Restless, restless.

Stuart McKenna

I am leaving for Oxford soon, and I am restless. What does one do before one's whole life changes? Nothing seems even close to appropriate, precisely because it feels as if every single gesture ought to have some significance, while in fact I am just waiting, most of the time on my own. I have packed most things, I have been with some friends, I have looked at lecture lists, I have unfriended all the people I barely know from Facebook (just because it felt that my personal space was cluttered), I have obsessed over vacuous details, I have felt by turns uncomfortable and giddy. I don't seem to have enough concentration to study any maths or philosophy right now; my nerves are pressing against my skin all the time. It is both anticlimactic (no teary goodbyes, parties, or anything you would see in a film) and unfamiliar: this kind of feeling - nagging anticipation, restless isolation, waiting, waiting, waiting - goes ignored in every single book/film/song I know (if you know an exception, please do tell, I would love to pick up pointers and feel part of some common experience). It's no wonder I am also unable to describe it, or pull anything productive out of this.

The Dream of Despair

When I was little, I used to have dreams which repeated themselves. I thought of them as the same dream, but in a rather hazy sense: the setting, the storyline (if I may call the succession of sensory images which composes dreams so), the ending - all changed. Still, in some sense I inhabited the same world, revisited the same themes, felt the same emotions and sensory states. 

Of these recurrent dreams, this was probably the most poignant one.

I am in a pearly white landscape extending in all directions. I am as clean and at peace as the landscape: the crystal whiteness is both within and outside me, filling me with a light that is at exactly the same level as the one outside. This is boundlessness: I don't know if in power, but surely in satisfaction and peace. There is no desire here, nothing but a pale glow of star-like joy. 

And then suddenly it all goes wrong.

The landscape was a paper leaf left unwritten; now it's scrunched up and torn apart and inked black and viciously stabbed and cut, as if someone was drawing messy, scrambled lines all over the paper (isn't it funny that, to talk of dreams - the purest of metaphors - we have the need still to lay a further layer of metaphors so as to be able to transmit them to others?). There is no one to be seem doing it. There is a hollow scream throughout the air, and suddenly people running everywhere, buildings collapsed, limbs and blood and fear made solid in an earthquake.

Fear, hate, loss, grief, despair. I am sure there will never be anything further, anything else. This is what the world has become, both inside and outside: there is no hope because there is nowhere to escape to.

I no longer dream, or at least I almost never remember my dreams. Reality seems to have grown much less transparent; it's presented in a block of certainties, not as a veil of possibilities. The white sheet of that world can, in clear-skied, clear-eyed days, be seen floating over the river.  

Bat for Lashes' lovely new single

Laura, you're more than a superstar

Isn't it a sweet song? It holds so beautifully on the fine edge between camp-ness and stark poignancy. It fills my chest with a bubble of diffuse pride and affection for random friends, those whose worth seems to go unnoticed by most, most of the time, so much that even they forget it, and then lose their brand of shine and light. 

On Inspiration

Usually, I find "inspiring" aphorisms/tales/images corny, irritating, and insincere, displaying a childish - and rationally untenable - belief in mystical coincidence (why should the Universe be conspiring anything relatively to a specific individual? The Universe doesn't care.). 

On the contrary, this article by Jeffrey Eugenides - one of my favourite authors, with three extraordinary books to his name which you should definitely read - about his personal struggles to finish novels and about the bizarre mental events that gave him strength to do so is very honest, filled with self-deprecating humour, and a clear awareness of the way we are, in the end, responsible for our own strength. I find our human ability to create dreams to chase, to select and organise events in a coherent whole, to construct a meaning for ourselves to hang on to, a source of endless wonder. 

As Eugenides puts it, inspiration

was me, breathing into myself, in order to breathe out again in a flow of words. 

A beautiful corollary of this is the gracious gift of inspiration - the self turns into itself, but eventually projects a new light into the world. Out of our fundamental solitude, maybe bonds with others can be built.

(though I seem to have forgotten how - but then again, I must be the one to build my own inspiration)

It is curious how much of this humble, generous attitude surfaces in Eugenides' books. Probably his fundamental kindness and humanity towards his characters, giving them roots in an imperfect emotional reality which rings so true, are what make his novels so absorbing and relatable. But there is more to his books than the joy of identifying with the characters and of his restrained, but powerfully atmospheric, use of language. They breathe love. 

In The Virgin Suicides, the distant, adolescent love which tragically leaves the girls untouched, frozen forever in their youthful deaths; in Middlesex, the bonds and knots of family love of love as basic life supports; in The Marriage Plot, love in tension with independence and with social structures. These are inspiring portraits of the power - and weakness - of human connections, and they make me hungry to seek their presence.

...

As I get closer and closer to leaving home, I find myself going more and more inside myself. I had not expected these last weeks at home to be spent in such a quiet way, immersed in hazy daydreams about the next three or four years (that, for now, is the duration of my life: further down the road I will be another, a stranger in a strange land), and in the abstract overlapping worlds if mathematics and philosophy. The past seems to be dissolving, leaving just a thin layer of dust and salt on my skin. I have not built any self-narrative - the story we form by stringing select memories into a coherent whole, thereby picturing our life as a story with the self as the protagonist, whose features are defined precisely by those of the selected memories - of the past three years. It somehow seems unimportant: they flew by in disconnected strands and alternating periods of throwing myself into the world and receding into my own head. The only visible result of high school is precisely launching me into the future via getting into Oxford, which is perhaps the reason why that is all I am now able to focus on. I marvel at how perfect the surgery separating me from my recent past has been: I feel white and scrubbed and fresh and clean, all ready to start anew.

In my mind, I'm inside a plane, looking out the window as it goes higher and higher, with all the figures becoming smaller and smaller, becoming mere dots, and then nothing. 

...

...

...

Brave

In a similar note to my last post, some thoughts on another delightful animation film about a young woman finding her strengths and growing up in a vibrant fantasy setting - Pixar's Brave. 

I took my sister and my cousins to watch it at the cinema (we have a kind of tradition of watching Pixar films together), and it was lovely getting to share with them the interesting and motivating ideas which this film explores. It was also a chance to spend some time talking, and it makes me feel very proud and happy to see them grow into their own people, gaining their independence, exploring new aspects of the world, and shaping up their personality.  

Brave's themes made it perfect to watch together. Like most/all Pixar films, it is not really aimed at children: the theme of growing up and finding your personal space and freedom while preserving your family relationships, and the conflicts and misunderstandings that inevitably occur in that process, become relatable and relevant only in your teens. Besides, the delightful cultural references to the Middle Ages and to Scotland (the actors' accents are so endearing and the scenery is so beautiful it really made me want to visit!) would, I suspect, go over most kids' heads. On the other hand, these mature aspects benefit from being explored in such gorgeous, lively animation and with a child-like sense of wonder and heightened action and emotion.

I loved the development of the mother-daughter relationship at the core of the story, which is very much true to real life. The frustrating bickering mother-daughter arguments lead in a subtle, progressive way to a relationship of equals who are willing to compromise and seek mutual understanding on a basis of love. Both Merida and the Queen change and grow, while the King and the Princes complete this family dynamic. Supporting characters are mostly there for colour and cultural background, excelling in this purpose. I never cease to be amazed at how animators manage to capture so much of what being human looks like/is (are they the same thing?).

In the end - after laughing, (almost) crying, and being on the edge of your seat - you are left with an uplifting and sincere message: we are free to grow and develop as individuals, but it takes bravery and support to do so. We should take pleasure from both these elements, for determination and love are all that can lead us to become more complete as human beings.

'Life may be not only meaningless but absurd.'

I spent the last week away in the countryside with my family, which is something we do every year. I am not very sure that I like the countryside anymore. The scenery is different from what I - a lifelong suburbanite - am used to; it makes me feel, as a human being, smaller and more insignificant, because the marks of human life are few, feeble and distant from each other. Of course I am conscious of our tininess in space and time - our size is an issue of scale, and compared to the Universe we are invisible specks, while compared to atoms we are unimaginable universes in ourselves -, but being confronted with it is always a shock. 

We forget our proportion. We pretend we are immortal. We cannot face a world without our selves in it, for obvious reasons: the self is our perspective into the world. Non-existence - the empty void, unfathomable by nature - scares us, so we pretend.

In fact, we must delude our selves to create a meaning for our lives, and we do so everyday. But there is no greater meaning: our lives are self-contained. In acquiring knowledge, we can never jump out of our own heads; similarly, our personal identity is circumscribed to a specific area of space and time, and it cannot transcend it. 

The impact of our action is exterior to our selves, so the idea of achieving immortality by leaving things behind - children, books, structures, progress for humanity - is just another delusion. Furthermore, it is an unsatisfactory one: not only does it exclude perception and action and all the things which make living worthwhile (as Woody Allen famously put it, 'I don't want to achieve immortality though my work... I want to achieve it through not dying.'), but also leads to the question 'What is the point of that (our impact in the future of other people), then?' in an infinite regress.

Religious people answer with God. God is, by definition, the final answer: subject and object united, containing its own purpose and end in itself. I am not going to argue against the traditional arguments for the existence of God (if you want a very strong and clear refutation of the most important ones, you'll find it in Simon Blackburn's Think), so I will just point out two ideas. 

First, this 'rational' conception of God is equivalent to choosing an arbitrary point to pause the regress - why there, then? Why not stop before employing that obscure notion of a divine presence, which is unnecessary to explain the Universe? 

Secondly, this idea of God is very hazy, so much that it is generally interpreted by believers as a matter of emotion. Its features are blank, for it is just a dummy which each culture colours according to its body if beliefs, rules and habits (as can be seen from the multiplicity of religions that exist). And who can claim to truly understand or perceive the 'rational' conception of God? A nothing would do just as well as a something about which nothing can be said.

Quoting Thomas Nagel in What Does It All Mean?:

"But what's the point of being alive at all?"

"There's no point. It wouldn't matter if I didn't exist at all, or if I didn't care about anything. But I do. That's all there is to it." 

If life is not real, life is not earnest, and the grave is its goal, perhaps it's ridiculous to take ourselves so seriously. On the other hand, if we can't help taking ourselves so seriously, perhaps we just have to put up with being ridiculous. Life may be not only meaningless but absurd.

 This is, by the way, one of my favourite quotations. In the end, it doesn't matter that life doesn't matter. It doesn't make any difference to what we can do. So as not to fall prey to manipulation, it is good to remember that life is both meaningless and absurd; however, the fact just does not stick to our minds because we are built to live and should, in my opinion, take the most out of it.

18

I turned eighteen yesterday and it was such a beautiful day, one of those precious ones when life feels like the most exquisite art - and I am both an overjoyed participant and a mesmerised spectator. Looking around - to the people who fill my days, to my memories, to my dreams and expectations -, I perceive with clarity how everything in life keeps morphing into new shapes, and presenting me with new challenges. 

I am the luckiest I could be.

I was gently placed in the world by a loving family - and the world has been kind to me. I have been given so many chances to learn and to grow up, and I have taken them (much thanks to the encouragement and strength of the people who surround me). I have somehow made friends - extraordinary ones -everywhere, and from each I have learnt the art and joy of living, and with all I have shared my own small discoveries. Perhaps best of all, there is still so much more to take from the world and to give to others.

The world is in blossom 

(or maybe my eyes are).

Hang on travelling woman, don't sacrifice your plan

I would like to say I am a travelling woman, moving through life with my head held high in sort of golden halo of confidence and trust in the world and in my own strength to change it (and myself, a part of it), but I don't think I am. I am a girl, and - just like Alice in her Wonderland - I can be tiny, a child almost, so lonely and powerless, and I can also grow big, almost to the dimension of a grown-up woman (but not quite), with a bright gleam of independence in each gesture.

It is generally a mystery to me how the reduction happens (doesn't it seem kind of unnatural?), and it can leave me sick, even physically, as if my body and mind - my whole being, that artificial division should be avoided - had become those of a stranger. I seem to forget everything and wander through a cloud of fear. Then I find some air and force myself to react and evade my own temporary smallness. It is, all in all, a learning experience: smallness makes me question my life principles, and I emerge with new strength. These reductions make me grow more afterwards.

The fact is that growing up is not a linear process: you grow both down and up, sometimes very fast and other times so slowly you fall asleep from self-boredom. It is painful and lonely and there in no one to do it for you. There's no highway to sunny maturity. In fact, there is probably no sunny maturity where we can head to. Growth just goes on - to nowhere. I hope that the process leads to global improvement, but there is no objective standard on 'human quality', so one can never know for sure; however, I believe that improvement is becoming ever more at home in the world, sharing in its rational structure., emphasising more with other people.

That is the path I try to follow. It warms my heart when I can share the journey with someone else, and I sometimes even feel proud of my own choices (though I know pride is just an inner reward for the self-control, and that cheapens its glow). 

Today,  I feel like a travelling woman: my life lately has been full of discoveries and decisions (of inner dimension). I have definitely been moving on.I am glad I didn't sacrifice my plan in moments of terror, for it came back to me before I lost it, even though life made me tired, told me lies, made me fall.

The plan? To learn, that is, to get a clearer picture of the world (by picture, I mean something including all senses and 'pure reason'). In other words, grander still: to eliminate the distance between myself and the world. 

I feel exhilarated because I have been learning a lot (not only academically), thus living the plan to a good extent. In fact, I feel like everything is going faster: I gain momentum as I live. And I am grateful for all the human warmth I get, but I yearn for more. In fact, after spending months craving and enjoying solitude, I now feel a pit-less thirst for contact, for communication, for touch. I know I am vulnerable to sweet, caffeinated illusions, to falling in love with potential; but I feel awake, and my vision is a loud siren song pulling me on to life.

Super Bock Super Rock 2012 - the music

I'm back! I had the chance to see some amazing shows at Super Bock Super Rock. I had never been to a music festival for more than a single night, so my experience this time was really different: I felt I connected to the music in a much more visceral way. I could just go from one concert to another, even from a band or an artist I had never heard of before, be sucked in by the sound almost immediately, and dance and share in the feel of the moment. 

Of course my favourite concerts were still those by artists whose songs I knew and loved already. The connection you develop from listening many times, taking advice from, and generally interacting personally with their music (often more than you do with real people - the songs won't judge you, an they show you you're never alone) is so wide and deep that your heart just keeps leaping and jumping and soaring and flying while they are performing. I don't think saying that musicians often play the role of demi-gods is going to far: most people do experience a kind of catharsis due to music, and certainly idolise them for being able to express more about our inner lives than we ourselves.

The sum of these two types of experience - the open fun of dancing and smiling to refreshing songs and the emotional pull of seeing some of my favourites perform - made me feel everything in a more complete way.

The first day, the effect of the music was impressive. I was feeling, for a variety of reasons, miserably nervous and distressed; however, as the evening progressed, I forgot and let go of everything that was bothering me. Time flew by without me ever feeling tired or out of place.


The energy and warmth of the Alabama Shakes' concert certainly contributed to make me feel at ease. Their music comes straight from a weary, but joyful, acceptance of life, and they are natural, sincere performers on stage.

I then saw a bit of Bloc Party's concert, which was certainly absorbing and got me dancing. I was sorry to go, but I really wanted to see Bat for Lashes at the secondary stage, and I was not disappointed. She  and her music (of course) are the most entrancing mix of light and darkness: sensuous, honey-voiced, moving in sweet abandon between hope and despair, with a flow of sounds (a powerful use of drums and keyboard) that balances theatrical antics and self-expression. Listening to Travelling Woman that night was one of those crisp moments of realisation that inspired me to make some peace with my own mind. (I will definitely write about it later.) Her new songs seem to have a slightly happier, more danceable tonality - I liked them and look forward to her new album.

After seeing Incubus perform their classic (Drive, better known as that song that goes 'Whatever tomorrow brings I'll be there...'), I surprised myself by being gripped into a state of thoughtlessness by Battles. I generally hate electronic music, but for once I got into it, maybe because of their strong use of fast-changing bright, colourful images, of their attractive presence on stage, and of the structured feel of their music.

The second night, the first act I saw was the main one - the controversial Lana del Rey. My opinion? She is a dream-catcher and producer; she weaves an appealing fantasy world for many people of my generation, and that is an achievement to be praised. Her artificiality is not a bad thing: the emotions she sings about are all too human, and the shiny gloss she adds to them allows the listener to find a meaning in common experiences - isn't that one of the purposes of music and art in general?


I liked her show - her coy shyness, 'perfect' prettiness, good voice and diva-like poses are seductive to watch - but I think she loses some of her mellow shine when performing live. Besides, it was much too short (45 minutes leaves you wanting more).

I then danced for the rest of the night: first, to Oh Land's sweet, happy and very colourful pop (a pleasant surprise); then to Friendly Fires (devilishly Summery music), and finally to MIA, with her powerful mix of sonorities and god-like stage presence. It was great fun!

The last night started with Perfume Genius - a quiet, sensitive type who sang ballads and looked a bit like a young, blond Morrissey -, who gave a very nice early evening show.

I was touched by Peter Gabriel's show with his New Blood Orchestra. The orchestra made all of the songs sound majestic, and I liked it that he read a few critical excerpts on politics and society. Of course, my favourite moment was his duet with Regina Spektor singing Aprés Moi.

St. Vincent's show was also impressive - her broken-doll figure, twisty movements and devil-may-care attitude made her riveting to watch, particularly when she crowd-surfed! 

The concert I most enjoyed was definitely Regina Spektor's, which was the last one I saw. She is one of my very  favourites: I have listened to her songs almost daily since I was fourteen, and keep finding new layers of meaning in the lyrics and new forms of beauty in the sounds. I had already seen her live, and been amazed. This time, though she played less songs and none of her endearing back catalogue curiosities (she kept to the singles and to songs from the last two albums), it was even a more intense experience because I was literally in the front row, which I had never been before! She (and her band) played beautifully, and her attitude on stage is the definition of sweet, which is something I admire.


The audience was a strange mix of Regina Spektor fans, excitedly singing every word and interacting with Regina - the most beautiful moment was, for me, when she sang "For all the friends that we have lost/Let's give them one more round of applause" and the audience started clapping and Regina looked so moved -, and Skrillex fans waiting for his performance afterwards. It was really a very poor decision by the organisation to put two artists that are so different performing one after the other. I found the Skrillex fans' attitude really disrespectful: they kept complaining about having to wait, asking for the time, making unpleasant comments on Regina, and generally looked very bored/almost asleep. Except for that, the concert was perfect!

All in all, it was a great musical experience I hope to repeat!

Of course you've changed, you've changed, your mind's been rearranged

Every Summer, the same thing happens: the structure lent to my life by school crumbles apart and friendships are suddenly exposed to the harsh light of our human failings - laziness, selfishness, fear, disinterest. We strive to believe the lies we tell each other - "I miss you", "I can't wait to be with you", and the like -, but these are shown to be a sham by our lack of actual effort to share and communicate with each other. 

It is my fault as well, I am not a hopeless victim of circumstances beyond my control: I know I tend to live very much inside my own head, and that I often choose to stay home reading something interesting instead of going out (mostly, this is a passive choice of not inviting people to go out, not an active choice of refusing invitations). And then, of course, friendship requires effort. It must be nourished and fed, otherwise it dies away in a surprising short time.

And then there is that sickening little jolt when you are walking up the stairs in the dark, expecting another step where there isn't any, and you feel, for a milisecond, that you're doomed. Poof! Your friends? Gone. Strangers with the same physical appearance - often not even that - have taken their place, and look at you through bleary eyes, and new tonalities fill their voices as they talk of the distant land of their lives.

You can just picture them, at that moment, following the small steps of some sterotypical existence which fits their social position and apparent disposition. Sure, you wish them happiness, but in an empty way which is not at all like the personal, shared fever of the "once upon a time" of that particular friendship.

Maybe the issue here is that, in our personal relationships, we tend to suppose others - and yourself - will stay the same, so that you can carry on sharing indefinitely. It is part of our ever-present desire for immortality. But life is not a museum, and people will always be swerved in different directions by diverging pressures, and make different choices. In this way, they will take different shapes: the "self" is not fixed, it is simply the sum total of experiences and genetic background. 

I suppose it is a good thing that the Summer gives us a chance to get some perspective on our relationships, to analyze other people's behaviour and to decide if we want to let them go or cling to them. The lack of the artificial constraints of school life gives freedom to make these important choices. This year, as school is gone for good, the perspective I get is particularly unclouded; and I know that, from now on, all the friendships I have made will require even more effort to stay alive.

Still, it does not fill me with joy to be disappointed, to find faults which I cannot overlook and which stop me from trusting, and even make me question if I ever knew them. I don't like losing people; but it is unavoidable. 

The role of exams in education

Studying for exams leaves me feeling intellectually drained, unable to entertain myself through my usual inner monologue formed by an endless succession of speculative questions connected to each other. That aimless mental wondering - strolling along wise ideas of past thinkers, suddenly finding insight in a strong turn of phrase, jumping from one idea to another by deduction, induction and analogy, sprinting wildly to a different area of knowledge, pausing to breathe and draw conclusions, climbing by supporting myself in my set of axioms and mental framework, reaching some new formulation of an idea that seems breathtaking and then dissolves into thin air, leaving an exhilarating dizziness - is one of my greatest playful joys, but it is at the moment impossible. The thought of exams, always at the back of my mind, acts like a straight jacket on my imagination and reasoning. I have to format my mind to certain types of question and straight, narrow, dim mental pathways, the ones required in exams. I force-feed myself revision topics and past papers.

Why? I can't really justify my own behaviour. I know time would be better spent exploring new, challenging ideas than drumming into myself things I already know, but I have a sense of duty in relation to school that acts as a brake on my mental energy. I wish I could be less of a perfectionist/ masochist in my relation to what I still perceive to be my job - actually, in relation to everything. On the other hand, this drive to succeed in whatever, even if rationally I know that pursuit is not important (connected to feelings of guilt if I don't), helps me reach goals that later make me proud and happy.

I hope that, in the following years, my work will be exciting and demanding, so that I feel an appetite for studying that is connected with increasing my knowledge of the world, instead of just being about performing according to expectations. I like liking to study, because I believe it is fundamental in gaining true understanding of reality, but this type of close-minded training is just a tedious wait for the moment when our work will be measured against standards of conventionality.

I am not against exams. I think that it is important for fairness that there is a way of levelling students nation-wide based on the same standards. Some people argue that, since we have different natural abilities, it is unfair to measure everyone in the same way. In my opinion, this doesn't hold: someone who is unable to do a somersault (like me) is simply not on the same level as an Olympic gymnast, even if the difference is due to natural ability. The abolition of exams wouldn't abolish differences between people, it would just lead to pretending they don't exist. But they do, and we must know what each individual is able to do (and how does his or her performance compare to others' in the same group) to choose people for specific roles they will take in society. 

What I do support is that the roles taken by people should not be determined by where they are born and how much money their parents have: fairness is based in giving equal opportunities to all, which implies a much, much bigger state investment in the education of people from disadvantaged backgrounds, and (of course!) a marked redistribution of income. I have no ideological objections to differences in natural features - actually, I believe a diverse society is healthier and produces more, because new ideas are usually the result of the confront of different perspectives. 

To put it clear: I think there should be exams. However, they are just a measuring instrument amongst others: they should never be seen as the ultimate goal of education. Maybe I am just a hopeless romantic, but I strongly feel that knowledge, an ability to think critically, to express yourself and to participate in the world are the point of education, and that its ultimate goal is giving freedom (and responsibility) to individuals, so that each is able to pursue happiness and contribute to society. 

This should never be forgotten, but unfortunately there is at the moment a tendency to see education as a path to exams, which are, in themselves, absolutely sterile. Consequently, both students and teachers become alienated and lose motivation. Obviously, this effect is biggest in students who had, due to social circumstances, less motivation to begin with. Therefore, in these circumstances, exams are an indirect factor of social exclusion. 

The general conclusion is that exams are important in evaluating people fairly, but that they should never be at the core of education - people and knowledge should, with the goal of producing a fair society of free individuals. In practical terms, this means less time should be spent in training students for exams by doing past papers or learning irrelevant details on specific topics; instead, students should be encouraged to fully understand what they are studying, to probe deeper, to ask questions and to look for answers in an independent and creative way.

The personal conclusion? I need to improve my ability to relax and put things in perspective, so that I can use my time in a more productive and healthier way. My priorities shouldn't be determined by an education policy with which I disagree.

School is out!

I have to say this is a frankly anticlimactic climax to 12 years of full-time schooling: no teary goodbyes, no prom, no party, no speeches (by the way, this is a very interesting and relevant speech which articulates a wise ethical perspective in a clear, humorous way) - which means, unfortunately, that I had no occasion to wear a silly dress and pathetically high stiletto heels. It felt pretty much like any other day. 

I feel happy school is over (well, let's pretend there aren't exams...). First of all, I know I have worked well throughout my education, and this gives me an inner sense of calm satisfaction that doesn't require outside recognition or compliments for it is based on the progress I sense within myself and in my knowledge and communication with the outside world.

I am very lucky to be in a position where I no longer need to worry about my future for the next three or four years, because everything is set already. And it is exactly what I had dreamt of, believing at the time it was a wild fantasy. The end of classes has made next year - with the biggest change in my life up to this moment - seem more real, because there is only the Summer between me and University. However, as it is so hard to imagine my life come October (me + University = ?? - I can picture a girl who looks like me living on her own in Oxford, but that scenario changes the girl into someone who does not seem to be me), the Summer seems an infinite extent of long sunny days with a kind breeze coming from the sea and bringing with it a serene and complete joy of the senses, a feeling of being alive and embodying in myself each second that passes. 

I don't feel nostalgic at all about school. I felt relief when I walked out, knowing I will never again have classes there. I suppose I never felt at home at school. Actually, the space and the faces I saw were always alien to me, unknown and seemingly unknowable, and thus often made me uncomfortable. It is liberating to know that it is all over now, and that my mind will cherry-pick the beautiful memories and inspiring people I met there, and allow me to forget the dullness and restlessness of most days, and the people who never meant anything to me. I am happy about my life, but I believe there are much better things in store for me, and that I will be wise enough to appreciate them.

And I can now breathe in deeply, feeling the body I am and the outside world in harmony, and perceiving only future through that warm Summer mist. I am moving ahead.

In the Backseat

I like spending days travelling.

Inside the van, there open up gaps in everyday reality and you get fleeting glimpses at a different life, one in which time is unified and space itself - in the form of a changing landscape, with the light growing and then decaying into milky darkness - flows by you outside. Stories are told, stories big and tragic like the stuff of fiction but taken out of the fabric of reality. Revelations are made without even flinching - there can be no secrets in this movable world. In some intuitive way, we all notice that life is a blink of an eye, and there is an urgency to share all those experiences we feel as uniquely ours, those which we feel contain the core clues to the mystery of our own identity.

The backseat is a parenthesis.

And outside the landscape flows. The most beautiful moments are sunrise and sunset, when it somehow seems that the world might turn out a million different ways. The dawn is grey: before the sun rises, objects seem translucent. Then, colour blooms into the world and fleshes itself out throughout the day, ever-changing. The outside scenery suggests indefinite memories of things that don't belong to you but to the universe of human experience: longing and loss are contained in the van's unstoppable motion forward, a reminder of the constant mutability of our lives.

A sense of possibility, above all, awaits you at the backseat, when you're exhausted and hungry and your body is broken but you carry on speaking and looking people in the eyes as if that was moving the van, and, in that way, moving the whole world.