"Love letter to Tbilisi (and to life)" by Antonio Di Vico
Instead of Foreword:
Antonio is a young Italian photographer, you visite Georgia for 3 or more months for internship in UN Development Program.
I met him only twice, together with common friends, later I visited his web-site and enjoyed his pictures. http://www.antoniodivico.com/ I already had a good impression of him, but the farewell letter he wrote for New Year, exceeded my expectations.
Just Didi Madloba, Antonio, for such a passionate letter! :)))
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"Tbilisi is an ageless lady. She is not beautiful in the common sense of the word but, still, most men turn their heads to look at her when they see her in the streets. She is classy as a noble woman who once used to be wealthy. Those time are now over. She has been through a lot of shit and she is now doing fine but her past is still like a heavy heritage: hard to forget.
Tbilisi, like a lover who wants to say an unforgettable goodbye, today wore her best dress and with her sunny sky whispered to my ears: take a walk. Go through my flesh. An so i did. Fucking 15 degrees in the end of december and a blue sky that makes you wanna look up and say: thank you, Boss, now and forever.I walked for a while forgetting about myself, forgetting about my sadness leaving this city, this life. Just feeling the cold sun in my eyes, smiling at every falling leaf, at every fucking beggar of this place that now is in my flesh. Nothing more. A place that for a while, or maybe forever, I will call home.Tbilisi looks so classy but if you manage to get her in bed can be as slutty as you could never imagine. when you undress her in the shadow of her silent, dark rooms, her body is strong and sensual and mute. Tbilisi needs no words to seduce you. She has the cold winds and the warm smiles of her beautiful girls at her powers, why would she need to talk? Some times, late a night, walking back home I felt so purely and deeply happy that I was freightned. 'Cause I know that to every deep happiness corresponds a deep sadness somewhere in the future, a sorrow that will almost kill you, like happines. But now it's not time for dark thoughts, now there's only time for beauty and purity and smiles. Bad days will come for sure, but there's time for that.Anyway, I was talking about happiness...try to find something that can make you more happy than the falling leaves and the dry cold on your smiling face, something that can make you more happy than finding people that you can call friends and really mean that word thousands of kilometers away from your lifetime friends.Tbilisi came in a pretty random way to my life,like all the good things that happened to me. I remember few other times and places where I had better time and felt so happy. Happiness is not to be confused with fun, understand me. Happiness is much more, it's a gift of the universe that decided to give you a break from the usual shit. That's why you have to appreciate it, because it takes planets aligning and coincidences that we call destiny and love that comes from the heaven. Now and forever I'll be grateful for what I had.In Tbilisi I fell in love countless times. Once with a beautiful georgian girl whose smile had the power to melt me and who didn't want me, once with the city, and thousand times with its people, its attitude,its desire to get over some bad memories and, why not, its will to live, to celebrate life with wine and khinkali. Anything that is less than the truth is a lie to me and what I loved here is the authenticity of its people, the no-bullshit attitude to life. I met people I can look in the eyes without seeing shadows. Someone may think it's normal. Trust me, it's not. Never take that for granted. I have been sick and had friends coming over to my place with medicines, cooking food for me. Ironing my clothes. Making me feel loved.I must have done something really good in a past life to deserve all of this because I don't remember I have in this life. But I promise I'll do my best to give back as much as I can.God gave me a pure heart and the eyes of a child for whom everything is pure and new. I will never stop thanking and praising Him for that. But I am not good as I'd like me and you to think, of course. I can be lazy and change my moods and mind every five minute. I can be harsh and hurt even the people I love the most when I am hurt or unhappy. But I never gave up trying to be better than the shit I am. I was born twice, once 28 years ago and once 4 years ago. Twice: like the ones who were born wrong and had to be born again to fix all the shit they did in their lives. But this another story and myabe I'll tell it sometime.I will remember Tbilisi and all of you, beautiful people. i will remember you forever and call you home because home is not a place but a state of mind. Home can be a person or a dish your grandma used to cook for you when you were sick as a kid. Home can be the smell of a shampoo that reminds you of other times and places. I will remember you because here I have been young and happy and probably in 30 years I'll even think I was beautiful in some mysterious way.I have no idea of what it's gonna be next after Tbilisi. Seriously. I have an ocean of possibilities and question marks in front of me. I only know that it's gonna be something good if I keep my heart open like now and have faith. And I do. Because you and this city and the time I had here are the proof that we must never give up hope. I had two years of disappointments and hard times and mediocrity. I am not sure yet I am not going back to that life again. But as I never gave up for the past two years, I am not giving up now that I see my dreams closer.I don't know where God has decided to put me in this crazy world. They must still be working on this over there, it seems like they don't have a clear idea about where to put me or just wanna have some fun at my expenses bringing me here and there before
they actually tell me to stop. (But i must say it's kind of fun for me too, so I won't complain). I know that somewhere in this crazy world there is a place that I will call mine and I will appreciate like no other because it was meant only for me and because of the journey I had to undertake to get there.
And also I know there's a woman I will call love because I have been looking for her in the eyes of thousands girls all around the world.When I'll meet this woman, in her smile I will find the shining of the Taj Mahal marbles and the purity of sunrise over the australian desert. In the sound of her voice I'll hear the songs of muezzins calling for prayer in a silent night, the noise of stormy waves crashing over the rocks. Her eyes will promise me happy days and faraway lands. In the place I will call home she will be home. I maybe will be tired of wandering but not of seeking beauty in everything and, as a drowry, to be worthy of her love I will bring her all my stories. The stories from my childhood and adulthood, the stories about the people I loved and the adventures I lived. I will tell her about the time I was broken hearted and started to wander as a pilgrim, or a mad man, about the women I believed to be her but were just a necessary painful mistake. But, out of these many stories, the one she will love the most will be the one about her man when he was just an intern in Tbilisi, broke and confused and happy.This is just my thanks to all of you and my declaration of love to Tbilisi. I will always belong to this city and she will always belong to me. No matter what happens. And it's also a declaration of love to life, which I'll never love as much she loves me. I am on fire. Now and forever. Thanks.One more thing, it's not about Tbilisi. it's a favour I ask all of you, let's call it my post scriptum: please, just love. Never forget to love. And smile. love every stupid fucking precious moment of your life and love people and what you do, whatever it is. And smile again. It's important, especially the smiling part. Believe in every moment that universe is good and doesn't have fun giving you hard time. Believe it now and for the rest of your life.I wish you (and myself) to fall in love with life every day of the rest of our lives.
Love. Antonio. "
http://www.antoniodivico.com/