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18th of February
Hannah: The train just left and I am getting somehow emotional. I feel strengthened and mentally tidied up. You make me feel very calm, like being above the daily chaos. I was nervous to meet you but not scared at all because I knew meeting you has been good for me. Thank you again. The time I have been spending with you was a retreat for my soul.
19th of February
Jane: I have been speechless all day. Your arrival was very intense as well as your departure. I still did not realise that tomorrow I will be in Bulgaria. Thank you. You shared your time and thoughts with me. You enjoyed being in my hometown with my family and friends. You saw my special place where the sea and the sky press on each other. You walked on the same path and looked at everything with curiosity and wonder. Our first meeting has been a big event. I feel so good but I will be only able to describe how I feel in the next days.
Today, I have been participating in a conference about Hannah Arendt. I wish you were there. I think she can inspire you, especially what she has written about the process of "thinking". I am also going to focus on it. I am glad the conference filled my day because when you left, at the train station, it was not natural for me just to go home... something was interrupted. I have been waiting to feel ready to leave the station and then I slowly drove back home. A long ride, longer than usual!
I thought a lot about my current relationships and I took some decisions, maybe a few of them are extremes. I started with Adam, the friend I told you from the time of high school: I explained to him why we cannot be friends anymore. After high school, our friendship changed and it has been hard for me to keep it because suddenly he stopped to listen to me. Maybe, he has been thinking our friendship was enough strong to resist all the possible negative conditions. Nevertheless, I know when something is broken. Everything has its own time and place.
20th of February
Hannah: Please do not be confused because I have not answered before. Seeing my boyfriend confused me and felt intense. I have been deeply thinking about our conversations and I took notes, so I will not forget any of it. I just need time to process all the emotions from the last week and days and tidy up my mind and then I will answer with more content. Days are running away but I perceive it as a chance for my mind to clean itself, refreshing after a very stressful time, or just re-articulating for what is coming soon. Timelessness is one of the most difficult conditions to reach with one's mind. Do you think you are experiencing timelessness?
This is one of the moments a glass of wine would have been pretty amazing for a long and warm talk. Right now, I am reading a book where the protagonist is asking himself three questions:
1. Why am I here?
2. Am I afraid of Death?
3. Am I living a fulfilled life?
I don’t know what will happen in the book and how the man will find out what the “something more” is searching for actually is . But you reminded me of it and maybe the questions are helpful for you too.
I am very grateful for you being part of my life right now. This is something special... something real, deep, and pure. I feel you close. I hope that you have a good start into your project! Please tell me about it !! I want to know as much as you want to write me.
21th of February
Jane: Dear Hannah, our meeting was a big event and I will never delete this memory: the memory is strong and alive. You can always take your time with me, I trust you will reply as soon as you are ready. I am still enjoying the depth of the day we have been together. I am reading the autobiography of Susanna Tamaro. She touches me almost every line, and I am creating a dialogue with my pen in between her lines, her life, and her story. Sometimes I feel a bit weird doing this: whom am I to try to create a connection with the authors who inspire me and are still inspiring me? I think the actual purpose of this activity is to create a dialogue through time. Being able to communicate with the readers as the opposite, being able to communicate with the writers. When we read, the writer is there, in our hands, flying from page to page, touching and stimulating our mind, shaking it, relating with it. I believe that, among all the possible reasons, an author is writing to keep the dialogue with the reader, to let the people know something about his activity.
Yesterday I luckily did not have my phone and I enjoyed my time more than usual, every single molecule of the space. I enjoyed a three hours trip from Sofia to Plovdiv. The people here are peculiar, like characterised; do you know when you rather see in movies all the characters and their lives are introduced one by one in the middle of unclear events? I am experiencing something like that. In certain occasions – like this one - I enjoy loneliness since it helps me to concentrate on my personal thoughts and it makes me feel my natural instinct. When I travel, physically and mentally, all the books that I've read, all the movies that I've watched, the people and the animals that I've met, everything that has had an interaction with me, enter my journey and there is no more difference between me and the outside. Something intense comes often with empty spaces, echoes, pieces of glasses, waves...sparse and colourful words.
I have read your poem...and it was a touch, soft but deep, solid. I did not mention this before cause I like to read the same poem for a while and see what my mind feels time passing and conditions changing.
22th of February
Hannah: The conference about Hannah Arendt must have been great. I actually remember there was a short discussion about her in university when we talked about the Eichmann Process in one lecture.
Making decisions is a powerful thought and a necessary one too because even if one does not decide it takes consequences. In my opinion, it is always better to decide and to influence the consequences. I think deciding who is a friend, and therefore an important part of one’s life, is definitely something that one should decide using carefully his or her own free will. I am proud that you did. We do not have to accept the people who come and stay but do not make us feel good, we can choose who gets our time and energy. You want to fill your life with less pain... what a beautiful resolution! I am very happy because of all those thoughts of yours, they are positive, energetic, powerful, and I am extremely sure, that they will lead you to a rich and peaceful place.
What is it that keeps you this attached to Susanna Tamaro? Is it her way of writing? Or the content of her work?
What you wrote about Bulgaria sounds very interesting. It must be intense and makes you feel and sense a lot. What an adventure!
23th of February
Jane: As always, your words are perfect. I am reading carefully your message. Now I will again. I do not want to reply things you do not want to hear or are not pleasant to hear.
About the conference on Hannah Arendt I took notes in case you are interested.
Decisions and consequences are strictly related; in fact, I know decisions are influenced by the consequences of previous decisions. Friends have always been a hard topic...maybe you have an idea about how I behave in friendship: I am caring a lot, but sometimes it is too heavy. I will explain better. When I was in high school Adam played an important role but nowadays I completely lost the trust in him. About your boyfriend...I can see the sense of community, of plurality, of connections, are not so important since he is too much focused on his little garden, with many personal goals to reach and that's it.
When Tamaro was a child she had dreams that I also had...she is describing them very well, and so I found the starting point of our connection. Both of us have been very problematic in socialising. I was also very lonely in the kindergarten, and I used to play alone while the other kids made groups. My game was to guess how old were the plants, or the tree, which of them were male or female, and what they could have seen as spectators. This is something Susanna was not doing but I believe if she had a garden maybe she would have done it. When I discovered that humans did not follow the circle of life as well as nature, nightmares came up during the night. I did not want to die, I did not want to disappear and lose all my memories. I wanted to live like the trees or the flowers that were changing but not dying. Nightmares never stopped. They just changed and adapt to the mind of an adult.
Moreover, Tamaro writes very well without have been studying literature, philosophy, or art. Everything is the result of the intense and deep way she has lived her life. She was a pure writer.
24th February
Hannah: you know you can say everything that is on my mind, even unpleasant thoughts... sometimes it is easier to face unpleasant truths than to stay in the pleasant imaginations.
Do not think that is all I want to answer. I was interrupted and then I had to go and now I am hustling around trying to manage this day. I am feeling deeply with you and want to talk about all this with the attention you deserve. I am home in a few minutes and then I will properly answer. I want you to know: I am incredibly impressed by you and by the way, you are handling all the things you have gone through.
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