I arrived back in Budapest on Tuesday evening to scorching heat and wild rays of sunshine after a couple of days pit stop in North Yorkshire after Spain. I wondered how it would be to be back in my apartment alone after nearly two months of company and I am finding that the quiet needs some adjusting to. Maybe I am ready after all these years to break the silence, how can you tell?
Budapest feels nice in the summer. From my window, as usual, there are the Orthodox Jews on their way home from the Dohany Synagogue as well as the local Gypsy community sitting on their doorsteps having a good natter and soaking up the sun on fold-away chairs. The sunshine makes the bullet picked facades of the buildings seem like survivors, not victims, which is what my district can feel like in the winter. It could be that I am just projecting anyway.
I thought that things might be different when I returned, that there would be some sort of feeling of coming home. I imagined that I would be overwhelmed with the familiarity, and yet I find that Budapest still does not have the grip on me that some of my other cities have had. That being said, it is nice to be back and I have fallen in love with my apartment all over again. I have even had a few nights out here and there, Szimpla Kert on Wednesday, Hold Udvar on Friday.
With the clarity that the summer break brought with it, I no longer feel neither here nor there. The world is a more settled place when we have something to aim for. I think that I have found the bridge that connects this part of my life with the next one, which is all I wanted last year. Now I am already imagining the next few weeks. I'll be back to Krakow, which I adore and will also be going to Nice for a few days. Everything is lighter as my second year in Budapest begins.
August 17, 2008
August 11, 2008
Peeling
The holidays are nearly over and I am one flight away from Budapest and some semblance of a normal life. I will be back in my apartment by myself, and I will get up at the same time every day to go to work. It sounds like the world will be just as it was when I finished in June, but the truth is that many things have changed over the last few weeks.
I find that I hold a determination, a conviction about what I want from the next few years that simply was not there before. I feel like there are good things to come, that there are more adventures to be had. As usual, I will stay away from stating anything definite until there is no going back and the road ahead is more set in stone. I suppose that the bottom line is that my summer holidays have done me a great deal of good, most notably sneaking up behind me in those moments I didn't realise were made for revelations and clarity.
I find that I hold a determination, a conviction about what I want from the next few years that simply was not there before. I feel like there are good things to come, that there are more adventures to be had. As usual, I will stay away from stating anything definite until there is no going back and the road ahead is more set in stone. I suppose that the bottom line is that my summer holidays have done me a great deal of good, most notably sneaking up behind me in those moments I didn't realise were made for revelations and clarity.
August 08, 2008
Guest Post by S - Pissimism
Pissing about is underrated.
The biggest concerns this holiday have consisted of: Should I go for a swim? Or read a book? That kitchen looks a bit grubby should I give the floor a sweep? What should we have for lunch/dinner? How long should I sit out in the sun?
I have to admit although I was looking forward to spending time with A, N and two teenage girls I was nevertheless wondering exactly how the two weeks would pan out. Me and four females in a villa with not a whiff of testosterone in sight! But I can honestly say I have had a great time.What have we done in these last fourteen days? Not much. We have made a conscientious effort to do nothing. What have I gained from the experience? A great deal.
The majority of our lives are made up of the daily grind, our work, the complex web of connections and relationships which we carry around with us wherever we go and whatever we are doing. There are very few times in a person’s life when all of the normal cares and concerns disappear completely. Genuine pissing about and talking bollocks allows this to happen. It allows us - for a brief time anyway - to live in the moment (even if that moment involves being laughed at hysterically for chuntering to myself about which lid is the correct lid for the pate) and not think about the past or the future.
Some would argue that this is not real life and is a fantasy situation which cannot last. I would be inclined to agree, however, when moments like these do happen they can be incredibly liberating. You can feel so relaxed that you actually find when real life creeps back into your consciousness, as it inevitably will, you are marvellously equipped to deal with it because the pissing about has not been time wasted at all and a great deal of the baggage you may have been carrying around with you seems somehow lighter. These moments allow you to procrastinate about what is really important and hopefully you won't merely go back to the daily grind as before but will have changed a little, for the better.
It has been a real blessing to have this time and space for doing nothing and as I said at the beginning pissing about is underrated and when you look at the benefits and blessings people can receive from it then it could never really be viewed as time wasted at all but time well spent and a blessing which we should avail ourselves of more often.
"Many blessings have I sent your way: have you availed yourself of them. Well, have you?"
(Jewish Talmud)
The biggest concerns this holiday have consisted of: Should I go for a swim? Or read a book? That kitchen looks a bit grubby should I give the floor a sweep? What should we have for lunch/dinner? How long should I sit out in the sun?
I have to admit although I was looking forward to spending time with A, N and two teenage girls I was nevertheless wondering exactly how the two weeks would pan out. Me and four females in a villa with not a whiff of testosterone in sight! But I can honestly say I have had a great time.What have we done in these last fourteen days? Not much. We have made a conscientious effort to do nothing. What have I gained from the experience? A great deal.
The majority of our lives are made up of the daily grind, our work, the complex web of connections and relationships which we carry around with us wherever we go and whatever we are doing. There are very few times in a person’s life when all of the normal cares and concerns disappear completely. Genuine pissing about and talking bollocks allows this to happen. It allows us - for a brief time anyway - to live in the moment (even if that moment involves being laughed at hysterically for chuntering to myself about which lid is the correct lid for the pate) and not think about the past or the future.
Some would argue that this is not real life and is a fantasy situation which cannot last. I would be inclined to agree, however, when moments like these do happen they can be incredibly liberating. You can feel so relaxed that you actually find when real life creeps back into your consciousness, as it inevitably will, you are marvellously equipped to deal with it because the pissing about has not been time wasted at all and a great deal of the baggage you may have been carrying around with you seems somehow lighter. These moments allow you to procrastinate about what is really important and hopefully you won't merely go back to the daily grind as before but will have changed a little, for the better.
It has been a real blessing to have this time and space for doing nothing and as I said at the beginning pissing about is underrated and when you look at the benefits and blessings people can receive from it then it could never really be viewed as time wasted at all but time well spent and a blessing which we should avail ourselves of more often.
"Many blessings have I sent your way: have you availed yourself of them. Well, have you?"
(Jewish Talmud)
August 07, 2008
Past, present or future?
You Live in the Present |
 You take things one day at a time. And it turns out, that's a pretty great way to live. You aren't consumed by the past, and you're aren't obsessed with the future. You live in the now, and you enjoy each moment. While most people don't live in the present enough, make sure you don't live in it too much. It would be a mistake to forget your past or neglect to plan for the future. |
August 02, 2008
Reading update
I finished reading 'The Zahir', which I really enjoyed, coming as it did at a time when any insight into how emotions mix with destiny was very welcome indeed. After that I moved onto a bit of fluffy chick lit 'Over You' by Lucy Diamond, which was quick and easy to read, not taxing and not hugely well written either. After that I read Bill Brysons 'Shakespeare', which I couldn't put down, being fabulously written and really interesting. Another little bit of a happy ending with Cecelia Aherns 'Thanks for the memories', which is another feel good story, but I actually think that Ahern is very talented at what she does, and several laugh out loud moments, I finished that too.
All of the books to read that I brought with me have been finished and now I am hanging on Ns coat tails, waiting for her to finish books so that I can read them. I am holding in my hands one of her current cast-offs 'East of the Sun' by Julia Gregson. I do love reading, hopefully I will get through a few more while I am sitting under the sun.
All of the books to read that I brought with me have been finished and now I am hanging on Ns coat tails, waiting for her to finish books so that I can read them. I am holding in my hands one of her current cast-offs 'East of the Sun' by Julia Gregson. I do love reading, hopefully I will get through a few more while I am sitting under the sun.
August 01, 2008
If only, if only
Life on holiday is what you wait all year for and the last week in Javea has not let me down. The routine that we have all settled into goes something like this...
Get up, spend two hours in silence on the terrace with S and N before the girls get up and start making noise.
Sunbathe and swim, have lunch when we can be bothered to get out of the water. Siesta in the afternoon, or back into the water because it is just too hot to consider anything else. Back onto the terrace in the early evening, followed by a long, late dinner.
That pretty much is it, but I am not sure how the hours manage to slip through your fingers when so little seems to have been accomplished. A week has passed by already and I am so blissfully happy that we have another one to go. I know that once the week has passed it will take me crashing headlong into flights to Budapest and life in Hungary again. I'm happy about that too, but don't need to think about that now...the water is calling to me.
Get up, spend two hours in silence on the terrace with S and N before the girls get up and start making noise.
Sunbathe and swim, have lunch when we can be bothered to get out of the water. Siesta in the afternoon, or back into the water because it is just too hot to consider anything else. Back onto the terrace in the early evening, followed by a long, late dinner.
That pretty much is it, but I am not sure how the hours manage to slip through your fingers when so little seems to have been accomplished. A week has passed by already and I am so blissfully happy that we have another one to go. I know that once the week has passed it will take me crashing headlong into flights to Budapest and life in Hungary again. I'm happy about that too, but don't need to think about that now...the water is calling to me.
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