As I settle in to my new home, I am exploring what lays beyond each different direction. Every day, I take a new street, I try to shop at a new grocery store or drink at a new café. No matter how small, I try to do at least one thing new in the day. Normally, I would take the direction towards the old village, but today I decided to go in the other direction. Towards a smaller, lesser known town, but no less beautiful. As my readers know, I always try to look for a café that I can frequent and call my own. Until today, I hadn’t truly found a place that fit me. Every café here is quite French (obviously), meaning that it is actually a restaurant, bistro or brasserie which opens early in the morning for a simple breakfast. There is usually an array of little tables and chairs for two, coloured in accordance with a theme that is unique to each owner. Tables and chairs too small to work on… sometimes scattered outside underneath the trees whose leaves are slowly but surely falling as we approach winter. These places are only for the people who want to eat, drink, talk and go. Perhaps they serve viennoiserie for breakfast with fresh juice, or perhaps they only serve coffee. As beautiful as these typical places are, they are not what I am looking for.
I tend to seek places that are more international, because they have a bit more space, cushioned chairs that offer a bit more comfort, hidden corners where I can sit and set up my laptop and remain invisible. Today, I chose such a place. It’s a chain that I have been to before, so I knew that it would have good coffee, but the layout and ambience of each individual location is different. This morning it was a short, fresh walk to reach my destination, and I was greeted with little white and pink tables and chairs, for those who wanted to take in a bit of the fading sun. As soon as I entered, I knew that this would be the place for me. The other customers gave me a smile, as I quietly shut the door behind me. It’s rare that you find people actually smiling in the morning, before their coffee, so I knew that this was a good sign straight away. I picked up my coffee, hot in my hands, and sat down to sip and write. I had been given a little chunk of lemon slice beside my flat white, which was given to me in a mug. This was definitely more like a café in Australia, and even just this little gesture made me feel at home straight away. But I think that I really knew that this place was for me when I stopped typing because I was distracted by the music. The tune seemed so familiar, I had to just stare into space and listen for a little while. The melody filled my ears, and I knew what the notes would be before they were played. But where was it from?
I tried to remember the lyrics, but I realised that this was not a song that had lyrics. I hummed under my breath for a little while, this music was soothing, healing. The power of notes floating in the air according to a certain pattern is so simple but magical. It can wake up every cell of your body and align it back to a time and place where you felt happier. After waking up this morning with a horrible migraine, sick to my stomach, this music, the coffee and the gentleness of the man who was working there, somehow brought me back to my senses. My body let go of the pain, I relaxed, and I felt gratitude. Bliss. I am almost convinced at this point in my life now, it is only ever the little things which can give us this much joy. I smiled because then I remembered where I had heard the music before, in fact I had heard it over and over many times, from when I was a child right up until a few years ago. But I hadn’t listened to it in a while since then… it’s a piece called “to Zanarkand,” music from Final Fantasy 10, a game that I adore and have always loved. The music took me back to a time when I was young, when I would fearlessly let my imagination take charge of my day without worrying about obligations. When I would write stories about going on quests, collecting gem stones, meeting new and interesting people. I suppose that this has come true in a way, and this music reminded me that I need not get hung up on the things in life which are not to my liking at the moment. A much needed reminder.
In fact, my life until now has been magical. I have met the most wonderful people, I have learned lessons and collected knowledge that are perhaps my own version of little gem stones. Treasures that I can keep and write about and pass on to others in conversation. If someone had told me that my life had been a success so far, and that I should shift my focus away from the areas in which I am not where I want to be, then I would not have really believed them. The effect would not have been the same as it was at this moment, when my body somehow connected with the wordless mystery of music and I felt the beauty of own my life so clearly. This is the true power of all art. When we see something, hear something, maybe even taste beautiful food and feel well made fabrics, it connects with us in a way that instruction, logic and multi-step formulas to success cannot. The most beautiful magic of all for me, perhaps, is when even words can transcend their own structure and lift off the page, becoming poetry, a song singing privately inside the mind of the reader, creating a visceral experience. We don’t fall in love with the words or the story or the characters, but rather how they all make us feel. How all these elements remind us of ourselves, in the best ways, and allow us to see our scars like beautifully designed tattoos imprinted by the hands of life itself.
Well, this is the café that I will frequent. It’s decided, because it feels like a piece of home. Like a joining together of dots in my life. This feeling is not always happy, it’s not always perfect, sometimes it’s not even pleasant, but it always feels complete in some way. And it’s this sense of home which I am choosing to focus on now. I’m walking away from living my life by the advice and logic that might work for others. I can walk out on my own two feet, follow my own path, no matter how many twists and turns, steps back and steps forward, I may make. Direction is only ever relative, and I choose to see every step I make as a step forward in some way. Even if that makes me look crazy. Every failure is in fact not a failure, but a discovery. Every set back is not holding me back from anything, but giving me the space to explore something new and unexpected. Each distraction is in fact not taking me away from something important, but helping me to see things from a different point of view. There is only ever one reference point in my life, and that is me. Every vulnerability, every expression of love, every frustration and every perceived weakness… as long as it comes from me, I can know that I am being guided perfectly.
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