Falling into autumn

There's something that feels really great about autumn mornings. I can get up early and watch the sun rising through my window while its fire-y glow paints the dull walls of my room. It's like a sense of beginning, of promise, of bright things waiting for me to catch up with them.

That's what September has always done to me: making me feel like I have a new chance to create, and live, and fuck things up. I get to go to university again, and having been a student my whole life, I know of no better brand new start than September. Each year brings more difficulties with it, but they feel like a sheen of dust covering an ancient writing machine: blow the dust away, and all you get are infinite worlds and possibilities held by your own two hands.

It is still hot, but when I wake up at 6:30 a.m and I walk to the underground station for my daily commute, the freezing morning wind cuts my cheekbones and makes me feel really conscious about all the good things I have, and of how happy I am for a person that wakes up at fucking six in the morning. This autumnal breeze smells of sea salt and dying leaves, but also of promises. New courses get me all excited with the unexpected. 

There are things I know will happen. There's the certainty of dark circles under my too shiny eyes, of hurting wrists and throbbing finger calluses after intense note taking in class, of whiplash that leaves me out of breath, of back muscles as taut as tightropes. There's the certainty of ink stains in my hands and of hurried handwriting in notes I can't even understand. There's the certainty of feeling trapped in my bedroom after too many hours sitting before my textbooks and there's the certainty of a full yellow moon lightning a path on the sea while my mom and I look silently at all of it from our terrace. There's the certainty of crying and laughing and loving again and again, of seeing my niece get bigger and smarter every day, and of having my nose bit by her growing aching teeth. There's the certainty of fashionable winter clothes and of painting my lips with a burgundy lipstick that is not dark enough for my liking. 

But there are so many other things I don't know will happen, or how they will happen, that I shiver just with the thought of it. 

Maybe I'll see a fully starry night sky this year for the first time in my life. Maybe I'll learn how to identify all of those starts I'm dying to see. Maybe I'll go back to that cozy country hotel I used to love when I was a child, all wood and stones and greens and browns, a place surrounded by chestnut trees. Maybe I'll get to sit there, in a plush sofa in front of the roaring fireplace, listening to the rain splattering on the windowpanes and waiting for the rain to stop so I can go and venture myself in the woods. But I'll also feel blessedly content in that moment, when there's rain and security and coziness all around me and the only thing I want is to stop time right there, letting myself to feel so alive that it even hurts. 

Maybe this year I'll come to terms with the fact that I'm a hopeless romantic. Who knows if I'll get kissed this year, if I'll have one of those moments in which you feel absolutely ok with who you are, if there'll be nights of confessions shaped with warm breath and hushed tones, even though no one can hear us, while our heads are comfortably laid on a pillow with just the right space to speak with our lips barely touching and our noses bumping each other every time we move. I don't know when the fleeting touch of a hand, or the pressure of a firm thigh against my own under a table, or a shy cautious look that speaks volumes will make a tingling sensation run down my spine until it reaches my toes, curling them with anticipation. Maybe I'll fall in love this winter. It seems like a very apt season to fall in love, truly, wholly, and stupidly into it. 

I don't know which things will disappoint me, and I don't know all the wonderful moments that lay ahead of me. I'll keep coming off as an independent woman, but maybe this will be the time in which I learn how to wear my heart on my sleeve and I won't mind admitting that I crave simple physical contact as much as I crave the oxygen I breath. I don't know which movies and songs will make my heart beat faster, and I don't know which songs that I haven't listened to in years I will come across, drowning me in fond memories of 'better times'. I can't wait for all the planned trips that will never be and the unexpected ones that will turn out to be invaluable adventures. Maybe I'll get to travel by train, and that'll make me fall head over heels in love with life again. Everything will come crushing down on me, and it'll feel wonderful.

I'll wait expectantly for rainy days and hot chocolate cups, and hopefully I'll grow a bit more this season. I'll turn 21 and that won't be terrifying at all. Maybe I'll get into driving again, and I'll have bad days and good days and everything that comes in between, and everything will be alright. 

It is all worth it. 

I'll keep living and I can't think of something better than that. 

Book Review | 'The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet' by David Mitchell

In 1799, Jacob de Zoet disembarks on the tiny island of Dejima, the Dutch East India Company’s remotest trading post in a Japan otherwise closed to the outside world. A junior clerk, his task is to uncover evidence of the previous Chief Resident’s corruption.

Cold-shouldered by his compatriots, Jacob earns the trust of a local interpreter and, more dangerously, becomes intrigued by a rare woman—a midwife permitted to study on Dejima under the company physician. He cannot foresee how disastrously each will be betrayed by someone they trust, nor how intertwined and far-reaching the consequences.

Duplicity and integrity, love and lust, guilt and faith, cold murder and strange immortality stalk the stage in this enthralling novel, which brings to vivid life the ordinary—and extraordinary—people caught up in a tectonic shift between East and West.

I don't really know where to begin. From the start, I suppose. 

My first contact with David Mitchell's literature (or magical literary superhero powers if I'm honest with myself) came through the cinematographic adaptation of 'Cloud Atlas', a highly acclaimed novel by both the public and the critics. It had been turned into a movie by the Wachowskis that came and went without a second glance from either of those two indicators of media success and, therefore (and sadly), creative quality (as if). 

However, I loved the movie. The fact that my sister and I were completely alone in the theatre when we saw it was just the icing on an enticing, though-provoking, original cake. We couldn't take our eyes away from the screen, from the characters, from the look and the feel of it. It was a film that managed to mix historical fiction, sic-fi, thriller, action, romance, drama and humor within the time-span of just three hours. Amazing. 

Anyway, this is not the moment to vent to you all about this movie that still haunts my waking hours and has me thinking about it at all times. Back to business. 

So that's how I got into 'Cloud Atlas' and that's how I became addicted to Mitchell's words. They're haunting, vivid, strange, visible, tangible things that take a place in your heart and never abandon it. Never, ever. 

Not even the fact that I had watched the movie before reading the book tarnished its magnetism and beauty. Because that's what I've found Mitchell's writing to be, beautiful and magnetic. 

It took more than a month to finish this book. I'm usually a really fast reader, but exams tramped my reading-speed. I didn't mind it, though, because the story unravels itself in each page. It's slow, yes, but it blooms in such a way that you don't even realize how many things are happening and suddenly you've reached a cathartic point that has you holding your breath in suspense. 

It's subtle, filled with cunning metaphors and sensual imagery. That's one of the things I like the most about Mitchell's writing: he unravels a world we aren't supposed to know about in this book. The island of Dejima is almost like a secret place we're looking at through a keyhole, seeing glimpses of fleeting silk and forbidden relationships. You can go from rude sea wolf's jargon to faltering dialogue between the Dutch and the Japanese to delicate confessions sushed by the silent falling of soft snow. 

That's the best thing about this novel: you can see everything. Japan unwraps itself like a lover in dim light, letting you see its most intimate parts. It's a story that you enjoy in every possible way. It stimulates your imagination, your intelligence, your thirst for more. The fact that a maritime theme was predominant for a good part of the novel did it for me. I'm a sucker for maritime stories. Throw in a bit of scheming, economic and love interests, Japanese culture and colonial history, blend it all, and you have the perfect mix for a session of really, really good reading. 

And the characters. My.God. Mitchell is a master at creating characters. Well, Mitchell is a master of good writing. De Zoet is complex, full of angles and light and shadows. Uzaemon is mysterious and lovely and strong. And Aibagawa Orito is one of the best female characters I've ever found in modern literature. She hides multiple dimensions, holds herself with strength, and it's just so incredibly amazing and clever that I can't help but look up to her. And these are only the three main characters. Antagonists and supporting characters come and go without letting you know which are their intentions, embroidering a plot that connects perfectly at the end. 

I don't want to let you in in more of the plot, because it's best to dive in the story without knowing much about what's going to happen. It's a novel to be enjoyed quietly, with attention, because it contains so many details that you can get lost easily, and that's probably one of the bad things about it, but it is nothing compared to the satisfaction you get when you close the book after having finished it, knowing that you will think about this story for a long, long time. 

_____________________________________

5 stars out of 5 

☆☆☆☆☆

And you? Have you read this book? 
 What did you think about it? 

The wonder of fiction

Ever since I can remember I've been surrounded by stories. Books stashed in shelves were my favorite sight as a child, and still are. I lost myself in the woods outlined by the pages of a novel, always in search of beastly fairies and gentle dragons. I was always the hero of tender heart and the villain of cunning intellect. I was the sea, lulling you to sleep or dragging you down to death. 

I always believed in those stories, and I don't think that belief has waned with age. My faith is still held by all of those worlds woven by strings of words. I saw myself in every character, in every situation, in every feeling. Not in a sense of 'I'm like this character', but in a sense of kinship, of understanding and being understood. I could live every single thing others had lived before me, and most importantly, I could feel myself validated. I was not stupid or strange for liking the things I liked, I was not different for loving in the way I loved. My favorite characters had more flaws than I could count with the fingers of my hands, and I still loved them nonetheless. If I loved those characters, I could love others as well. I could love myself, no matter how many imperfections I saw when I looked at my reflection. I was ok, I was good, I was a truthful statement of life itself. 

Now all those ideas remain at the back of my mind, telling me that I'm still valid. But university has turned my life upside down, and now I don't have as much time to read as I did when I was a careless child. I'm still struggling to fit in time in my schedule to sit down with a book and properly read it, and I've come to the realization that l'm not such a speed-reader now as I was then. I think that has impaired my imagination a bit. Growing old is no fun.

However, I still find some kind of cozy joy whenever I read a story set in a fantastical world. It's like a warm light filling up my chest. That's why I decided to start writing my own stories. 

There's a kind of universality in fiction that I don't find in non-fiction works. In the latter I always feel like the authors are trying to dress up reality into some fancy imagination that is quite dishonest with what they truly want to express. However, in fiction, you can simply make up an entire universe out of whole cloth. And since you're not restricted by reality itself, you don't censor your words for a fear of being judged for trying to make yourself sound better than you actually are. You can explore the world with the innocence of a toddler and the brutality of desperation. In a fictional world, the things that are narrated, could be happening to anybody. They could be happening to you, and that's magical. 

With fiction I can pick up my fountain pen and my worn out notebooks and I can become the sea itself, I can build my own cathedrals with crystal walls breaking down the light that passes through them. But I don't think of the action of writing so much as an 'I can', but rather more of an 'I do' situation. I do become pirate ships and the raiders that sail in them. I am the dragon and the slayer, I love and I hate. I have thousands of lovers or none of them. I work in every profession known to mankind and in others we can't even imagine. I study in a castle overlooking sharp mountains. I go through sadness and lust and fear and joy and utter savagery in the span of a page. I'm gentle and rude and canny and naïve. I'm life itself, I'm death itself. I'm heaven and hell and day and night. I'm made up of stardust and shadows and dreams and nightmares. I'm alive.

Fiction allows us to narrate our own life and the life of others we'll never get to know. Through fiction we comprehend the world and get a grasp of what we are. It's a bit self-centered, if I think it coolly. But I also remember my dog-eared books, the notebooks I've filled with words that were crawling out of my over-thinking brain, and then I can only think of fiction as the only way to live in the truest form. And we do it constantly. 

We narrate our lives. We turn them into stories we tell to others because we need to get that weight out of our constricted chests. I've lost count of how many times my parents have narrated their life to me, of all the anecdotes that turn themselves into fairy tales when they roll out of a rapid-fire tongue. I can almost see those stories as movies in my head, and I realize every time I think of them that they're the truest stories I'll ever hear. We all are narrators, we all use language as a means of living, of connecting with others, of finding peace of mind. We're shaky rowboats drifting in a stormy ocean between cutting cliffs, driven by a mermaid's song into believing that something brilliant lies under the madness of the sea. And sometimes we do find that finer thing, and we perpetuate it in our minds with words. And we perpetuate it in others' minds with the written word.