These are merely simple notes taken days before I met you and interactions I wanted to remember after I did. I was happy before you introduced yourself. But I’ve been happier since.
Prague
04.11.18
My mind has surely been cultivating years before my birth.
I am currently sat in my Visual Culture class and just received my mid-term paper. I got an A-. It would have been an A but my professor lowered the grade due to my handwriting.
I ended up waking up at 12. I ate breakfast, rolled a cigarette and drank my pre-made, gas station coffee while smoking out of my window. I still get anxious when smoking out of any window during the day. I always fear someone will look up at me or that my landlord or my roommates will see me. You see, smoking is strictly forbidden in the apartment. 2 months later, I am still convincing myself that as long as the smoke goes outside it, it’s okay. I know I’m full of shit.
05.11.18
I finished my sociology class, got my usual ham, cheddar and tomato sandwich, talked to Mary, Katie and Zu and headed to Staromestska. On my way across the bridge, a man was taking a photograph of his family, so I waited until he was done. He looked at me and told me to walk. So I did. And he yelled something that I assumed was “stop! Stop!” So I yelled “Ay, Oh my God!” and both the man, the family and I burst out laughing.
Life is good. It’s great. I looked for the paper store again to buy the typewriter roll and stopped at a beautiful hand-made souvenir store “Smantin”. I asked the woman who worked there for directions to a nearby store and she gave me the same directions that the man at the last store gave me. I found it!
I bought two rolls and now I am having an espresso in the street close to the centre. You order at the bar inside, which is great because I can leave whenever I please without having to ask for the bill (I am too impatient for bills).
As I wrote about the souvenir store, I looked over and saw a man sitting next to me. With his coffee. Also writing. And with a cigarette pack placed similarly to mine. I am so happy, Angela. Thank you for deciding that which made your life yours.
A young man just sat on the table that stands between the man and I. He is reading an old Czech book. He sighs loudly as if to get me to notice him. I smirk every time he does and keeps writing. I wonder if he notices me notice every detail he allows me to note down. He smokes Marlboro Gold, the cigarettes I smoke when I have money. Plenty of it. I haven’t smoked them in a while. His friend
just sat next to me. And I hope they both read in silence and smoke in between chapters as they discuss things worth mentioning.
The young man just put his book away. They have not talked yet. I like their relationship. They might be together.
An old man just used the chair in front of mine to lay his briefcase and the young man and I smile every time we glance at him. His back wasn’t straight enough to stand well. He must have been an incredible man. Hard working.
The men (boys, really) have begun their conversation. They are laughing. I am so happy. This, here, is bliss. A type of bliss I thought could only be experienced in Summer. I think, now, that I like winter too.
A thought I had while smoking:
People only appreciate things when they are called art. I think that is why I am my own muse. Why I desire to make myself and the beauty I have treasured eternally through means such as writing, shitty paintings, podcasts and photographs of myself.
It is not ego. It is appreciation. That way, I will never need anyone to do it for me. I am independently in a state of love.
Isn’t that beautiful?
06.11.18
I would love to move to Cuba before turning 20. Or at the age of 20. I would like to have a one-room apartment and write for as long as I need to. For as long as I desire to prolong the time I now make time for. I would talk to elders who have been the last witnesses of what love was. We will drink rum and mock the way I smoke cigars. I would love to sit on my balcony for enough hours to call it a day. I want to fall in love with music in a way beyond the way I do now. I want to feel the sun on my face and learn to dance the way my mother learnt at an age before mine. I want to view passion the way I have felt it. I want to wear dresses and forget about the way beauty is shown in the streets we call public. I would love to interview women who speak a Spanish I have called broken before. I want to apologise for being ignorant at an age that we call acceptable. I want to warn them that I will not ruin their city or call their streets mine. I want to be accepted, not pass by locals as someone due to leave soon. I will write letters and exile my love to crave loving further. I want to make a decision that does not affect the future as I see it but strengthens the days I see ahead. I want to be happy in a place people will question. I want to call myself home.
Cuba-05.11.18 Angela (Age 19)
07.11.18
I don’t want this notebook to end. I fear that I can’t continue this bliss for a thousand pages more. I am aware that it is simply a binding of pages, yet they have been holding my life for over a year. Mine. Not the one I shared and forgot to write about but the one I, and only I have experienced and dwelled on. I only fear change when life feels as rewarding as it has been feeling. This feeling should be fucking eternal. How lucky to be my own companion.
At the same time, however, I am excited to start a new journal. I am in love with this one. But it holds things that have been causing grief. I fell in love with it while I fell in love with someone who has left. The next one could hold Miles’ response to my mailed letter, a trip to Italy alone, a new name, progress in my writing or growing changes that will evoke a bigger purpose to write. I might write in it from balconies. I might feel affection towards someone new, adapt to my mess, quit my job, or have fallen in love with it.
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