...

“He was always late on principle, his principle being that punctuality is the thief of time”
Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray

I’ve always failed to understand the amount of effort some people exert in their futile attempts to bring some order into their chaotic lives. That amazingly stubborn determination to organize, to schedule, to plan… To me, defying the pure randomness of existence always seemed nothing but sheer madness. Still, after all that I’ve seen, I can now state with some confidence: Maybe God doesn’t really play dice with our lives the way he plays with the Universe, but I can hear a devilish laughter escaping him every now and then, as he flips high the coin we so foolishly call destiny, without even bothering to break its fall.

I’ve been suffering from a weird illness lately; for months I haven’t been able to write anything. My mind has created barriers to stop the emancipation of my thoughts, to cut off what I once thought an endless stream of words pouring out of my head. Usually they call this a “Writer’s Block”. But since I still lack the courage to define myself as a writer, or as any other profession for that matter, let me just call it by what it truly is “Sobriety”.

Sobriety… That horrible state of mind where the darkest of thoughts simply linger in your head. They settle in, slowly, and gain territory over your sanity. You can feel them creeping up the lines of your veins, lurking in the unknown abysses of your mind or leaning heavily against the walls of your skull, that rotten heap of weed that needs to be flushed, and there’s nothing better than wine to do it.

I’m writing again, horribly, like I used to do so long ago! Oh how long ago does it seem to me now… You’ve slipped away, like a dream, through my fingers. And now I have to write you again, from the very beginning, to own you again, completely, to feel you, Again, taking shape inside my head before I pick up my pen and turn that ugly sickness inside me into beauty, the same thing God tried to do with his bitter loneliness. But this time it will be different; I’ve run out of books to read, songs to hear and films to watch! I have to find you here, on this earth, in what they so ironically call a Real Life! I will travel everywhere to find your lost traces. I will search for you in every city that I visit; in the faces of strangers who pass me in the street with utter indifference, in the tired eyes of my travel companions after long sleepless nights inside train wagons as colorless as prison cells, in the laughter of that little child as her mother tickles her to take her mind off the strange surroundings and that buzzing sound that can drive anyone into madness. I’ll wait for you, on old bridges where young lovers exchange hurried kisses over ancient rivers passing through majestic cities, surrounded by ice capped gigantic mountains and endless forests with giant trees that extend as far as the horizon, hiding underneath their thick branches secrets of our childhood’s most precious fantasies about marvelous creatures and incredible fairy tales. I’ll pick up your scent, in roses and water lilies, in tulips and violets and edelweiss, in that French “parfum léger” a woman just throws over her bare shoulders like an exotic shawl that shatters my glass memory into pieces as I brush by her side on my out of that sad violin concerto. I’ll follow your shadow at night, through tiled narrow passages between gloomy houses and churches, where the sound of your tapping feet accompanied by the melodies of that old guitarist in a distant café calls the moon down for a short dance that will stretch on till the early hours of dawn, when the cold morning breeze sneaks in carrying the smell of bread fresh out of bakeries to remind you of the passage of time, that the night is being swept away to other distant corners of the universe and you should give the moon some time to rest.

I’ll write again, differently, without titles or quotes, without those long hours I used to spend to shape my words into phrases that aligned so perfectly to draw your image. Because Life comes at you all of a sudden, and all at once; a chaotic revolution that should never be slowed, should never be put in order, should never be analyzed, should never be understood. I’ll write real cities this time, with real walls and real streets and real houses, where real people make silly mundane love at night, and wake up lazily in the morning to go to their silly mundane jobs where they can waste their time pondering their silly mundane Lives. I’m back again! I’m writing again! And this is just the beginning…