hemlock170374

Time for a new blog.
Time for a new life, for heaven's sake
but I'll start with this.

Quite a busy day.
Took a day off work because my bank invited me
for some paper signing and cards exchanging.
My bank is in Merksem, where I used to live when I was married.
I go there about once a year,
always to sign papers and exchange cards.
I went there well in advance on my appointment,
took the tram near my place and... started drifting.
I started to drift down fucking memory lane,
since, as everybody who's been in Merksem knows well,
things never change down there.
The fact that I had plenty of time before my appointment
did not really help things to go in a sane direction.
I walked around and I instinctively ended up hitting all the spots
I used to be a part of back in the times and had a few fits of...
what do you call it... pain, deep where feelings and memories settle.
I had the good instinct of buying myself a few dvds
while I was waiting, roaming the streets.
Shopping really helps, you know.
Went to the bank and discovered that Maggy was back.
She used to be the clerk taking care of my account
and last thing they told me, was that she did not work there anymore.
Maggy's a sweet woman and I was happy to hear from her living voice
that she had only been away (for nine months) because she was pregnant.
Twins, now. A boy and a girl.
Last time this woman saw me, I was with my wife.
Nice person, really and the meeting was over in fifteen minutes.
Merksem did to me what it usually does
but just a tad stronger, this time.
Tram, back to Antwerp.
The day is gorgeous, so I buy a few art magazines
and go to my pub, where the atmosphere is the usual
and brings me always where I want.
There I meet a woman, Patrizia, half maltese, half swedish,
grown up in Spain and married to a Belgian guy, mother of a kid.
Before we know it, after quickly recognizing a kindred spirit
in each other's eyes, we are talking, drinking, smoking,
sitting next to each other and sharing our feelings about the country where we live.
I have been here in Belgium for six years,
for her, it's her first year.
Belgium is a nice place and it gives you everything you might want.
The cultural difference, however, between the locals
and most of the foreigners is big.
Especially foreigners who had a latin education,
like Patrizia and me.
This is what we talk about, with passion,
for almost two hours.
She asks me my phone number and I get hers.
She then leaves, her drinks are on the house.
When someone speaks out his or her feelings so sincerely like she did
and when the pub manager is italian (he is, like me) and the waiter is turkish,
the drinks are, sometimes, on the house.
I finish my beer, my cigarette
and I finish my thoughts about Patrizia,
about my ex-wife on memory lane,
about a girl who did not call me yet
and then I leave.
I am home for the rest of the day,
prepare myself something to eat
(had not eaten anything until then)
and then watch one of the movies I bought.
"Down in The Valley" with Edward Norton.
Weird and sweet, in a very melancholic, desperate way.
I let my thoughts jump around my mind for a while.
It's getting really hard these days to put together the ideas
and the motivation I need to actually start working
on my graphic novel project.
I want to say so many things with that.
So much, of the life I have lived
and the pains and joys we all go through.
After a lot of fighting with my rebellious, un-cooperative brain,
I decide that I have not had enough movies for today
and at about 20:30, I go out again, headed for the movies.
Not knowing what to watch and fighting the stupid rain
that has decided to start pouring without any umbrella,
I arrive at the cinema and my eyes fall on one poster:
"Control", the life and story of Ian Curtis, lead singer
of world famous Joy Division, suicidal at the age of 23.
He hanged himself with a clothes hanger,
when he had enough of something he probably never even understood:
living in exacerbated way, the dramas and doubts we all go through,
in order to provide us with the entertainment of his art and his poetry.
The movie was beautiful. Shot in a very nice black and white,
the bleak atmosphere of 1973 Macclesfield, England, perfectly recreated.
You've got to live in a place like that, to develop the rage and fire
that Ian possessed and that eventually led to his early fate.
As I write, I have just arrived home, around 01:30 AM,
after stopping by yet another pub, the jazz caf where I also often go.

I will light another cigarette, before going to bed.
I will try, as every given minute I am living these days,
to harness all I feel and try to transform it in drawings,
trying to come out of myself and show the world what I've got.
I want to have the control that Ian did not manage to find.

I will.
I promise.