Simple Doesn’t Mean Easy
Dear friend,
Yesterday evening’s flu like symptoms turned out to be as mild as runny nose and an achy warm body.
I left the hotel walking the five minutes to Teatro Olimpico, and hovered outside the artists entrance; feeling a little out of place and awkward.
Some of the performers waved from inside and I gave them the thumbs up. They were preparing; each in their own way. The light inside golden on their brightly coloured silk and satin costumes.
It’s unseasonably warm and I’m hugging myself and just standing there. What comes up is an old dread of being rejected or an outcast.
I let it come.
It wears itself out. Like a wave on a rock and then another and another and I’m letting the feeling wash through me. No story. No protagonists. No enemies.
Just these old fears, breaking on the shore of my self.
I really want to be part of the last show but also it will be fine if it can’t happen.
I realise that only my body is subject to time. Inside is free. Timeless.
Chiara messages me to hang tight. If she can she’ll come sneak me in once the audience is settled.
I think of other times we’ve gate crashed together. The night we talked our way into the British Independent Film Awards. We’d been unsure what to do. She’d starred in one of the movies that year but there was only a ticket for her to the gala dinner.
A couple of hours before, we were in bed debating just how embarrassing it would be if we tried to bluff our way in.
Suddenly I found by body getting out of the bed and fetching the ironing board.
“Are we going? she said.
“I’m ironing my shirt” I replied “looks like it.”
We caught a tube and discussed our roles and got so into it the door staff went along with our charade too, apologetically seating us with the corporate guests; rustling up a couple of vegetarian dinners.
I love that about us.
It’s a fortunate thing to find someone you can go on adventures with.
She appears next to the doorman with a cheeky look on her face and we run up to the the lighting gallery and I watch from there.
Flaviano and Mauro are on projections and subtitles and a fireman is in his fire boots and and there’s a bored looking usher.
Here’s the view taken during the interval:
The performance tonight is sublime. One minute I’m laughing and then crying. It’s a dream. We had no idea our time together would bring us to places like this.
Sometimes we drive each other half way round the bend, loving like this but who would have it any other way?
Now I’m jammed in the centre seat of a plane with two sleeping men either side and I can see the UK is under broken cloud.
A young kid tenderly leads his grandma down the aisle towards the front toilet.
He’s probably about seven or eight years old. His gran is stooped and beaming so is the boy.
Something about the image is deeply touching.
Resonates.
Life is simple.
Love.
Forgive.
Be kind.
Stop projecting what hurts out onto the others. Look at it and feel it and be gentle with yourself as you heal the buried hurts.
No one really grows up.
We’re all kids.
The soul is ageless.
Immortal
Innocence.
It’s who we are.
Healing is attended by discomfort.
Feeling what has been put away until it feels safe enough you can face it.
No need to force it. It happens in divine time.
Take the step that opens up in front of you.
Your path may be winding but its end is sure. It’s leading you home.
There’s something about flying above the clouds makes it easier to touch.
Till tomorrow
Love
Mikey