The story i was carrying around with me since 2010
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I really needed one thing from my bag and that was the story i was working on . It was while i was having breakfast that i realized the papers were not there. It was Dicember and i didnt have socks on but i didntfeel the cold. Everyone was looking at me wearing my pink bathroom slippers and all my bags (hey i am travelling! ) and perhaps they thought i was crazy cause i wasnt dressed properly ..... Only Sarina knew that i had been working on my stories since 2010 when i read one of them to her. These bunch of papers were in my bag in Dicember 2018 and they had travelled well.... they were very important to me. I was even carrying a copy of the deed for my old home in Spain in order to show it to a lawyer and i was carrying them around all over the places i travelled. I was correcting my story and trying to rewrite it on paper. It was on 15 Dicember when my bag was taken by someone infront of an appartment i was staying at
. I was sleeping on Silvana's couch in Florence Italy; I had travelled from Paris and had reached Florence inorder to spend xmas and new year here ..... i usually stayed in a youth hostel but as always during xmas, all the hostels were booked and anyway i didnt have much money. Silvia my friend from Viareggio who usually puts me up at her place couldnt do it this time and she had asked her friend Monica to keep me at her place near the old Comunale building . After some weeks there i had had to leave because of the renovation works in the house. Then i had slept in a tent on a freezing cold night and that meant that a warm room any where was welcome .....
Last time I had been lucky and Silvia could give me hospitality but this time i didnt have a place to stay and Silvana the gallerist who i knew from 1998 and who was presenting my book "A Time For Dreamers" at the town hall was kindly putting me up for a day or two ... i woke up at six on a Saturday morning in her appartment. There was a plan to go to the town hall with her and receive a recognition for my book "A Time For Dreamers" at 10 oclock . I just wanted to rush out of the appartment inorder to get a coffee without waking people up.
I had put my bags out of the door including my coat.... a man with a wierd smile was cleaning the stairs .... i think he was the one who took my coat and my bag . How could i accuse him ?"The cleaner" was the only one who could have done the deed. So i had to let it go, i didnt want to make a scene and a big deal out of it . After all Silvana had been telling me that i shouldnt have even said hello to the man and she had mentioned that she was having issues with this same cleaning smiling person.
Thanks to some one 's good heart, i got my coat back (it was taken with the bag) because it was very cold in those days in Dicember, and thanks to the ten euro which i couldnt find anymore in my coat pocket. Since my story was about the UAE and specifically Abu Dahbi i was surprised to read the news in the papers in Febuary. Later on on the fifth of Febuary i read in the Italian papers that the Pope had gone to visit Abu Dahbi ! and that was a very strange coincidence........ simply because this was the first time ever that the honorable Pope was paying any attention to the UAE . What with Venezuela falling to pieces and all the mexican situation and Mr Trumps " wall" and other issues and all the other countries he has a to worry about these days.
Probably some one in the know, had heard the story was about Abu Dhabi . I had read it to Sarina in a coffee place round the corner to where she lived. She is the Sicilian Austalian friend who i had met in 92. Steve my english friend had brought her and others to a party at my house. Nowadays she sang in the communale, but she had been a teacher of english for many years before she became a soprano. I had read the story to her because she could give me advice and tell me how she felt about it. The story was written in english and she ran writing classes
. It was my lack of self confidence and the confusion in my mind that made me want to share it with her. I was incapable of detatching myself from this very personal story and the writng which i had carried around with me typed up in hurried pages . For many years , i had been trying desperately to put it in some acceptable order. Sarina had known about my situation, ie that i didnt have a bed to sleep in, but she only allowed me to sleep at her place for one night even if she hadnt had any other guests , perhaps it was her watchers who had advised her to keep me out. Now a days every one has advisers who tell them what to do, Am i complaining ?
Its Ok for some ! That way they keep climbing up while people like me are kept away from the things we work for. Infact she professes that her appartment is the safest place in town and that i should leave my art work with her at her place, but she wont let me stay? wierd! I wont rewrite the story but i will write about what happened.
I was living in my old house in Tehran . My mother had just passed away . I found her in her bed .... she had turned a strange colour. I called my aunt Tahmeen who was my father's sister and my cousin Roudabeh , they both came and we buried her at the cemetary without calling all the people who knew her (as is required by tradition ) My friend Shirin who i had known at high school gave me some support in those days .
It was during one of the days after her passing when i had a vision or a dream i dont know which ..... because i was sleeping after lunch and it was a very light snooze. My friend Guido appeared to me and it was as if he was for real , i hadnt kept in touch with him for some years but we had been very close and i really missed him and needed him because he seemed to know the right thing to do in every situation .... or that is what i thought. He told me "Go to Hamdanstreet" .! I still cant categorize this message .... he was then switched off .
I was missing him because he should have been next to me now that my mother was gone and since our issue had always been money , it would have been the time for us to be able to start a life together. He had been the one to stand by me during my years at University. We had had such a lot of laughs when we were studying on the books i had to prepare for my first exams .... he had "believed in me" and had told me that even if i didnt get through the exam he would come to pick up the pieces. He promised that he would come to get me afterwards and that we would go to one of his favorite caffes in piazza della Republica for a drink . that was his favorite pass time when he came to stay in Florence.
He actually lived in Rome and worked as a freelance because he had a dubbing company and worked for TV . His mother was seperated from her husband from Bergamo who was a very blond blue eyed and serious looking person and Guido looked just like him. I had met him once and he had said that all the issues of the world came from the Suez canal ! Guido told me that he was deeply depressed and was taking medicine. His father had practiced law for many years while Guido had studied to be a lawyer but had left his studies in order to work. They lived in a huge house.
Guido thought i could leave Florence and he had asked me to go and live with him and his mother .... but that was impossible since my family would not agree to that at all. His mother was a lady who spoke an incomprehensible napoletano under her breath and i could hardly understand what she said , but she said that she was not happy with me taking her son away from the family ! I was astounded! This complaint reminded me of Sonia my American friend from Ohio who had told me that one of the guests at her wedding (to Franco) had asked her "how will his mother manage without him? " To which she had retorted in a rather dry and sacastic tone " She will survive and ...... live"!
I was very attatched to Guido because i had cried too much over past heart aches and issues and thought that i had finally found a soulmate , the other half of me , since we could talk about and discuss things for hours and he felt good the same way as i did , however our families were a problem.
Guido had had two sisters who were younger .... Federica was 23 like myself but way ahead of me as far as her personality was concerned . Infact she managed to build a successful career in Tv but she left her elder brother behind her. I thought that was a shame, In any case now i was having this vision tell me to go to an unknown place looking for God knows what.
In the past i had travelled to the UAE because it was very different from Iran . After having lived abroad for two decades Iran , the country i had been born in , was not only a police state but was now controled by a sort of tight knit paramilitary system. These people were convinced of having a positive role to play. It was very tiresome to see couples walking towards me and trying to exhude superiority, because they were married, ie meaning that i should settle down. This was Populism and much beloved by the people who were used to it and who benefited from it
..... i must admit that once i was in a situation were i needed help one of these "watchers " was useful. This man had been watching over me and came to my rescue.
I was giving some change to a foreign woman who was begging and she had a baby in her arms . It turned out that she was not at all as innocent as she looked .... she was a dragon in disguise and when she started to get aggressive, this man came up to me and he was just as incredulous as i was of her behaviour and he took my side , and that made her back off . I am eternally grateful to that stranger.
I knew Dubai to be a sort of haven for anyone who had a passport and had the money to get away for some weeks. I even took my mother with me a few times. Once we went on a day trip to Abu Dhabi
. This was much before my dream . I thought my mother enjoyed being out and about instead of lying in bed all day. Infact she looked Ok for an 84 year old and she went along with whatever i decided to do. There were nice hotels and places to eat and i used to take her to these. I was sorry that i had had to sell her much beloved appartment to do this, but she should have done this herself a long time ago and she should have gone on trips with my father. But they had prefered to stay at home and watch TV , and the Tv programes were very shody and boring to say the least.
For instance; there was a programe about siamese twins who were seperated by a medical team in Singapore .... some nonsense which was the rage of the moment and all the dull people were hoping for a miracle. It was such a let down for everyone when they obviously died .... it had been pretty clear to me from the begining. itwas the sort of TV they watched all day.
In Dubai i watched Tv and i discovered "White Suprematists" for the first time, it was a British produced film in english . We were staying in the old center of town and the food was fabulous and to my taste. I loved the beach and i liked the atmosphere.... people looked like they were having fun.
I had written a post card from the hotel, thinking of Guido , i was sure he would be interested and he would understand . He had told me that Dubai was too geared to consumerism for his liking and i knew he wasnt into shopping at all and couldnt enjoy the beautiful Malls.
After having had two weeks of vacation and reaching my home , i had settled into the drudgery of everyday life and looking after my mother. I knew that soon my italian visa would expire. By coming back i would be throwing my Italian ID card out the window after 23 years of legal residency. She had no idea that i was sacrificing this important thing for her sake. She had already hit senility, and some of her friends , taking pity on me , had advised me to put her in a home and " to leave as quickly as possible". Probably it would have been the best sensible solution for me.
Shortly after our return from the trip, i had a phone call from a woman who was weepy and who spoke Italian , she introduced herself and said that she was Marina Guido's sister and that she was calling me to inform me that he had passed away! I was incredulous . He was only in his early 50's. Later on when i went to Rome to meet his mother .... nobody would tell me why he had passed. It is still a mystery.
It was not easy to know that he was not in the world for me . Even tho he had a new woman in his life.I childishly thought that he would be there for me when i needed him. and now everything had changed. The world seemed to be an unfriendly place without him and all the good people in my family. I was very depressed. I thought of the good times we had had together . Having had those brilliant moments together .... i felt so lucky because love is always an asset for one's life. Perhaps that was what he was thinking when we went to Naples by car and visited Pompei and Ercolano where his mother came from. I was the one who loved the colours of Sorrento and Amalfi .... those gorgeous places where the eyes were satieted with impossiblely beautiful nature.
After my mother passed i had gone to Dubai and had rented a place there, and i had found the Mondo del Arte gallery in Kempinskij Mall. Anna Maria who was from Liguria was very friendly and welcoming. Roberto was her young assistant from Milan. It was refreshing to be speaking Italian again. I sold various pieces of art in this gallery . Later on AnnaMaria was part of another gallery called Vindemia art gallery and she had me sell my paintings there . I had been thinking of my dream and of Guido's messagse .
I had had to go to Abu Dhabhi because all the embassies were there. I was planning to travel to Europe again. I had gone walking on Hamda nstreet because I was looking for the spanish embassy. I was planning on buying a place in spain and living a quiete life on my own . For some reason I thought it would be easier because there was an english speaking community there.
The Spanish consolate was near Hamda nStreet and i had been there several times. It was a very long street and went from the old city center to the other side of town past the Corniche which was a sort of wide open space and a park. I had found out that Abu Dhabi had had a pearl industry even up to the seventies and it had developed into a big city much later than Dubai. One gloomy windy Sunday i finally managed to prepare for a walking tour and set off to search for a clue to the dream.
I took the message seriously because i had read in books that if a person who has passed away speaks to you in a dream .... that is a real message. Swedenborg had written about his mystical dream experiences. Hewas a theologian and mystic who lived a few centuries ago.
I had lazily walked along the skyscrapers and the big buildings and had reached the old city center and I had bought some spices in a shop. There was a young man sitting there , i spoke to him about the spices and i felt that he was very untouched by what was actually going on in the world . Perhaps he was the owners son. One wondered about how the natives viewed foreign people here.
I hadn't come across anything unusual uptil now and started walking back towards the corniche which was on the other side of town. The wind was blowing hard now and i was glad it wasnt a hot day like the days i had experienced in the summer. I was wondering what it would be like to live and work here. I would have loved to find a job and settle down , but i couldnt get my head wrapped round the practical side of things here. Even having been able to stay in a rented appartment hadnt been easy because i hadnt known how to pay the utility bills.
I was walking along thinking of Guido's message.... what might it be ? I was clueless as to what to look for and it was a, rainy day . I was fed up of having to do everything on my own. i had had to look after my mother on my own but thanks to my brother's American friend Hameed who had sold cars in the US , i had found Ashraf khanum . Ashraf was a young woman who had a baby and brought it with her when she came to the house to help out with the chores. Hameed was praising her to the stars saying that she had been wonderful when she had nursed his own mother. He had told her that he wanted to give the whole world to her inorder to thank her for her service ie helping his mother during her last days.
That was a whole load of sentiment and i thought highly of Ashraf too. That was why I introduced her to my aunt Tahmin and other women i knew thinking that they would treat her right. Ashraf wore a whole load of makeup when she came to work and she was a nice looking young woman. I thought of her often because i thought of all the women i knew and how this woman had similar issues . which were linked as always to money and work. But sadly " Work" wasnt regarded with respect in the Iranian society because there was still a " feudal attitude" towards it and people didnt and were not allowed to take pride in what they did for a living. consequently Ashraf complained about how she was not treated well by the women i had introduced her to and who she worked for.
I had also had some girls work for me. They were art students at the university in Tehran and came to keep me company and to help me with my art work. They had a degree but were very worried about their future . One of them had been clever enough to find herself a husband through a chat on the internet. That was a great achievement on her part.
My steam of consciousness now brought me to Elham who worked for me as a painter ...... she was from the outskirts of town and a married woman from a village which was five hours away by car but who lived in the metropolis. The villegers had organized a daily bus to their village ( as the government was not thinking about doing it for them) which was in the outbacks of a place called Irak. She would always be saying that their village had given a lot of marters to the war between Iran and Iraq and that things should be going better for the people who had lost their men for their country. (this made me think of the wonderful buses you find in Italy which connect the villages to towns .... this kind of service is genious too)
I had found her through a cousin of hers who had been friendly to me in an internet point. She said "my cousin can paint pictures " obviously she was in the know , probably they were in the paramilitary and knew everything about me because i was a foreigner in the country i was born in. Her colours were dismally dark and i had to tell her repeatedly what colours i wanted. I was trying to help out these women by giving them some work. "Synergy" as Fletcher had called it ..... but it was pretty much impossible for me to have a grip . I wasnt married and nor did i have children and that put me in the category of " a non achiever and therefore not respectable woman" Sometimes they would talk about their life and that would be interesting for me . A way to get to know "the new country" after the revolution. The synergy didnt happen with these students.
I had a lot of time that day to think about the people i knew in the past , mostly women who i had known while living and working in Florence. I thought of Donatella who i had worked for when the shop Antica Baccani was still there during the 90's and a lot about Laura who was the gallerist who had known me since 98 and had had my work exhibited in "The Babele Gallery", Then there was Francesca and her daughter Elena who ran the gift shop " Solo A Firenze" , I had known them for many years too.
I had met Donatella through Wilma with whom i had started to make boxes. Donatella was from Grosseto. i had been to that area with Robin in the late eighties . Robin was an American friend who had bought a red sports car and wanted to use it. We had gone to the "parco del uccellino" which has a beach . Donatella was a cat person who according to Wilma , looked after all the strays she found in her area and had a house full of them in her home town! Rather like me , because i had a house full of cats as well and i could write a book about them. I used to find them on the streets of Tehran and bring them home. Once i had found a puppy and had brought it home and it had grown up to be a fine dog . I had then had to find a dog trainer to look after it.
Donatella was sharing her shop with people who made traditional florentine paper. Wilma told me that she was looking for artists who would sell their paintings in her shop so that she had an indipendant source of income, for her cat family. I had met Wilma on a cold winter night in Dicember, because we had both participated in a Xmas Art Market at piazza del Cestello Making a huge effort to go there and my assistant from Equadore Wendy had helped me carry all my pictures and cards. Getting to know Wilma changed a lot of things for me because she was a very positive
lady. She told me that her daughter was working in Fashion in Paris and was a real designer.
My effort to take part in that Xmas market had paid off and i had found a good friend.It had been a very cold winters night and Wendy had a dream in Art too and she was passionate about it, She was single and had sold her appartment and invested in this trip to Italy. She told me that her grandma had managed to get an education through sheer will power because she was working in a house where she could secretly read the childrens books, after her work was done.
Women who want to do their own thing and that was what Guido was about. He reminded me of the film "My Fair Lady" , he had been my mentor during my university years and had been happy for me to get an Italian BA degree .... funnily enough the first time we met we started totalk about George Bernard Shaw. He knew that he had participated in my project and he had been just as proud of having helped me as having helped his sister Federica getting to work in high up places. Women usually had to achieve through their good looks or through their relationship with a powerful man and this was what the world was all about. Perhaps he was thinking of a world where women could rule using "power" with a sense of justice and a kinder attitude. He was one of the idealists who had lived through the 1968 cultural revolution.
I had now walked past the Cornische and entered a place with buildings which were not the usual skyscrapers , but normal villa types. As i was still looking for a clue when i saw the words " "Pasticceria Firenze" i was blown away . It was the sign i had been looking for because Guido and I had shared so many moments together in the nice coffee places in town, he knew the best places in Rome too. On the other side of the street there was a sort of coffee place with the same name and i was happy to get to the door. The wind had been relentless and cold and now that i had found what i was looking for i could finally sit down in a warm place. Luckily it started to rain after i was indoors.
My favorite coffee shop in Abu dhabi had been one called "The French Bakery" i was spellbound by the view from the giant windows of the skyscraper and loved to sit in a cosy arm chair for hours. I could do this when the place wasnt busy, because it was packed with people during office lunch hours.
Here in the Florence coffee shop i found comfort in typical Italian coffee and pastry but i was very happy to find an extra portion of joy in seeing a pack of new editions of my favorite The New Yorker magazine. It was a Perfect day now! I sat down on a comfy sofa chair and tucked into my pastries while looking through a magazine with President Putin's picture on the cover . Guido would have spent his Sunday reading the papers. He was very politically aware and he would have possibly wanted to read the same magazine because President Putin seemed to be getting elected yet again . There was an interview with him and an article which looked interesting.
In a way i wasn't sure about how my friend saw the use of surveillance . Ever since the wall of Berlin came down in 1989 , surveillance had made it's way into every building and in some countries in homes ..... I had suffered from the surveillace in Tehran and here was president Putin talking about it. He sounded determind to controle global civilization and create a system which would change relationships and people for ever. As a german friend called Suzanne put it in later years the heart (and spontaneity of feeling would have to disappear) ; " Only "The weather" is spontaneous". These days our human life on earth seemed to be led by some kind of Stasi .
What happy days we spent unaware of this development. Certainly this article was very interesting but the next one i read was about a Polish American politician talking about the new White Race Rescue politics in Eastern Europe saying clearly that the future would depend on these ex Soviet countries.
All I needed to and wanted to know about the politics going on after 2001..... i had been puzzeled and bewildered about all these changes for many years. Was this coming from the left or the right wing politics . Some people said they both had mixed up their values.
Perhaps the surveillance that now wants to unite the white race would never have allowed me and Guido to get together in the first place ..... since he too was having a rough time out of these new developments. His spirit was pointing out the topics which we were both interested in.
Later on i went on to read a short story about a woman meeting a man .... they were going out together for the first time .... for some reason the girl , who is probablr after his money , goes for his wallet while he is asleep and instead of the cash which she is looking for , she finds a white piece of paper , and opening it sge finds the words ; "I Believe In You" ......
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I really needed one thing from my bag and that was the story i was working on . It was while i was having breakfast that i realized the papers were not there. It was Dicember and i didnt have socks on but i didntfeel the cold. Everyone was looking at me wearing my pink bathroom slippers and all my bags (hey i am travelling! ) and perhaps they thought i was crazy cause i wasnt dressed properly ..... Only Sarina knew that i had been working on my stories since 2010 when i read one of them to her. These bunch of papers were in my bag in Dicember 2018 and they had travelled well.... they were very important to me. I was even carrying a copy of the deed for my old home in Spain in order to show it to a lawyer and i was carrying them around all over the places i travelled. I was correcting my story and trying to rewrite it on paper. It was on 15 Dicember when my bag was taken by someone infront of an appartment i was staying at
. I was sleeping on Silvana's couch in Florence Italy; I had travelled from Paris and had reached Florence inorder to spend xmas and new year here ..... i usually stayed in a youth hostel but as always during xmas, all the hostels were booked and anyway i didnt have much money. Silvia my friend from Viareggio who usually puts me up at her place couldnt do it this time and she had asked her friend Monica to keep me at her place near the old Comunale building . After some weeks there i had had to leave because of the renovation works in the house. Then i had slept in a tent on a freezing cold night and that meant that a warm room any where was welcome .....
Last time I had been lucky and Silvia could give me hospitality but this time i didnt have a place to stay and Silvana the gallerist who i knew from 1998 and who was presenting my book "A Time For Dreamers" at the town hall was kindly putting me up for a day or two ... i woke up at six on a Saturday morning in her appartment. There was a plan to go to the town hall with her and receive a recognition for my book "A Time For Dreamers" at 10 oclock . I just wanted to rush out of the appartment inorder to get a coffee without waking people up.
I had put my bags out of the door including my coat.... a man with a wierd smile was cleaning the stairs .... i think he was the one who took my coat and my bag . How could i accuse him ?"The cleaner" was the only one who could have done the deed. So i had to let it go, i didnt want to make a scene and a big deal out of it . After all Silvana had been telling me that i shouldnt have even said hello to the man and she had mentioned that she was having issues with this same cleaning smiling person.
Thanks to some one 's good heart, i got my coat back (it was taken with the bag) because it was very cold in those days in Dicember, and thanks to the ten euro which i couldnt find anymore in my coat pocket. Since my story was about the UAE and specifically Abu Dahbi i was surprised to read the news in the papers in Febuary. Later on on the fifth of Febuary i read in the Italian papers that the Pope had gone to visit Abu Dahbi ! and that was a very strange coincidence........ simply because this was the first time ever that the honorable Pope was paying any attention to the UAE . What with Venezuela falling to pieces and all the mexican situation and Mr Trumps " wall" and other issues and all the other countries he has a to worry about these days.
Probably some one in the know, had heard the story was about Abu Dhabi . I had read it to Sarina in a coffee place round the corner to where she lived. She is the Sicilian Austalian friend who i had met in 92. Steve my english friend had brought her and others to a party at my house. Nowadays she sang in the communale, but she had been a teacher of english for many years before she became a soprano. I had read the story to her because she could give me advice and tell me how she felt about it. The story was written in english and she ran writing classes
. It was my lack of self confidence and the confusion in my mind that made me want to share it with her. I was incapable of detatching myself from this very personal story and the writng which i had carried around with me typed up in hurried pages . For many years , i had been trying desperately to put it in some acceptable order. Sarina had known about my situation, ie that i didnt have a bed to sleep in, but she only allowed me to sleep at her place for one night even if she hadnt had any other guests , perhaps it was her watchers who had advised her to keep me out. Now a days every one has advisers who tell them what to do, Am i complaining ?
Its Ok for some ! That way they keep climbing up while people like me are kept away from the things we work for. Infact she professes that her appartment is the safest place in town and that i should leave my art work with her at her place, but she wont let me stay? wierd! I wont rewrite the story but i will write about what happened.
I was living in my old house in Tehran . My mother had just passed away . I found her in her bed .... she had turned a strange colour. I called my aunt Tahmeen who was my father's sister and my cousin Roudabeh , they both came and we buried her at the cemetary without calling all the people who knew her (as is required by tradition ) My friend Shirin who i had known at high school gave me some support in those days .
It was during one of the days after her passing when i had a vision or a dream i dont know which ..... because i was sleeping after lunch and it was a very light snooze. My friend Guido appeared to me and it was as if he was for real , i hadnt kept in touch with him for some years but we had been very close and i really missed him and needed him because he seemed to know the right thing to do in every situation .... or that is what i thought. He told me "Go to Hamdanstreet" .! I still cant categorize this message .... he was then switched off .
I was missing him because he should have been next to me now that my mother was gone and since our issue had always been money , it would have been the time for us to be able to start a life together. He had been the one to stand by me during my years at University. We had had such a lot of laughs when we were studying on the books i had to prepare for my first exams .... he had "believed in me" and had told me that even if i didnt get through the exam he would come to pick up the pieces. He promised that he would come to get me afterwards and that we would go to one of his favorite caffes in piazza della Republica for a drink . that was his favorite pass time when he came to stay in Florence.
He actually lived in Rome and worked as a freelance because he had a dubbing company and worked for TV . His mother was seperated from her husband from Bergamo who was a very blond blue eyed and serious looking person and Guido looked just like him. I had met him once and he had said that all the issues of the world came from the Suez canal ! Guido told me that he was deeply depressed and was taking medicine. His father had practiced law for many years while Guido had studied to be a lawyer but had left his studies in order to work. They lived in a huge house.
Guido thought i could leave Florence and he had asked me to go and live with him and his mother .... but that was impossible since my family would not agree to that at all. His mother was a lady who spoke an incomprehensible napoletano under her breath and i could hardly understand what she said , but she said that she was not happy with me taking her son away from the family ! I was astounded! This complaint reminded me of Sonia my American friend from Ohio who had told me that one of the guests at her wedding (to Franco) had asked her "how will his mother manage without him? " To which she had retorted in a rather dry and sacastic tone " She will survive and ...... live"!
I was very attatched to Guido because i had cried too much over past heart aches and issues and thought that i had finally found a soulmate , the other half of me , since we could talk about and discuss things for hours and he felt good the same way as i did , however our families were a problem.
Guido had had two sisters who were younger .... Federica was 23 like myself but way ahead of me as far as her personality was concerned . Infact she managed to build a successful career in Tv but she left her elder brother behind her. I thought that was a shame, In any case now i was having this vision tell me to go to an unknown place looking for God knows what.
In the past i had travelled to the UAE because it was very different from Iran . After having lived abroad for two decades Iran , the country i had been born in , was not only a police state but was now controled by a sort of tight knit paramilitary system. These people were convinced of having a positive role to play. It was very tiresome to see couples walking towards me and trying to exhude superiority, because they were married, ie meaning that i should settle down. This was Populism and much beloved by the people who were used to it and who benefited from it
..... i must admit that once i was in a situation were i needed help one of these "watchers " was useful. This man had been watching over me and came to my rescue.
I was giving some change to a foreign woman who was begging and she had a baby in her arms . It turned out that she was not at all as innocent as she looked .... she was a dragon in disguise and when she started to get aggressive, this man came up to me and he was just as incredulous as i was of her behaviour and he took my side , and that made her back off . I am eternally grateful to that stranger.
I knew Dubai to be a sort of haven for anyone who had a passport and had the money to get away for some weeks. I even took my mother with me a few times. Once we went on a day trip to Abu Dhabi
. This was much before my dream . I thought my mother enjoyed being out and about instead of lying in bed all day. Infact she looked Ok for an 84 year old and she went along with whatever i decided to do. There were nice hotels and places to eat and i used to take her to these. I was sorry that i had had to sell her much beloved appartment to do this, but she should have done this herself a long time ago and she should have gone on trips with my father. But they had prefered to stay at home and watch TV , and the Tv programes were very shody and boring to say the least.
For instance; there was a programe about siamese twins who were seperated by a medical team in Singapore .... some nonsense which was the rage of the moment and all the dull people were hoping for a miracle. It was such a let down for everyone when they obviously died .... it had been pretty clear to me from the begining. itwas the sort of TV they watched all day.
In Dubai i watched Tv and i discovered "White Suprematists" for the first time, it was a British produced film in english . We were staying in the old center of town and the food was fabulous and to my taste. I loved the beach and i liked the atmosphere.... people looked like they were having fun.
I had written a post card from the hotel, thinking of Guido , i was sure he would be interested and he would understand . He had told me that Dubai was too geared to consumerism for his liking and i knew he wasnt into shopping at all and couldnt enjoy the beautiful Malls.
After having had two weeks of vacation and reaching my home , i had settled into the drudgery of everyday life and looking after my mother. I knew that soon my italian visa would expire. By coming back i would be throwing my Italian ID card out the window after 23 years of legal residency. She had no idea that i was sacrificing this important thing for her sake. She had already hit senility, and some of her friends , taking pity on me , had advised me to put her in a home and " to leave as quickly as possible". Probably it would have been the best sensible solution for me.
Shortly after our return from the trip, i had a phone call from a woman who was weepy and who spoke Italian , she introduced herself and said that she was Marina Guido's sister and that she was calling me to inform me that he had passed away! I was incredulous . He was only in his early 50's. Later on when i went to Rome to meet his mother .... nobody would tell me why he had passed. It is still a mystery.
It was not easy to know that he was not in the world for me . Even tho he had a new woman in his life.I childishly thought that he would be there for me when i needed him. and now everything had changed. The world seemed to be an unfriendly place without him and all the good people in my family. I was very depressed. I thought of the good times we had had together . Having had those brilliant moments together .... i felt so lucky because love is always an asset for one's life. Perhaps that was what he was thinking when we went to Naples by car and visited Pompei and Ercolano where his mother came from. I was the one who loved the colours of Sorrento and Amalfi .... those gorgeous places where the eyes were satieted with impossiblely beautiful nature.
After my mother passed i had gone to Dubai and had rented a place there, and i had found the Mondo del Arte gallery in Kempinskij Mall. Anna Maria who was from Liguria was very friendly and welcoming. Roberto was her young assistant from Milan. It was refreshing to be speaking Italian again. I sold various pieces of art in this gallery . Later on AnnaMaria was part of another gallery called Vindemia art gallery and she had me sell my paintings there . I had been thinking of my dream and of Guido's messagse .
I had had to go to Abu Dhabhi because all the embassies were there. I was planning to travel to Europe again. I had gone walking on Hamda nstreet because I was looking for the spanish embassy. I was planning on buying a place in spain and living a quiete life on my own . For some reason I thought it would be easier because there was an english speaking community there.
The Spanish consolate was near Hamda nStreet and i had been there several times. It was a very long street and went from the old city center to the other side of town past the Corniche which was a sort of wide open space and a park. I had found out that Abu Dhabi had had a pearl industry even up to the seventies and it had developed into a big city much later than Dubai. One gloomy windy Sunday i finally managed to prepare for a walking tour and set off to search for a clue to the dream.
I took the message seriously because i had read in books that if a person who has passed away speaks to you in a dream .... that is a real message. Swedenborg had written about his mystical dream experiences. Hewas a theologian and mystic who lived a few centuries ago.
I had lazily walked along the skyscrapers and the big buildings and had reached the old city center and I had bought some spices in a shop. There was a young man sitting there , i spoke to him about the spices and i felt that he was very untouched by what was actually going on in the world . Perhaps he was the owners son. One wondered about how the natives viewed foreign people here.
I hadn't come across anything unusual uptil now and started walking back towards the corniche which was on the other side of town. The wind was blowing hard now and i was glad it wasnt a hot day like the days i had experienced in the summer. I was wondering what it would be like to live and work here. I would have loved to find a job and settle down , but i couldnt get my head wrapped round the practical side of things here. Even having been able to stay in a rented appartment hadnt been easy because i hadnt known how to pay the utility bills.
I was walking along thinking of Guido's message.... what might it be ? I was clueless as to what to look for and it was a, rainy day . I was fed up of having to do everything on my own. i had had to look after my mother on my own but thanks to my brother's American friend Hameed who had sold cars in the US , i had found Ashraf khanum . Ashraf was a young woman who had a baby and brought it with her when she came to the house to help out with the chores. Hameed was praising her to the stars saying that she had been wonderful when she had nursed his own mother. He had told her that he wanted to give the whole world to her inorder to thank her for her service ie helping his mother during her last days.
That was a whole load of sentiment and i thought highly of Ashraf too. That was why I introduced her to my aunt Tahmin and other women i knew thinking that they would treat her right. Ashraf wore a whole load of makeup when she came to work and she was a nice looking young woman. I thought of her often because i thought of all the women i knew and how this woman had similar issues . which were linked as always to money and work. But sadly " Work" wasnt regarded with respect in the Iranian society because there was still a " feudal attitude" towards it and people didnt and were not allowed to take pride in what they did for a living. consequently Ashraf complained about how she was not treated well by the women i had introduced her to and who she worked for.
I had also had some girls work for me. They were art students at the university in Tehran and came to keep me company and to help me with my art work. They had a degree but were very worried about their future . One of them had been clever enough to find herself a husband through a chat on the internet. That was a great achievement on her part.
My steam of consciousness now brought me to Elham who worked for me as a painter ...... she was from the outskirts of town and a married woman from a village which was five hours away by car but who lived in the metropolis. The villegers had organized a daily bus to their village ( as the government was not thinking about doing it for them) which was in the outbacks of a place called Irak. She would always be saying that their village had given a lot of marters to the war between Iran and Iraq and that things should be going better for the people who had lost their men for their country. (this made me think of the wonderful buses you find in Italy which connect the villages to towns .... this kind of service is genious too)
I had found her through a cousin of hers who had been friendly to me in an internet point. She said "my cousin can paint pictures " obviously she was in the know , probably they were in the paramilitary and knew everything about me because i was a foreigner in the country i was born in. Her colours were dismally dark and i had to tell her repeatedly what colours i wanted. I was trying to help out these women by giving them some work. "Synergy" as Fletcher had called it ..... but it was pretty much impossible for me to have a grip . I wasnt married and nor did i have children and that put me in the category of " a non achiever and therefore not respectable woman" Sometimes they would talk about their life and that would be interesting for me . A way to get to know "the new country" after the revolution. The synergy didnt happen with these students.
I had a lot of time that day to think about the people i knew in the past , mostly women who i had known while living and working in Florence. I thought of Donatella who i had worked for when the shop Antica Baccani was still there during the 90's and a lot about Laura who was the gallerist who had known me since 98 and had had my work exhibited in "The Babele Gallery", Then there was Francesca and her daughter Elena who ran the gift shop " Solo A Firenze" , I had known them for many years too.
I had met Donatella through Wilma with whom i had started to make boxes. Donatella was from Grosseto. i had been to that area with Robin in the late eighties . Robin was an American friend who had bought a red sports car and wanted to use it. We had gone to the "parco del uccellino" which has a beach . Donatella was a cat person who according to Wilma , looked after all the strays she found in her area and had a house full of them in her home town! Rather like me , because i had a house full of cats as well and i could write a book about them. I used to find them on the streets of Tehran and bring them home. Once i had found a puppy and had brought it home and it had grown up to be a fine dog . I had then had to find a dog trainer to look after it.
Donatella was sharing her shop with people who made traditional florentine paper. Wilma told me that she was looking for artists who would sell their paintings in her shop so that she had an indipendant source of income, for her cat family. I had met Wilma on a cold winter night in Dicember, because we had both participated in a Xmas Art Market at piazza del Cestello Making a huge effort to go there and my assistant from Equadore Wendy had helped me carry all my pictures and cards. Getting to know Wilma changed a lot of things for me because she was a very positive
lady. She told me that her daughter was working in Fashion in Paris and was a real designer.
My effort to take part in that Xmas market had paid off and i had found a good friend.It had been a very cold winters night and Wendy had a dream in Art too and she was passionate about it, She was single and had sold her appartment and invested in this trip to Italy. She told me that her grandma had managed to get an education through sheer will power because she was working in a house where she could secretly read the childrens books, after her work was done.
Women who want to do their own thing and that was what Guido was about. He reminded me of the film "My Fair Lady" , he had been my mentor during my university years and had been happy for me to get an Italian BA degree .... funnily enough the first time we met we started totalk about George Bernard Shaw. He knew that he had participated in my project and he had been just as proud of having helped me as having helped his sister Federica getting to work in high up places. Women usually had to achieve through their good looks or through their relationship with a powerful man and this was what the world was all about. Perhaps he was thinking of a world where women could rule using "power" with a sense of justice and a kinder attitude. He was one of the idealists who had lived through the 1968 cultural revolution.
I had now walked past the Cornische and entered a place with buildings which were not the usual skyscrapers , but normal villa types. As i was still looking for a clue when i saw the words " "Pasticceria Firenze" i was blown away . It was the sign i had been looking for because Guido and I had shared so many moments together in the nice coffee places in town, he knew the best places in Rome too. On the other side of the street there was a sort of coffee place with the same name and i was happy to get to the door. The wind had been relentless and cold and now that i had found what i was looking for i could finally sit down in a warm place. Luckily it started to rain after i was indoors.
My favorite coffee shop in Abu dhabi had been one called "The French Bakery" i was spellbound by the view from the giant windows of the skyscraper and loved to sit in a cosy arm chair for hours. I could do this when the place wasnt busy, because it was packed with people during office lunch hours.
Here in the Florence coffee shop i found comfort in typical Italian coffee and pastry but i was very happy to find an extra portion of joy in seeing a pack of new editions of my favorite The New Yorker magazine. It was a Perfect day now! I sat down on a comfy sofa chair and tucked into my pastries while looking through a magazine with President Putin's picture on the cover . Guido would have spent his Sunday reading the papers. He was very politically aware and he would have possibly wanted to read the same magazine because President Putin seemed to be getting elected yet again . There was an interview with him and an article which looked interesting.
In a way i wasn't sure about how my friend saw the use of surveillance . Ever since the wall of Berlin came down in 1989 , surveillance had made it's way into every building and in some countries in homes ..... I had suffered from the surveillace in Tehran and here was president Putin talking about it. He sounded determind to controle global civilization and create a system which would change relationships and people for ever. As a german friend called Suzanne put it in later years the heart (and spontaneity of feeling would have to disappear) ; " Only "The weather" is spontaneous". These days our human life on earth seemed to be led by some kind of Stasi .
What happy days we spent unaware of this development. Certainly this article was very interesting but the next one i read was about a Polish American politician talking about the new White Race Rescue politics in Eastern Europe saying clearly that the future would depend on these ex Soviet countries.
All I needed to and wanted to know about the politics going on after 2001..... i had been puzzeled and bewildered about all these changes for many years. Was this coming from the left or the right wing politics . Some people said they both had mixed up their values.
Perhaps the surveillance that now wants to unite the white race would never have allowed me and Guido to get together in the first place ..... since he too was having a rough time out of these new developments. His spirit was pointing out the topics which we were both interested in.
Later on i went on to read a short story about a woman meeting a man .... they were going out together for the first time .... for some reason the girl , who is probablr after his money , goes for his wallet while he is asleep and instead of the cash which she is looking for , she finds a white piece of paper , and opening it sge finds the words ; "I Believe In You" ......
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