I am feeling quite emotional right now, some sort of nostalgic sweet pain, like when you leave something dear behind but without remorse or regret, instead with understanding that you have to move on and cherishing the nice memories*.
I find this state perfect to do this exercise of writing in as much detail as I can, five moments I felt fully alive.
Instructions: Think of five moments in your life when you felt like you were FULLY ALIVE. Try to find moments from throughout your life (childhood, adolescence, adulthood; school, work, vacation, hobbies). Some of the moments might leave you with a sense of awe and wonder—“wow, if all of life was like that, life would be amazing!” Some of the moments might leave you feeling deeply recharged and ready to face the next challenge, or satisfied and fulfilled. Write down each of these moments. Tell the story of each moment in as much detail as possible. Try to think specifically about why the moment stuck with you so dramatically.
I am in Florence, Italy. I was walking the streets of this city for three weeks looking for an interior garden I dreamed of before taking the trip. The dream was related to the imaginary world I have created for myself since childhood and where I was escaping every time I didn’t want to deal with the reality of other people. That dream was also the last time I could acces that world. I finally found this interior garden, and I was sitting in it, painting. It is the interior garden of a church made of bricks. I’m standing on a small interior brick wall that separates a hallway (I’m sure it has a specific name) with columns from the central garden which has a maze of pathways through an ivy fence that lead to a tree in the middle. It was like in my dream except for the maze. I spent a day and a half in this place painting. I didn’t want anything else, nor do I wish I did something more with this time I had in a city with so many things to do and see. It was enough. As I was painting, someone came to me and asked if they could film me painting and congratulated me for the what I was doing. I became very self aware, but I carried on painting, relieved as the person went on without any other word. I was fully alive until someone talked to me. I understand appreciation as a good thing and I need it as an artist, but as a person I need being I my own space, undisturbed, more, especially when I am intensly focused on something.
I have several moments like this thougout my life. The most recent is of when I was in Sibiu, which was nicer since the people talked to me when I finished painting. I also had a moment of dancing on the street in a small town near Bordeaux where I had a little girl and her parents as audience. I felt really inspired that day and felt movement was the best way to let it out instead of drawing or painting as I usually do on vacation. It is not uncommon for me to dance on the street when on vacation, although in the last three years I started doing it more and with less worry of being seen.
Still in Florence, I went to the abbey to listen to Georgian music sang by the monks. The concerts were held in the small chapel behind the altar and you had to go down about a dozen stairs. There were benches between the columns. I chose to sit on the stairs behind the altar and draw. The concert was held after the mass, and I listened to the end of the sermon. I felt very much at peace and not judged because I was drawing. Actually, I was quite ignored, save for one person who congratulated me for the drawing. The feeling of calm, belonging, peace and completeness were so strong, I came back almost every evening to attend the mass and concert for the next two weeks without doing anything else but listen.
I am sitting in my room, in the house I share with my parents. I am on the extensible arm chair I am also using as bed with a laptop on my lap, and my cat, Ticutz, is sleeping at my feet. I am drinking tea from a mug that is big enough to fit in both of my hands. The mug is round shaped and has red and blue spots on it. I am keeping the mug with one hand on my chest and I am enjoying the warmth emanating from it. Looking at my cat sleeping, and integrating this warmth that makes me feel calm and at peace, I started writing how I am feeling so I can remember and maybe find a way to achieve this state voluntarily, which I succeeded only three months ago. As I write this, I feel that same warmth inside of me. I am also listening to Zaz just like back then, even though to a different song.
I am laying down with my eyes closed, face up, arms relaxed next to my body, palms up, on the dance floor on my island of happiness. It is the end of a workshop and the coreographer is guiding us through a sort of meditation. She is telling us we are floating to the cilling and then we are going one floor up, and up, and up, until we are on the roof, and then we float over Cișmigiu park and so on. I left the journey somewhere because my mind was on fire with inspiration. I had to propose a project for a client, and I had no idea what until that point, but while I was floating I saw so clearly the swan recipient made of recycled aluminium and how to make it. When the meditation was done, I got up and went home to bring to reality what I just imagined. Nothing else existed, but this idea I simply HAD TO make.
Those moments of inspiration that can come anytime are just so full of everything and they tend to enrich the months to come.
Those ideas also consume me as much as I enjoy creating them.
I am in the hospital, in intensive care, after the surgery. I woke up crying and felt dispair at waking up as well as anger at people telling me I have no reason to cry. I heard a nurse tell another one that she just came from the children’s wing, where she made a balloon out of a glove to calm a child. I asked her to make one for me as well. She was kind enough to do so. The nurse who took me to my hospital room, drew a face on it. We joked, played with it and even speculated on what it looks like: a rooster, a fish …a punker 😁 Those gestures brought me so much joy, which turned my dispair into a calm confidence and a sense of clarity I have never experienced, nor knew I needed, in my life until then. I realized that asking for help with something that wouldn’t normally be considered necessary or appropriate for an adult, and getting it, helped heal a little the child in me who has always been second guessed, had her feelings silanced or negated, or had her experiences be invalidated. Whenever I second guess myself since, I go back to this feeling and know that I can trust myself to do what is best for me right now with the information and resources I have.
I am glad to see I wasn’t fully alive only when I was alone, but also when and due to interacting with people.
*you’ll never guess what triggered this feeling 🤭
The joy of creating 