HOW CAN ONE BE SAD WITH A LIFE LIKE THIS?
Iām leaving Australia tomorrow, and I feel in a different/same place as when I left, much more mature and aware, yet in the same state of sadness.
My friend Anna recently wrote a newsletter (you can find it at the end of this page) that really resonated with me:
_āHave you ever felt like for every 100 steps forward, you take at least 1,000 back? Thatās how I feel these days.
āME TOO!ā I thought.
In my last week in Cambodia, I spent entire days at the beach, playing with sand as white as snow, splashing in the clear water until my lips turned blue, playing mermaids with Chiara, eating ice cream while watching the sun set behind the waves.
āSort ofā, I thoughtā¦ but I understand.
We have spent half our lives by the sea. Both of us, water souls.
We spent time exactly as we did when we were kids; we slowly returned to the beginning.ā
I KEPT ASKING MYSELF IN THE LAST WEEKS:
ARENāT WE ALL SHARING THIS LACK OF MEANING?
She concluded that maybe we need to regress, to be children again, to not fear failure.
Maybe sheās right. But Iām not there yet. I am not able to avoid keep valuing more what I do than who I am.
She shared a quote that stuck with me:
"One day, a little sadder than the others, I will say no. I will leave without looking back. I will depart for those distant places where no one will speak to me. I will sit on the Land of Fire, stay there forever, watching, expecting nothing."
ā Ines Cagnati
Lately, Iāve found myself thinking about the same thing.
ā¦āyou canāt constantly move the pan from fire to fire, let it sit for a while if you want to cookā.
And somehow, this led me to Russian literature. And a different sadness.
Iāve been listening to A cosa servono i russi, a podcast by Italian writer Paolo Nori (whatās the use of the Russians). He talks about the Russian culture all the famous authors and their work, poetry, novels, theatreā¦ In one episode he mentioned how, for him, Russian literature and the Russian people embody a culture of helping each other.
Paolo Nori, shared a story that, according to him, captures the essence of the Russian universe:
I think of Sergej Dovlatovās aunt, Margarita Stepanova Dovlatova. She was a proofreader, editor, and later an editorial secretary, working with many famous writers, including Michail ZoÅ”Äenko.
One day, she met ZoÅ”Äenko on the street. By then, he had already fallen on hard timesāexcluded from the writersā union, disgraced. ZoÅ”Äenko pretended not to see her. She followed him and asked, āWhy didnāt you greet me?ā
He smiled and said, āIām sorry. Iām helping my friends avoid greeting me.ā
And this complicity in the sufferance, that goes without saying, for me itās beautiful. And for Paolo Nori as well.
Reading this, I felt less alone.
Knowing, remembering, that a certain Paolo Nori, a certain friend like Anna, and Russian writers share the weight of the present moment - share the sheer weight of existence - made me feel lighter.
Let's try to remember to look left and right if we all feel this weight, or at least some of us do. Because, evidently, we are carrying it together. And that realization made me feel less alone. Less foolish.
Paolo Nori, on the other hand, continued saying:
Maybe this thing I see in you is similar to what Dostoevsky, in his speech on Pushkin, calls otzyvchivost', that is, the willingness to help. But Dostoevsky, if I understand correctly, speaks of the Russians' willingness to help other peoples (who perhaps, I might add, do not wish to be helped by the Russiansānot all of them, at least). What I mean, instead, is the Russiansā willingness to help each other. And given the governments that have followed one another in Russia over the past centuries, it seems to me that there has been a great need for Russians to support one anotherāand it seems to me that they have done so in an astonishing way.
And so I tried to stop.
Go back to childhood or to a phase where it felt obvious to me that this fatigue was shared, that we are all in the same boat, on the same planet. As Anna said. Or Paolo Nori. Or Both. Or nobody.
As Iām writing, in my last 48 hours in Australia, I feel lonely in the world. I feel that I have friends, and family, sharing this burden, but itās almost as if itās unbearable.
Who knows how will I feel tomorrowā¦ I stopped and I'll wait.
Who knows.
Love you,
F
