Monday, October 22, 2012

Zeit und Glanz


The period when I was waking up in the night and was spontaneously composing blog posts in my mind appears to be over, and as life is settling more and more into its rails, I am getting more and more consumed by everyday worries and hurries, no existential doubts clouding my horizons. Today I even bought a little tube of special masking glue to cover the two holes that we erroneously bored in one of the kitchen cupboard doors. The holes and the mistakes are still there, but we are already settled enough to start recovering the holes, or at least masking them.

Another piece of our settling down story is that the languages in my head are enduring again subtle earthquakes as they are trying to adjust to the new situation. Which language shall I keep, and which can I get rid of, that is what my poor brain is probably thinking. Italian? There's a husband speaking that. German? There's the society over there that's communicating in that unspeakable thing, so if I want to take part in the society, I need to work on it (it's a matter of choice though, I could well stay silent and that would solve the need of interacting with people as well as the necessity of mastering my naive German skills). English? That's hard, it is so useful that I need to keep that too, in some way. Bulgarian? Luckily, even if I am loosing some fluency in it, my interlocutors are too young to notice any inconsistency. I sincerely believe - or at least comfort myself in that way - that this constant demand to work on certain foreign language can explain a good deal of my progressive absent-mindedness and general shallowness.

This morning as we were riding the tram to work, respectively daycare, since both are really next one to each other, Michele started telling the kids that mommy is soon having a birthday, and wouldn't it be nice if we make her a birthday cake and a party. Upon hearing that Matteo turned to me and confidentially said: Maybe it's better if you don't have a party, mommy, because every birthday means that you are getting older. We don't want this, do we, concluded he. Who, if I may ask, told him that stuff? Why don't we want to get older, what's wrong about that? I am afraid he came to this conclusion on his own. And somehow I do agree with him, even if, while walking among the young blond short-skirted students with my husband, I was trying to think how much better I feel now, being adult. We work nearby the university, so at every time of the day it is full of students all around. Young, blond and careless.
I am not really suffering my age, I don't even believe it is so respectable. But it seems that accepting age is difficult, not only for ourselves, but even more for our beloved ones. It is difficult maybe to accept that mommy is not going to be eternally beautiful and shiny, and it is definitely difficult to accept that mothers are human beings too, subjected to breaking in wrinkles, in tears, in anger and to committing all the possible mistakes for which we will blame them all life long. So is it better to abolish the birthday parties and the laws of nature, and keep the image of our parents solid and untouched, as caves which will open their doors magically for us and will save us from the dragon breathing in our heels? Sometimes it is maybe better. In most of the cases though, it is better to learn how to save ourselves on our own. Growing up, they say, it is called. And as I am finding out recently, it begins way too early and continues way too long.


Time And Shine. In Freising, Germany, 2012.

2 comments:

  1. I'm glad you are settling in and not having any existential worries. It seems like shifting back and forth between languages would keep your brain young, if not your body, but I think we can safely say that you have many more years of shiny newness in you. I hope you have a very special birthday celebration and wish I could be there to share some cake. I am also surprised that Matteo was having these thoughts. Esme doesn't think a lot about her parents aging but she worries about us dying and gets worked up about it and sometimes even cries about it. I tell her that I have every intention to live to be a very old lady. :)

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  2. I was very surprised by his statement, too. I didn't even think he had any idea of aging after 4 years old, or maybe the limit is somewhere at 8, at most. Death is not on the shedule yet, but I shall prepare myself, it seems. And, you are definitely welcome for a piece of cake, whenever you come!

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