Away, Present

I was sitting on a bench. Its back was against a fence that demarcated the edge of a hotel’s premises. Its feet were on a concrete walkway. In front of me was a stoney beach that gave the illusion of being sand. And the stones led to a river that looked more like a sea.

To my left, the walkway continued before turning left and out of view. On my right, a grassy, tee-filled hill with distanced terracotta-coloured little homes and bigger hotels. On most of the horizon, giant mountains. I found contentment in this environment.

It’s a silly sentence. I just mean that there, in that space, I found myself truly inside time. My mind was there, running alongside it in real time, in actual space. Everything felt immediate and in me and around me and, just, there. Why did it take a foreign country for it to happen?

For that was then, one of the many moments of Past, yet this one just a few days ago. Before the trip I think I was slightly scattered. I can’t remember totally, but it was likely. And now here, at home, I’m already falling back into that place again. I’m only somewhat into this entry and I’ve written the beginning three times, and I’ve been distracted by my phone numerous times already.

It’s not as though I cannot encounter feeling present in this space. I know it has happened, I have memories of the acts, it has existed, specific highlights are now appearing of moments with friends and my partner. I remember being right there inside the core of life, feasting on its virility, prancing in its veins, singing in its hay. It just feels rare.

Is it rare? What even is it? Am I misguided? Do I know what I am talking about? Have I been manipulated by a buzzphrase? Am I trapped inside nonsense? Most likely. What am I talking about?

No, no, I just described it. It exists. It’s there. Maybe the ideas of ‘being in the moment’ or ‘being fully present’ aren’t accurate representations of what is occurring, but that feeling exists, and those phrases do feel like what it is. But whatever it is, I want that feeling to be always happening.

Why did it feel so grand in Italy? What is it about that location? What happened in that nook of Lago di Garda?

I think it’s related to the personal and the habitual. For some reason - something I should delve into in the future - I feel an affinity towards Italy. Something about the country, inside the country, lights me up. And, it was new. It was a moment, a view, an atmosphere completely disparate from my daily life. I almost never see mountains. It’s as flat as anything around here. A gradual hill is a novelty. That heat, the light, those buildings, the language. Different. Difference awakens. Difference jogs the consciousness. Difference pulls away the covers and affinity says “hello there, this moment is almighty”. I must encourage the different. (i must book another trip to Italy).

[06.06.2023]