κάθαρσις - Lune qui l-haut s'allume pour clairer ma plume
HOLY SHIT.
I can't believe it. I seriously just can't believe it. This is a very strange moment. And something I really really needed to write down. I think I'll remember it always. Dear God, I will!
If there's one word to describe what I'm feeling, how I'm feeling -how I suddenly start to shiver and I just break down and it just feels so good and so right- is: catharsis.
It's meaning is, literally "purging" or "cleansing", or in theatrical terms:
"Catharsis is the emotional cleansing of the audience and/or characters in a play. In relation to drama it is an extreme change in emotion resulting from strong feelings of sorrow, fear, pity, or laughter; this result has been described as a purification or a purging of such emotions (whether those of the characters in the play or of the audience)."
This feeling comes like a liberating surge of something that just makes me soar and feel such relief and freedom I haven't felt in years. At least for three years or, in a way, since my childhood.
This wonderful, powerful something came out of me in the shape of tears. The greatest liberator always comes with tears. Crying is always the best way to just let everything out (or at least for me), to not care about anything and wash it all out, be it good or bad. But mostly the bad.
This year has been one of the harshest, in terms of stress and my own personal feelings and appreciation of every new day that comes. I have gone through (and still am) some very trying moments and things just keep penting up inside, and become bigger and bigger and start crushing me until I can't stand it anymore and I just don't know what to do with myself, what to think, what to feel except sorrow and real, cold, despair. Everything keeps getting piled up and I break down. I touch bottom and just wish I could just die, could only make all of this end once and for all... I had even moments when I contemplated suicide, even at one point, considered it, and even learned to know myself in my lowest moments and how, even if I wanted it, I could never truly manage to go through with it. In a sense, I sometimes hoped for a failed suicide attempt to just make what I felt more real so I could snap out of it and keep on living. Being reborn in a sense, to just rise from my own ashes and burn again with passion for life and love for myself and confidence on myself. I only found out how far I was capable of going (or not) and in a sense, I know myself better and I know, in a sense, that cowardice to not go through with it is, in some way, not cowardice but I reality-check of how much fear I have of death, of never waking up to just see another day. If I dead I would never see the things I like, eat what I enjoy, listen to my music again, write or cry or laugh, or see those I love, or draw, or read, or travel.
I love life.
And one of the first things I thought was: I would never see Europe again. I would never see Paris again.
Looking back on those moments, on those horrible moments when my eyes were blood-shot from crying, and they ached as well as my head, and I was trying to hold back the vomit, all I can think is "Goddamn it it's not worth it!" And how I thought: "I want to see Paris again. I want to live again. I want this to be over. I can't stand this, I'm so sick of everything. I want to see Notre Dame again. I want to walk under the bridges again, to see it appear amidst the rain-clouds again and welcome me back with her bells."
For some reason I yet cannot make out, there is something about Paris, but especially Notre Dame that it keeps coming back to me. It's like I've heard my calling, and I know there is where I belong. What I love, where I remember why I love life, and art, and beauty, and nature, and History, and nothing, just being there, looking at a beautiful cathedral on a cloudy yet perfectly normal day with my Dad.
Since I've been little, my Dad has always told me wonderful things about France, about the appreciation of art, of how it's the City of Artists and Love and inspiration. I think I have subconsciously made Paris my muse...
Anyway, I've loved the idea of France and Paris, the sights, everything that has come from it, artists, philosophers, revolutions, music, everything since I was little. He also knows French and I've always loved when he speaks it so I started learning that beautiful language. I don't know but I have that certain artistic affinity towards the city and three years ago, when I finally went there for the first time I just instantly fell in love and upon stepping upon its streets and looking around for the first time I was just overwhelmed. And when I saw Notre Dame against the grey clouds, surging from behind the shadowed arch of the bridges and suddenly, as my eyes rested on the facade, the bells started to ring. I started crying. It was just too beautiful. Too perfect, so magnificent. I've been looking for a way to describe what I felt on that instant, which I know now was the most important, beautiful, and memorable moment of my life, and to do that I've talked about it endlessly, thought about it repeatedly, written about it in different ways, in my stories, in my journal, through poetry, through music, or films and yet I have found I cannot describe or understand it but I cherish and remember it vividly, or keep it within my memories and heart always. When I remember it, I choke back tears or when I talk about it. So Notre Dame is just my paramour. My beloved symbol of all I believe in: the epitomy of art and History together in one beautiful blend of something.
And maybe I just feel that way towards Notre Dame because of my personality, maybe because my Dad always made me look attentively at the details on the cathedral every time we watched "The Hunchback of Notre Dame", because it's my favourite Disney movie, because I love the novel, or because I love Quasimodo's character. I don't know. At least I know that I love that story because it's so closely linked to that beautiful cathedral and because I just love it.
And what I felt yesterday was an important moment for me. Just as much as that first look at the cathedral. That much, at least, because I remembered that feeling of happiness and how overwhelmed I was by all the beauty and all the good and perfect things together at once on the same things and that I could behold and smile at and keep for myself, and only for myself. I felt it again. And I just needed that, then and there.
And how? How did this cleansing, this catharsis happened? How could I relive such happiness, so much needed freedom?
With this magnificent, heart-wrenchingly touching and beautiful musical: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L24vaxNH91w
Everything was just right, the language, the story, the music, that powerful, swaying first song.
I first started to feel it with the lyrics of the song "Ma Maison C'est Ta Maison".
Notre-Dame de Paris
C'est ma maison, mon nid
C'est ma ville, c'est ma vie
Mon air, mon toit, mon lit
C'est ma chanson, mon cri
Ma raison, ma folie
Ma passion, mon pays
Ma prison, ma patrie
Exactly what I had been wanting to say, wanting to describe. But the moment when I finally felt freedom and release from all the burdens I had clenching my gut and mind was with the final number: "Danse Mon Esmeralda". Not since
"Rent" (after which I knew I loved theatre and would consider it a career) had a musical had such an impact on my feelings and thoughts.
Thanks to this musical I just finally was able to cry all I wanted to cry. I sobbed, I wailed, everything I wanted was there, everything I loved was there, plus in a story I loved and cherish so much, presented in a language I love, with songs that I adored, with such feeling, and passion, and sorrow, and artistry that I couldn't beleive it. I had been having a hard day, studying for my extraordinaries, I was feeling blocked, and frustrated, and anguished and I kept trying to push the tears back but I finally found release from that and from everything and I managed to remember the best moment of my life, when I felt the best, and what I always, if not long for, at least wish to keep alive forever. And it sparked, and clicked and I cried like I did that evening before Notre Dame, like I hadn't cried since I was a wailing kid, a not an over-emotional teenager and adult who cries easily with anything. Yes, I'm easily touched, I cry with any movie that reaches out to me, or makes me feel nostalgic or bliss or content or moves me and I let the tears easily slip and I accept it. But I could not remember when was the last time I cried so much, that my sobs shook me, and my nose felt sticky, and I actually opened my mouth to let it out in loud cries. It was beautiful, it was wonderful. It was perfect, it was painful, it was overwhelming, it was necessary, it was exaggerated, it was just right, it was strange, it was confusing, it was relieving, it was passionate, it was sad, it was happy.
It was freedom. I felt alive, I remembered what I loved, what I wanted. It was a blessing, it was like baptism like Esmeralda sings on: "Vivre". It wa slike being purified, at last.
It was just... ah... something. That special something I needed and that I know, helps me to continue and to not give up, and work hard, and just plunge forward and give it a shot and think and scream with utmost freedom, and pure, real, frech happiness:
Merci! Paris, je t'aime! You help me live and love!
-
Thank you Quasimodo. Thank you Notre Dame for bringing me back to life.
Je vous aimerai pour toute ma vie...
I can't believe it. I seriously just can't believe it. This is a very strange moment. And something I really really needed to write down. I think I'll remember it always. Dear God, I will!
If there's one word to describe what I'm feeling, how I'm feeling -how I suddenly start to shiver and I just break down and it just feels so good and so right- is: catharsis.
It's meaning is, literally "purging" or "cleansing", or in theatrical terms:
"Catharsis is the emotional cleansing of the audience and/or characters in a play. In relation to drama it is an extreme change in emotion resulting from strong feelings of sorrow, fear, pity, or laughter; this result has been described as a purification or a purging of such emotions (whether those of the characters in the play or of the audience)."
This feeling comes like a liberating surge of something that just makes me soar and feel such relief and freedom I haven't felt in years. At least for three years or, in a way, since my childhood.
This wonderful, powerful something came out of me in the shape of tears. The greatest liberator always comes with tears. Crying is always the best way to just let everything out (or at least for me), to not care about anything and wash it all out, be it good or bad. But mostly the bad.
This year has been one of the harshest, in terms of stress and my own personal feelings and appreciation of every new day that comes. I have gone through (and still am) some very trying moments and things just keep penting up inside, and become bigger and bigger and start crushing me until I can't stand it anymore and I just don't know what to do with myself, what to think, what to feel except sorrow and real, cold, despair. Everything keeps getting piled up and I break down. I touch bottom and just wish I could just die, could only make all of this end once and for all... I had even moments when I contemplated suicide, even at one point, considered it, and even learned to know myself in my lowest moments and how, even if I wanted it, I could never truly manage to go through with it. In a sense, I sometimes hoped for a failed suicide attempt to just make what I felt more real so I could snap out of it and keep on living. Being reborn in a sense, to just rise from my own ashes and burn again with passion for life and love for myself and confidence on myself. I only found out how far I was capable of going (or not) and in a sense, I know myself better and I know, in a sense, that cowardice to not go through with it is, in some way, not cowardice but I reality-check of how much fear I have of death, of never waking up to just see another day. If I dead I would never see the things I like, eat what I enjoy, listen to my music again, write or cry or laugh, or see those I love, or draw, or read, or travel.
I love life.
And one of the first things I thought was: I would never see Europe again. I would never see Paris again.
Looking back on those moments, on those horrible moments when my eyes were blood-shot from crying, and they ached as well as my head, and I was trying to hold back the vomit, all I can think is "Goddamn it it's not worth it!" And how I thought: "I want to see Paris again. I want to live again. I want this to be over. I can't stand this, I'm so sick of everything. I want to see Notre Dame again. I want to walk under the bridges again, to see it appear amidst the rain-clouds again and welcome me back with her bells."
For some reason I yet cannot make out, there is something about Paris, but especially Notre Dame that it keeps coming back to me. It's like I've heard my calling, and I know there is where I belong. What I love, where I remember why I love life, and art, and beauty, and nature, and History, and nothing, just being there, looking at a beautiful cathedral on a cloudy yet perfectly normal day with my Dad.
Since I've been little, my Dad has always told me wonderful things about France, about the appreciation of art, of how it's the City of Artists and Love and inspiration. I think I have subconsciously made Paris my muse...
Anyway, I've loved the idea of France and Paris, the sights, everything that has come from it, artists, philosophers, revolutions, music, everything since I was little. He also knows French and I've always loved when he speaks it so I started learning that beautiful language. I don't know but I have that certain artistic affinity towards the city and three years ago, when I finally went there for the first time I just instantly fell in love and upon stepping upon its streets and looking around for the first time I was just overwhelmed. And when I saw Notre Dame against the grey clouds, surging from behind the shadowed arch of the bridges and suddenly, as my eyes rested on the facade, the bells started to ring. I started crying. It was just too beautiful. Too perfect, so magnificent. I've been looking for a way to describe what I felt on that instant, which I know now was the most important, beautiful, and memorable moment of my life, and to do that I've talked about it endlessly, thought about it repeatedly, written about it in different ways, in my stories, in my journal, through poetry, through music, or films and yet I have found I cannot describe or understand it but I cherish and remember it vividly, or keep it within my memories and heart always. When I remember it, I choke back tears or when I talk about it. So Notre Dame is just my paramour. My beloved symbol of all I believe in: the epitomy of art and History together in one beautiful blend of something.
And maybe I just feel that way towards Notre Dame because of my personality, maybe because my Dad always made me look attentively at the details on the cathedral every time we watched "The Hunchback of Notre Dame", because it's my favourite Disney movie, because I love the novel, or because I love Quasimodo's character. I don't know. At least I know that I love that story because it's so closely linked to that beautiful cathedral and because I just love it.
And what I felt yesterday was an important moment for me. Just as much as that first look at the cathedral. That much, at least, because I remembered that feeling of happiness and how overwhelmed I was by all the beauty and all the good and perfect things together at once on the same things and that I could behold and smile at and keep for myself, and only for myself. I felt it again. And I just needed that, then and there.
And how? How did this cleansing, this catharsis happened? How could I relive such happiness, so much needed freedom?
With this magnificent, heart-wrenchingly touching and beautiful musical: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L24vaxNH91w
Everything was just right, the language, the story, the music, that powerful, swaying first song.
I first started to feel it with the lyrics of the song "Ma Maison C'est Ta Maison".
Notre-Dame de Paris
C'est ma maison, mon nid
C'est ma ville, c'est ma vie
Mon air, mon toit, mon lit
C'est ma chanson, mon cri
Ma raison, ma folie
Ma passion, mon pays
Ma prison, ma patrie
Exactly what I had been wanting to say, wanting to describe. But the moment when I finally felt freedom and release from all the burdens I had clenching my gut and mind was with the final number: "Danse Mon Esmeralda". Not since
"Rent" (after which I knew I loved theatre and would consider it a career) had a musical had such an impact on my feelings and thoughts.
Thanks to this musical I just finally was able to cry all I wanted to cry. I sobbed, I wailed, everything I wanted was there, everything I loved was there, plus in a story I loved and cherish so much, presented in a language I love, with songs that I adored, with such feeling, and passion, and sorrow, and artistry that I couldn't beleive it. I had been having a hard day, studying for my extraordinaries, I was feeling blocked, and frustrated, and anguished and I kept trying to push the tears back but I finally found release from that and from everything and I managed to remember the best moment of my life, when I felt the best, and what I always, if not long for, at least wish to keep alive forever. And it sparked, and clicked and I cried like I did that evening before Notre Dame, like I hadn't cried since I was a wailing kid, a not an over-emotional teenager and adult who cries easily with anything. Yes, I'm easily touched, I cry with any movie that reaches out to me, or makes me feel nostalgic or bliss or content or moves me and I let the tears easily slip and I accept it. But I could not remember when was the last time I cried so much, that my sobs shook me, and my nose felt sticky, and I actually opened my mouth to let it out in loud cries. It was beautiful, it was wonderful. It was perfect, it was painful, it was overwhelming, it was necessary, it was exaggerated, it was just right, it was strange, it was confusing, it was relieving, it was passionate, it was sad, it was happy.
It was freedom. I felt alive, I remembered what I loved, what I wanted. It was a blessing, it was like baptism like Esmeralda sings on: "Vivre". It wa slike being purified, at last.
It was just... ah... something. That special something I needed and that I know, helps me to continue and to not give up, and work hard, and just plunge forward and give it a shot and think and scream with utmost freedom, and pure, real, frech happiness:
Merci! Paris, je t'aime! You help me live and love!
-
Thank you Quasimodo. Thank you Notre Dame for bringing me back to life.
Je vous aimerai pour toute ma vie...