I’m struggling in search of a reason to type something for my rusty blog rather than to sleep.
I don’t know if it’s because of
the jet-lag or the long walk I had today with a friend around the Lighthouse
Park in West Vancouver, but I just feel super-sleepy and my eyes are protesting
against the idea to remain open to put together word after word.
Even to get up from bed to have
my dinner has turned out to be a challenge today.
I look with terror at the fact
tomorrow I will start again working.
Yep, that’s what they call end of
the holidays.
I must say the twenty days break
I got was really welcomed, as I really needed to get rid of some stress.
My holidays in Italy were a
little troubled though. As soon as I arrived I was assaulted by muggy and extra
hot weather, and in few days a 35C temperature was successful in ruining my
attempts to sleep at night.
To go for a walk outside during
the day was something impossible: I felt like getting into an oven, or as somebody
had turned on a giant hairdryer.
Since the very first day I was a
target for mosquitos, that obviously missed me very much while I was away.
But it was to meet my family
after such a long time that really upset me.
I was somehow curious to see
their and my reaction. When I was in Ireland I was used to get back home for
holidays maybe 3-4 times a year, so obviously it was something totally new to
me to be far away from my family for way over one year. When I met them at the
airport I had an awful feeling: they were like strangers to me, people I was
not really close to. It was horrible and I kind of felt guilty, as they are the
most important people in my life.
That horrible feeling lasted only
one day, but long enough to start seriously wondering what I want to do, if it
is really worth to live on the other side of the world.
The sense of estrangement
affected also my perception of the places.
The center of my hometown is going
under massive renovation works that have turned it so far into something at a
time uglier and unfamiliar to me.
But it was at the time of visiting
some former colleagues that the bewilderment was complete.
I went to a close city asking for
references at the journal I was used to work for 9 years ago or so as a journalist,
only to find out that they moved the office somewhere else. When I got into the
new office it was even worse: I knew absolutely nobody. The photographer, my
former boss, all the people I was working with had left the journal or had been
moved to other offices.
It was like to lose a piece of
identity. How much is important a place that used to be part of your history,
in order to give sense to your life and what you are, providing you with
something stable? What happens when you can’t recognize places and people that
made up your everyday reality?
I suspect it just means you have
lost the contact and the roots with your home place, and you are like a little
boat with no anchorage floating in the ocean.
I lost my inner ID and I'm afraid
there's no office that can reissue a new one for me.
My return flight was simply a
nightmare: it was delayed twice and cancelled once, and I (and many other
passengers) got stuck in London and spent the night in hotel that, having no
available rooms, could just give us the floor, a mat and a sleeping bag. Thank
you BA: if you don’t refund me I’ll take another flight with you the next
century!
The immigration/custom officers at
the airport mustn’t have been impressed by my misadventure, as they found the
way to complicate my re-entry in Canada, messing up my clothes in my baggage,
searching for unlikely stellar amount of illegal drugs, but spotting only
pullovers for the winter and milk candies for my colleagues. Yes, I admit it: I
am trying to put in danger national dental health!
They also tried once again to
confuse me about the immigration process, giving me information I later found
out to be probably wrong.
At this stage I’d probably need a
shorter holiday to recover from my previous holidays.
Finally, the warmth must have
followed me: shortly after my departure the temperature dropped in Italy and
increased in Vancouver. The stunning view from the Lighthouse Park reminded me
there’s at least a reason I haven’t given up yet my fight for Vancouver: its
beauty.
