May 16, 2011 23:29
I wanted to post for a while, but there's so much to say. Or so little. I'm not sure. I just keep typing out posts and deleting them.
This has been one of the busiest periods of my life. But this has also been one of the loneliest periods of my life. Everyone's a stranger. I drift from group to group but I don't hang out enough with a single one to feel that I belong, to consider them friends. And it's so tiring interacting with strangers - the anxiety, the uncertainty, the fearful lapses in conversation. I hate it so much.
I think I might have some friends now. It's starting to get better, but I can't help feeling like the kid who missed the first week of school because of chicken pox. A room full of strangers isn't scary, but a room where you're the only stranger terrifies the hell out of me. There's such great comfort in the familiar. Probably why I miss home so much (no, not just because of the food).
But to me, this is the good thing about exchange. The way it exposes you to the strange, the discomforting, the foreign. I'm much more xenophobic than I realise. In fact, I'm also discovering latent symptoms of androphobia. Well, knowing the problem is the key to finding the cure. I'm weirdly happy to be confronted by the dark holes in my psyche, it's like poking at a wound.
And of course, there's the travelling. So much travelling. It's so different, stopping by a place for just a couple of days or staying there for a couple of months. We really don't see much, don't understand much when we travel. But there is beauty in both the glossed over 1 week visit and the meandering 1 year stay.
My favourites are undoubtedly Scotland and Iceland. London is blithe; Italy, lovely; Barcelona, vibrant; Belgium, charming and the Netherlands, like a painting. But Scotland and Iceland have the wild, wide, open landscapes that are breath-taking and enchanting and absolutely stunning. Cities are fun, there's good food to be had and interesting architecture to see. Van Gough in Amsterdam, Gaudi in Barcelona, Escher in Den Haag, Michelangelo in Florence, Raphael in Vatican City, Bruna in Utrecht...they are amazing, but to me, nature is just a far greater artist that any man would ever be.
There's a chinese word for it: 荒. That's the sort of places I love. I love seeing the horizon go on and on; I love hills that roll, forests like seas, the sky stretching infinitely over your head.
And perhaps, there's a part of me that wants to be lonely. I love the lonely road cutting across empty moors and snowcapped slopes; I love the lonely castle overlooking the broken cliff and the stormy northern sea; I love the lonely house, behind the trees and canals in Giethoorn, a single islet upon lake, the setting sun illuminating it with gentle light. Those are the sights I'll never forget.
Why is it that we can long for isolation, but fear it so much at the same time? This question has been haunting me all through this exchange.
P.S. I'm going to Cologne to watch the Divine Comedy! Incredibly excited about it :DDD
real life is scary,
sometimes for real