)(( hannah mello ))(

This is Not a Film.

This is not a film.

This isn't a novel--
This isn't a biography--
This isn't fiction.
This isn't someone else's story
from another time and place.

This isn't history.

This is my blip in Earth's time. This is my LIFE. This is the real deal.

For much of my life thus far, I've been a student of Life-- of lives-- of Story-- of stories. As I'm adding more moments, hours, days, months, and years to my lifespan-- even as we speak-- I'm feeling the real sensations that real life evokes.

((((((Ok. Sure. This is my second year abroad-- I've had some funky/creative/wild work opportunities-- I've lived in freakin Greece and Italy. Ok. So, maybe I haven't NOT been living. I guess this epiphany is more just coming into an understanding...))))))))

I decided this weekend that I don't want to watch another film. I don't want to read another book. I just want to live-- and really live. Feeling it all-- being it all-- experiencing-- experiencing. Then, that night I watched "The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants". :) The hypocrisy. :) Yes, maybe it (the epiphany) isn't about an extreme.

And one day, it might be housed in a film--
It could be a novel--
a biography--
historical fiction.
Because it's my story in time and space--
IT WILL BE history.

I lost the first journal I've ever lost a few weeks ago. Yesterday, I went to 5 bookshops trying to replace it. All they sold were Agendas / Planners. In the end, I gave in. Instead of a journal, I bought a day planner to journal in. A little ironic I think... A symbol of living more, journaling less. Living parallel to journaling.

Please don't misunderstand me. I really really care about learning. I really really really care about being open to new ideas ALWAYS and daily-- being open to amendments and map-of-the-world redrawing, etc. However, I guess, if all I'm doing is watching, it's not enough.

My student didn't show for this morning's lesson, and so I biked this exact street (<--) to the daily inside market (mercato). It's behind that black rod-iron gate on the left in the photo. It totally reminds me of Covent Garden. Inclosed. Bustling. Constant stalls. Constant vendors. Consistent life. From 6 am - 2 pm every day (senza Sundays of course...). These photos (---> and below) show the entrance to what's behind the rod iron gate. One of these days, I'm going to "discreetly"camp alongside a wall and photo what I can...

There's a fountain in the middle with a girl carring a basket or something-- the water squirting into a little pool around her.

The alongside-the-wall stalls have cheeses, meats, dolce (sweets)-- the in-the-center stands have fruit and veggies-- nuts-- and even hot, ready-made food items that look so good, you wanna die. :)

I buy fruit from the same couple every time.

So, taking it all back and around to the beginning again,
how will I live now that I'm really living my own life? I'm no longer a juvenile. I'm no longer a student (of course, I'm a lifelong student, by choice... but I mean something different here... sure, I'll always be learning from other's lives-- but not exclusively. Not only input, input, input.) solely, disconnectedly. Not ultimately. ULTIMATELY, this is not a film. This is my life.

Ok. :) I don't want to drive this idea into the ground or define it so much that it looses its abstraction. ((My housemate Sofia is a big big fan of truth being out-of-the box--- that you shouldn't define it too much--- or put too many words to it, because it'll lose its essence. Whenever I tell her a quote I'm enfatuated with, she'll say: "Well, what about..." or "What's an EXAMPLE of that..." or "But sometimes..." etc. I love that. I love that she punctures my enfatuation-- challenging me to think deeper.))

I'm going off. Sorry. :) I guess I'm just inspired to risk more. ... because-- if this is my only shot at existence, I want to make sure I don't miss out on experiencewhen it's just outside my door.
I'm opening the door. And... "miss out on experience" sounds so selfish and cold and egh. I guess I mean-- I don't want to miss out on what I've desired and seen as possible (in films and books, stories and lives, in history) because I'm busy watching others experience it/them.

Ok. :) That's all.

I have an hour now before taking the DIRTY white Fiat Y10 (whose driver's side isn't enter-able, unless you're inside-- whose seat rocks because it's a little faulty-- which doesn't have power steering) to Dinamic (yes, it's spelled with an "i") Oil-- a company that makes mechanisms for oil drilling machines-- to have my first only-conversation lesson with one of their high-er-upper manager people who is going to China for business in 3 weeks.

Lunch time. Time to cook some of that broccoli I bought at the market...
Ciao... Buon Weekend. (Yes, Italians say weekend. And they say "Have a good weekend" just so.)

posted by )(( hannah mello ))( @ 1:19 AM