La Solitudine
The Italian has left Skopje.
When he first arrived in January of 2004, he went through extreme homesickness (for New York). In the next months, he and I evolved into a relationship dependent on the emails, MSN chat and text messages, aside from phone calls. It was of course, very difficult. He was culture shocked and he was once again a stranger in a new place which, at the time he had arrived, was going through extreme frigid winter weather. When I got busy with my life and forgot to reply to his email for a few days, he begged me, in his usual dramatic way: my chat software has crashed, I am alone in this god forsaken country, you are my only connection to the real world so please do not leave me!
It is funny how we adjust to situations when life throws us a curve. Despite the distance he and I maintained regular communication. We had the usual stuff that makes for what relationships are about - we have learned to fight, argue and make up via long distance. We gossiped, reminisced and planned life.
Twenty six months has passed and he has adapted well to the extremes of the Balkan weather, matched by the extremes in the lifestyle as well. He often escaped to Greece which he drove Italian-style in his Alfa Romeo sportscar in two and a half hours. While there he would narrate to me his itinerary, making sure each hour is accounted for - shopping for gourmet items not easily found in Macedonia, eating ice cream by the Mediterranean, looking for books or supplies for his photography. And then like the story teller that he is, he shared with me stories of what he saw in his drives - the line of cars that would line the road of people from all over Europe driving to Greece and stopping along the way to rest, eat or sleep; or the strange experience of being caught in the midst of sniper fire while driving through the backroads out of Macedonia. When there wasn't real stories to share, we shared far fetched ideas such as owning and moving to our own island somewhere.
As he sent me his final emails out of Skopje, we had summed up what the past months had been. To him it had been how our relationship has evolved, which he noted was based on trust. To me, it has been about 378 email exchanges archived in my yahoo account and 544 in my work account. It also involves habitually waking at 4AM on Saturday mornings for his phone calls and the many greeting cards and packages sent back and forth. It was about the efficient way we coordinated for the biggest event of his life (or so he says) - his photo exhibit in New York last summer and his homecoming to his favorite city in the world.
Today, Tuesday, he is back in Milan, not New York.
".....la solitudine fra noi
questo silenzio dentro me
è l'inquietudine di vivere la vita senza te
ti prego aspettami perché
non posso stare senza te
non è possibile dividere la storia di noi due
la solitudine..."
La Solitudine by Laura Pausini
When he first arrived in January of 2004, he went through extreme homesickness (for New York). In the next months, he and I evolved into a relationship dependent on the emails, MSN chat and text messages, aside from phone calls. It was of course, very difficult. He was culture shocked and he was once again a stranger in a new place which, at the time he had arrived, was going through extreme frigid winter weather. When I got busy with my life and forgot to reply to his email for a few days, he begged me, in his usual dramatic way: my chat software has crashed, I am alone in this god forsaken country, you are my only connection to the real world so please do not leave me!
It is funny how we adjust to situations when life throws us a curve. Despite the distance he and I maintained regular communication. We had the usual stuff that makes for what relationships are about - we have learned to fight, argue and make up via long distance. We gossiped, reminisced and planned life.
Twenty six months has passed and he has adapted well to the extremes of the Balkan weather, matched by the extremes in the lifestyle as well. He often escaped to Greece which he drove Italian-style in his Alfa Romeo sportscar in two and a half hours. While there he would narrate to me his itinerary, making sure each hour is accounted for - shopping for gourmet items not easily found in Macedonia, eating ice cream by the Mediterranean, looking for books or supplies for his photography. And then like the story teller that he is, he shared with me stories of what he saw in his drives - the line of cars that would line the road of people from all over Europe driving to Greece and stopping along the way to rest, eat or sleep; or the strange experience of being caught in the midst of sniper fire while driving through the backroads out of Macedonia. When there wasn't real stories to share, we shared far fetched ideas such as owning and moving to our own island somewhere.
As he sent me his final emails out of Skopje, we had summed up what the past months had been. To him it had been how our relationship has evolved, which he noted was based on trust. To me, it has been about 378 email exchanges archived in my yahoo account and 544 in my work account. It also involves habitually waking at 4AM on Saturday mornings for his phone calls and the many greeting cards and packages sent back and forth. It was about the efficient way we coordinated for the biggest event of his life (or so he says) - his photo exhibit in New York last summer and his homecoming to his favorite city in the world.
Today, Tuesday, he is back in Milan, not New York.
".....la solitudine fra noi
questo silenzio dentro me
è l'inquietudine di vivere la vita senza te
ti prego aspettami perché
non posso stare senza te
non è possibile dividere la storia di noi due
la solitudine..."
La Solitudine by Laura Pausini