The Day It Came

In her usual fashion, my mother insisted on leaving an hour before the appointment was scheduled. “The traffic will be insane”. I got to the concrete Stalinist “1st May Square” (interesting that it hasn’t been renamed yet) 45 minutes early. I decided to get something to eat, in the place I would always go to after getting the painful allergy vaccines years ago.

I was sitting outside, eating potato cakes with mushroom sauce. It was a third extremely hot day in a row. Suddenly strong wind took off. Clouds of dust, from sunburnt soil, dug up for numerous roadworks taking place, went up. Twigs and seeds from the trees above started to fall into my food. I slowly walked inside. It became dark. Grey clouds have covered the entire sky. The meal was finished and it was time to make the move towards the surgery.

The air was filled with dust. I couldn’t see where I was going, my eyes were stinging. I could barely breathe, I was covering my face with the palm of my hand and striding forward. It started to rain. I managed to reach the surgery door without getting run over. I briskly walked up to the third floor and headed immediately to the bathroom. The dust was sticking to my sweaty skin, it was everywhere. In my nose, on my eyelids, down my back. I washed my face off and with eyes still stinging, headed towards the office. It all felt very peculiar. My mind couldn’t keep up with processing what was going on around me. I sat down.

The storm broke out. The corridor was being flooded with water and a psychologist was looking for a bucket to place under the open loft window. No – it simply wasn’t watertight she said. She was there. “Hi, I’m almost finished, just give me a second.”

Same office, yet everything seemed to look very different. I was sitting there feeling completely removed from everything (I’ve been feeling a lot like that – am I going insane? I have to come back to this thought…). Not really talking about my issues, more like skimming through things. Not really getting deep into anything, not really saying what I think and feel. Worried that there won’t be enough time to cover everything.

We will be able to see each other every weak during the holidays. A very good consultant clinical psychologist who has been in psychoanalytical training for four and half years, for approximately £8.40 an hour. This wouldn’t happen in London. We know each other already – no need for traumatic and lengthy tales of one’s life from birth.

When I left, everything was calm. The clouds of dust straight from “Grapes of Wrath”, the surreal special effects to the painfully bad movie of my life were nowhere to be seen. I took a long walk to my old flat. In the park, the ground was littered with broken branches and fallen trees.

I rang my friend’s intercom. I asked if he’s home and stood there waiting for the answer, which never came. I met my brother’s lodger on the way up. Two windows got broken, no flooding though. It was only then that I realised the seriousness of what took place. My mother called. After dropping me off, she was supposed to go to her twice weekly aerobics/workout classes. When she noticed what was going on, she headed straight back home instead. I insisted to keep all the windows open.

When she was driving, a huge tree went down right in front of her car, the branches slid down the side doors. She narrowly escaped being crashed to death. All around here, trees were falling down like matches.

The next day, the sun has eased off. The weather is quite pleasant now.

On Being Home

I hate this weather! It's over 30 degrees and I can't function under these conditions. The fact that mine and my brother's rooms, in which I live, are the only ones without blinds isn't helping either.

In their usual fashion, my parents just can't get anything done. Other than the lack of blinds, some essential furniture for my room, bought more than a year ago (if not two) still isn't assembled, etc.

I am trying to keep myself occupied all the time to stay sane. I finally managed to connect my laptop to the internet so my current occupation is writing this e-mail to all my lovely friends and a very special friend ("Why is my friend "special"? - David, Six Feet Under).

Over the past days, I have been meeting all my friends and even some more bearable members of my family. I have a surprisingly good relationship with my brother. Shockingly, he called me yesterday to ask me to come out with him and his friends, who came from afar to visit him, to a really bad gay club. Well, the only gay club.

While the place itself was horrific, with bawdy decor and one room playing trance/techno trash and the other trashy pop hits from 60s-80s, my brother's friends were very nice so I guess that overall I had quite a lot of fun. Nevertheless even getting drunk couldn't make me dance to that horrific music. Eventually we decided to move to a more alternative venue called (I am so happy that one exists) but the lady on the door asked me and one girl for IDs. How could I forget that carrying one is a responsibility of a responsible citizen! The rest of the party descended to a scary, chavvy, all-MTV-hits place, while I departed home.

I need to go to an open air pool (where children relieve themselves into the water) - I am roasting...

And being hot and miserable is a great excuse not to do any work. I was supposed to read "Paradise" by Toni Morrison but I can't get past the amusing first sentence: "They shoot the white girl first." Hopefully it's gonna be me second...

Fortunately one cinema, which shows some arthouse movies still exists here, although it's days are probably nigh. Third and fourth large multiplexes are being built. All the other good venues have been closed already. Hopefully I will see Danish "Reconstruction" later today.

Also on the bright side: I love walking and cycling round huge parks and enjoy large public spaces, and seeing lawns and trees by the sidewalks, and generally not being entombed in concrete like in the disgusting, dirty, congested, polluted London. If I could earn here as much as I potentially can in UK, I would probably never leave this place.