. Just grey. It is cold and I miss my paximadhia. But I have Maria and all is well.
Like I said, nothing much has changed.
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