Rome

First time I came to this place it was something I have never experienced in my life. The height of the columns, the vastness of the piazza, the stillness of the air, the great number of people waiting in line. It was a hot day in June, but there was something magical in the air, something that got attached to my soul which I carry with me to this day. “Mille viae ducunt homines per saecula Romam” and indeed they do. Every picture I see now of any place in Rome, my mind sends me directly to that place, to that particular time, to those particular moments I ate a peach on the steps of the forum, I drank water near the Colosseum and admired the beauty of Piazza Navona or the Spanish steps. I even remember the smell of the water from the Fontana di Trevi, and the freshness of the air in the Circus Maximus. I remember all these magnificently beautiful places reminiscent of a world passed, of a time distant, of a civilization greater than our own. Peter Zumthor once said  that good architectures is not the one in magazines, but one which touches us deeply. Rome did that. The mixed cluster of the roman city touched me deeply and impressed me to such extent that it made a deep imprint on my soul. Everything there touched me, buildings, people, the air, the noises, the smell, the colors, the textures and shapes. My state of mind, my feelings, the wait I experienced while sitting there. Everything is only within me. If I eliminate the square – my impressions disappear. I would never have had them without their atmosphere. That is logical. There is an interaction between human beings and things. That is what makes certain places better than others. That is what defines architecture. It’s not just the buildings, it’s not just the people, it’s the interaction between them…

 

A story

For many years I worked in palliative care. My patients were those who had gone home to die. Some incredibly special times were shared. I was with them for the last three to twelve weeks of their lives. People grow a lot when they are faced with their own mortality.

I learnt never to underestimate someone’s capacity for growth. Some changes were phenomenal. Each experienced a variety of emotions, as expected, denial, fear, anger, remorse, more denial and eventually acceptance. Every single patient found their peace before they departed though, every one of them.

When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently, common themes surfaced again and again. Here are the most common five:

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
This was the most common regret of all. When people realize that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honoured even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made.

It is very important to try and honour at least some of your dreams along the way. From the moment that you lose your health, it is too late. Health brings a freedom very few realise, until they no longer have it.

2. I wish I didn’t work so hard.
This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children’s youth and their partner’s companionship. Women also spoke of this regret. But as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence.

By simplifying your lifestyle and making conscious choices along the way, it is possible to not need the income that you think you do. And by creating more space in your life, you become happier and more open to new opportunities, ones more suited to your new lifestyle.

3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result.

We cannot control the reactions of others. However, although people may initially react when you change the way you are by speaking honestly, in the end it raises the relationship to a whole new and healthier level. Either that or it releases the unhealthy relationship from your life. Either way, you win.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
Often they would not truly realise the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks and it was not always possible to track them down. Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying.

It is common for anyone in a busy lifestyle to let friendships slip. But when you are faced with your approaching death, the physical details of life fall away. People do want to get their financial affairs in order if possible. But it is not money or status that holds the true importance for them. They want to get things in order more for the benefit of those they love. Usually though, they are too ill and weary to ever manage this task. It is all comes down to love and relationships in the end. That is all that remains in the final weeks, love and relationships.

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.
This is a surprisingly common one. Many did not realise until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called ‘comfort’ of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to their selves, that they were content. When deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again. When you are on your deathbed, what  others think of you is a long way from your mind. How wonderful to be able to let go and smile again, long before you are dying.

Life is a choice. It is YOUR life. Choose consciously, choose wisely, choose honestly. Choose happiness.

Source: Received via Email

The Architecture of Happiness

The plane landed. I arrived at this airport at least 5 times so far. It makes me happy every single time. Pass through the same arrival section, through the main gate, and to the bus stop, where every single time I have waited for the same bus to the train station. Same route of trains, same smell of the sea in Mestre. Same desire to jump on a train and instead of going north, travel for 10 minutes only to lose my self on the narrow streets of Venice. I’m 25. Just graduated and nothing makes sense. I want a job, but nobody is giving me. I want to travel but i have no money left. The last few euros I am spending on this trip. Why? Because it makes me happy. Because even though here, in this country I have nothing, my soul has everything. It feeds off on sun rays, sea sent, venetian houses, italian language, the site of pizza, the texture of piazzas, the movement of trees, the shade of the mountains. It feeds off everything that this country has. And it is magical. I am like a little child in a candy store, with eyes so big and full of tears with happiness. This is my world. This is where I belong.

It’s a 4 hours train ride. But it passes by fast. At the lake my heart starts to jump in my chest. Just a few more stops and I will be there, in my city, with the mountains, with the parks and the rivers and the duomo. I can’t yet live here. But everytime i come back i know that this is my dream place, my dream world, the place i want to wake up every morning for as long as I live. Every detail in this city lifts my soul higher, every aspect of the surroundings makes me jump with joy. This is where i want to be, this is where I am … this is where I belong… this is where I experience my sense of place… my little piece of heaven… the architecture that makes me happy… my muse…

Imbalaced and in motion

” Riding the fence on the edge of the sky,
Falling without a fall in a perfect imbalance” – Valerie

She spreads her arms and learns how to fly,
Embraced by divine in a moment of silence … – Anne

 

In between worlds…

Have you ever asked yourself how many worlds are in this world? How different these worlds are and how difficult it is to cross the borders between them. I might even say impossible to cross no matter how hard one tries. And that not even love can cross such borders. Humans have created these worlds to answer to their sense of belonging, of fitting in, of not feeling alone and each of these worlds has its own rules and regulations and laws which can be broken but no matter if you are punished for breaking them or not you are going to always be caged by them no matter how free you pretend yourself to be.  There is no such thing as love crosses all borders, it doesn’t. It never did.

Between your world and mine is a huge wall. I tend to ask myself what’s on the other side and climb it to have a look. I am fascinated by what I see and I meet you up there, because for some reason you were tempted to see what’s on the other side as well. And in our curiosity we befriend each other and talk and laugh and share moments together, but you never step in my world and I never step in yours. I can step inside your world and I might even enjoy it there, because I want to, but you and half a million other people don’t dare or wish to step in my world. Obviously we can’t sit on the edge for ever so we make a decision. We each must go back in our worlds and promise to always remember the other in our heart. But here is the trick I don’t go back into my world; I sit on the edge of the wall watching you walk away without looking back. And that’s when I understand, you were only curious to see what was not allowed while I was felt something totally different. Sad, I watch you walk away, disappearing into the mist of your world that holds you and protects you like a cocoon. I will never see you again, I know. A thought of sacrifice crosses my mind, I can jump the wall, I can enter your world, I can sacrifice my own world, even my own life to be with you. I can come after you. I can.  I have that much strength to do that, because I have done it before for another. I know I am capable of such sacrifice. But I don’t. Because your last look told me that you never wanted me to cross over and that all that happened was merely an accident of faith.

I quietly sit on the wall and watch in solitude the agitation of both worlds. I don’t belong in neither of them anymore. Why? Because I always questioned and challenged what I believed, while the rest of the world accepted everything blindly… borders and worlds are only made up by the mind to protect itself from the unknown… I have my own borders which I cross over as many times as needed until they don’t define me anymore… I can’t be happy in any of the worlds with such thoughts… I can merely accept that my place is on the edge between them watching as they go by…

 

Wrong impressions….

She stood there on her bed for the umpteenth time these past months staring into empty space.  Or at least from outside, it looked like that. But she knew there wasn’t empty space she was staring at, but the memory of him.  In her vision, he was there on the bed next to her and she was looking in his eyes as if she was looking in a mirror, searching for answers and solutions to a problem her own brain would not accept as being impossible to solve. She couldn’t understand why it had to happen like this, but the reality of it brought shivers down her back every time she realized.  Sitting like that and staring at some ghost was something she did every night when she went to bed. He was still very present in her memories, on her skin, in her words and thoughts. She knew this because she didn’t want to let go of him even if he perhaps had moved on forgetting the entire year they shared together, forgetting every second of love and innocent caresses, of walks in the rain late at night always covered by the fear that they would be discovered by his friends.  This fear would spill and infect her feeling every time he showed signs of distress. She never understood the point of hiding such an innocent and pure feeling. He always said he was protecting her from the bad words of his friends, from the bad jokes and laughs in a language she couldn’t understand, from the strange looks and sneaky stares behind her back for daring to love a human out of her grasp. She was never afraid of facing this, but sometimes it crossed her mind that maybe he was only afraid for himself, for the reputation he had and wouldn’t want to break even if it didn’t define him.

After 2 months she was still pushing away every guy that tried to approach her because she felt she was cheating on him, she was cheating on herself and on her love for him. She was afraid to discover that another one would worship her more and this would only prove that he didn’t deserve her at all, that her love in his heart meant nothing. The fact that another man would cherish her more than he did, made her cry even worse because this meant that he wasn’t worthy of her feelings. And yet every night he was faithfully there in the form of a vision, lying softly on the bed, smiling at her tenderly. Every time she would fall asleep with the thought that tomorrow she will not see him again, but this of course was never true.  He was there when she walked on the street when she sat in class every day listening to the teacher, even on the bus on her way home, the ghost was following her every step of the day. He would go away only when she willingly would have pushed him out of her brain, she knew that well enough, but she didn’t want to, she needed him to linger a while longer until the wound caused by him ripping himself away from her heart would start to heal. That time would eventually come, she was aware of it but at the moment the thought was of no importance to her. She only resumed to loving a ghost of the past. It was with these feelings she again walked in the faculty this morning. It was always interesting, she thought, how when talking to other people she would be nice, cute, jolly and with a sweet smile on her face, just like she was before. She never did it willingly; it came from inside her as if there were 2 persons, one in love with him and one that was in love with the rest of the world.  Her friend had told her today that in the past her jolliness was crazy, whereas today it was somewhat sad. Deep down she knew what changed. She had fallen in love totally and completely with no turning back. She had to accept the fact and move on, one step at a time towards the future with whatever held in it. Sometimes she felt like in those Indian movies and she would smile at herself waiting for some romantic music to play in the background and him to come running towards her. Such a silly thought it was.

After all these reflections and inner self-discussions, she concluded that the best thing to do is sit and wait and see what happens. And so she did…

*

Al felt awkward every time he went to class. Even if he was 2 years older than any of the people attending the course, somehow he would always go inside with his head down and most of the time all red faced. Nobody noticed him anyway or at least this is what he thought and hoped for. He just returned from a long trip from Indonesia and it was stressful enough to adjust to climate changes and time zones, thus meeting new people were something he didn’t want to give much importance to. But the most stressful thing was to adjust himself to his new feelings and beliefs. He didn’t want to or need to make new acquaintances, he would only nurture the old ones just so that they would not fall apart and go on with his life not willing to be unnoticed or famous but knowing exactly what he wants to do with it.

The teacher had already begun and as always he was late, but who cared, the teacher didn’t force anyone to attend the course, everyone was free to do as they pleased. Al opened the door and head down went inside the class around the set of benches towards the back of the room only to come back on the other side and sit in his usual spot. The class was on the same topic as last week, physical planning and landscaping. He loved it. But then again he loved anything that had to do with his field of interest. School was the best thing that happened to his life and the ability to learn and study made his curiosity for discovering new things go sky high. He was a melancholic type of person who could stick for days meditating on some sad point in his life and yet he had this side of him that loved architecture in all its ways.  This last year though changed him very much. He went from being an arrogant, self-centered bastard to an inwardly centered creature open to self-refinement and contemplation. Nothing much changed of his old habits but the way he saw the world was different. The way he perceived the silence in it was what made him ask himself different questions. He still was a bloody bastard he thought, but one with high capability of understanding the life and the role he had in it. His only true friend was a 36-year-old teacher, of whom he was very fond and with whom he could have metaphysical discussions after a few bottles of beer. The teacher loved him because he saw himself in Al’s eyes and wanted for him a better future than his own.

–          I think we will have a break now and we can continue after that. We don’t want your brains to overburn, do we, said the teacher laughing ironically at the class.

Everybody went out and started conversing over small insignificant everyday facts. After 10 minutes the teacher announced that the break was over. Everybody went on with their discussion moving towards the class. Al was busy eating his sandwich and as usual too lost in his thoughts to notice or give too much importance to anything that happened around him. He went to his usual place and while sitting down he gazed at the entire class with laziness. It was then that he noticed her. And not her as a human but her eyes looking back at him as if she knew what he felt, as if she could read his thoughts as if she could touch his soul there in that very moment. He sat down puzzled. What did just happen? He looked back again only to find her doing the same thing. So she too had felt something different. He turned his attention back to the teacher and his course, letting himself become absorbed by the information. He would think of her later. One thing was certain; from that moment on he was aware of the existence of her on the surface of the earth. She was there, one girl from 6 billion people on the planet and he consciously became aware of that. And it only took a glance. He overheard discussions about her the first day he came to class, but he didn’t give to much attention to that and he also remembered her as a shadow on the hallway while he was trying to converse with her friend. She knew every person he knew and was very close to them and yet they never spoke to each other before nor have they ever been aware of each other before. Of course he would not assign any cosmic meaning to such a small event but certainly something did happen between them in that moment and he decided he would give a second thought to it some time later during the day.

*

She came to class with the thought to vanish from her sorrows at least for some time. She used this as a medicine, a form of involuntarily forgetting her pain. She loved the teacher and the course. There were always 15 people in class, students interested to learn something new and more then that Diana was always there sitting next to her smiling back when ever she got the chance. She was sitting quietly not being able to concentrate completely when the class door opened. It was Al. As always 15 minutes late, head down going about the class to find his seat. The selfish arrogant bastard as she called him who had the money and the guts to quit school for 2 years and go work in some famous architecture office in Denmark. Just another rich spoiled brat she thought while turning back to the teacher. This small distraction made her forget her own painful thoughts and thus restored the so much wanted need to concentrate on the lesson. How each of us has his perfect place in the world and how if you acknowledge that you need help, such help is given, when you need it even if you are not aware of it was something that made her smile. All other reflections on the matter were lost and the teacher had the total attention until he called for brake.

She went for chocolate during the small brake and returned only one moment after the door was closed after her, sign of the beginning of the second part of the lecture. She went to her place and while sitting down she too glanced smiling at the class, when she saw him. She just looked back at him, for how long she couldn’t say but it felt like eternity. There were no thoughts, just a pause, as if the world stopped, as if his eyes and her eyes somehow refused to obey the bodies or the brain and would not move from each others gaze. She shyly sat down but curiously looked back at him again. And there he was answering to her gaze with his own questioning look. So he felt something change too. She was amazed. This was not love at first sight; she knew that but the change it brought in the perception of this person from that moment on was no mystery to her, it was as real as her own hand. She decided she would give some more time to thinking what happened a bit later, perhaps she might even write something about it if she felt creative, who knows. But the image of those blue eyes stared back at her in her head for the entire week and even though later on she did give a second thought, the poem was never created nor was there any other inquiry or investigation upon the matter. It all became just another average moment of an average day. Weeks past and nothing interesting happened apart from the usual self pitying and crying, which she always did, hiding from the rest of the world, in the corner of her room when everyone else was asleep.

It was some weeks later on an early morning that she got an email from him.

Hi!

I wanted to invite you next Friday at 4 in the afternoon at discussions regarding thesis ideas and project selections just so we get to know what each of us is doing and perhaps, if we share the same topic, we can even work together.

Al

At first she thought, selfish arrogant little bastard, what is it that you want to show off now, how cool and great your New Zeeland project is going to be. She never thought of accepting this and even went furious the next day straight to Diana asking her what she thought of such impertinence. She was amazed to discover that her friend actually was very much interested in joining such meeting and that she also got the message from another classmate. Going was not a problem for her but facing him again would only mean two things: 1. He might just not be what she imagined in that second and she would be disappointed again, and that she couldn’t bare and 2. Maybe he was all that she thought he was and just maybe he liked her after all, in which case she would have to disappoint him. Either way she decided to go participate at the meeting and see what would happen.

*

Al got ready for the presentation. Copying his things on the pen drive and adjusting here and there some text or image he thought didn’t look nice. When she came inside he turned instantly red and involuntarily spontaneous responded to her hello. He always hated how his face would turn like a tomato every time he was embarrassed by something or someone. He went back to his laptop but was completely aware of her presence in the room, of her laughs, of her voice while she talked to her friend. At some point he noticed with the corner of his eye a new person in the class, much younger. He never saw her before. The person was talking with her in German and at some point they were hugging, that’s when he turned to see what she was doing. But he forced himself not to pay attention and going back to his laptop he tried to relax and think less about anything that would distract him from his work. But like woken from a dream he heard her asking him a question. “Al? When is this going to be over?” He froze looking back at her. He tried speaking but the words wouldn’t come out of his mouth, instead he raised his shoulders and gestured an uncertain look. She turned back to her friend and he relaxed. What was that, he didn’t know? He was embarrassed by her presence.

Everybody was there and at some point he said someone should start. It was a free open presentation of the thesis proposal and each had to do it, but he didn’t want to go first so he invited someone else. That’s when she said the name of another boy in the class and the presentations started. Where to sit was his next problem? Away from her, next to her, in the end he decided to sit somewhat in front of her but a bit to the right and that, he found, was very much satisfying for him. He would need a lot of concentration not to be distracted but he trusted himself to be capable of such control. It was her turn to present and he listened to her calmly always smiling back and listening with normal interest. After that it was his turn. He started by expressing the need for such a presentation, the usefulness and advantage of repeating such meetings in the future and where from he got such an idea in the first place. Then very much embarrassed he moved to his thesis and spoke openly of what he intended to do. She was very much interested in the subject and soon a discussion started between them on the topic. The moment they spoke to each other he realized that the magic had broken off. She was just another girl and he was just another boy and they just happened to look into each others eyes at a specific moment in time. That was all. He relaxed and responded kindly and nicely to her questions only to conclude at the end it was all just a wrong impression and the fear to have fallen in love was gone.

*

What she thought while entering the class and seeing him at the teacher’s desk was to control her selfishness and arrogance and act normal as best as she could. And so she did. She even told herself to be brave enough to talk to him and even inquire upon more things regarding his thesis than she would usually do. She was a bit scared to present in front of the class but it was something between students thus it wasn’t such a big deal anyway. It was his turn and she felt the need to ask him everything, anything just so to learn from his voice the truth of her own thoughts. He replied nicely and his concepts of life flipped her perception of him upside down. He was no longer the shellfish arrogant bastard she always thought him to be, but a very smart, modest and shy boy that was only interested in architecture. She too relaxed and was more at ease because she understood there would be no complications in this relationship. He was just a boy and she was just a girl and they just happened to look at each other in a specific moment in time. No cosmic event was needed to be attributed to such normal and common moment. She concluded later on that all was just a wrong impression and the fear to have fallen in love was gone.

*

A few minutes after that they were both descending the staircase and looking at each other one more time, each going separate ways understanding that there was nothing special about them meeting and that it all should be given just the usual concern and nothing more…