There is a difference between deciding rationally that you want to be someone's friend and internalizing it emotionally. I have been in love with my friend for a long time, she knows, I know, everybody does. It was never weird, no transgression ever happened, for all practical purposes it was platonic and cute and could have lasted forever as far as I am concerned. But other people have different categories. Loving someone who is not actually in your life is difficult. You will miss. You will regret. You will cry and bury your face in the same pillow that you're going to kiss secretely on other days, imagining sweet sweet warmth. I get it. I also understand, that this can happen, even if both party's like each other. We want many things from life and falling in love is not the only thing that matters, maybe at some point, it doesn't matter at all. Still, you have to make the decision that the other person won't matter as much as you thought they would. It feels like betraying a secret bond, revolting against some law of the universe, plain wrong. I did that and tried to seek distance. It worked but I gained the certainty that I don't want to lose my friend over this. My heart closed itself though, big, reinforced fortress doors falling shut while a Tolkien-esque horn signals approaching enemy forces. For an outside observer that doesn't mean much. Inside it means that converations become dull and awkward, silence takes hold, phone calls get rarer. The risk of unimportance rises. Occasions do meet become few and far between. Not because it's impossible or difficult, but because nobody really wants to feel the unspoken, to hold back and leave all those deeply felt things unexpressed. I held off going to [[Torino]] for 7 months. Then my gf wanted to go to [[Lyon]] and I had no more excuse, from there, it's just a very pleasant train trip. It was hard. But the owner of the AirBnB was nice, we joked about coffee and their apartment was pure relaxation. I always forget just how liberating it is to buy ricotta and pasta in the local supermarket, drink some tea and practice handstands in a minimalist foreign living room. Torino is a beautiful city. Built as a capital, by a nascent country's ruler, clearly influenced by Paris. The mountains are visible from everywhere, this time of year they are white and powerful. I love mountain cities. Although I don't make an effort to actually spend time in any of them, I hold certain images, memories and camera roll alike, very dear. Innsbruck, Chengdu, Salt Lake City. Maybe that's a travel idea I should explore? Torino also feels very unsecure and has way too many homeless. That aside, the food is fantastic, people cheerful, the girls look at you with intensity. I met my friend in the evening of my arrival with her dog. Conversation effortless. She brought up the topics that have been weighing on my stomach recently: why she communicates less, the silences. She has lots on her plate. I appreciate her dis-arming that particular bomb. But the also doesn't tells me any details and I am fine-not fine. I want to be the trusted friend who knows, [[Thoth]], the scribe of the gods. But I also don't feel comfortable because it is not easy to accept that I am not a part of her life. You are not that important to a friend, period. The next day we meet for breakfast, Bombolone, a Krapfen, very tasty. The place is next to my apartment on a long boulevard capped by the Alps in the background. On the other side you see Superga, the burial place of much of the house of Savoy and a great lookout not far from the city. She asks me for a plan for the day, I don't have any of course. But I insist that we go to the [[Polytechnic University of Torino]]. Many designers and engineers I learned about with her have learned there, Olivetti, Sottsass, d'Ascanio. I know that she has a particular foible for engineers, having gone through her education sentimantale with some, including the love of her life, probably. She says it's weird but let's go. "I'll find out if nerds are still smelly". I don't say it as it only occurs to me while we talk, walking through the approximately 60/40 distribution of male and female students who don't smell particularly badly, but as she is trying to get pregnant, I imagine how happy she would be one day, if her own child started a career as an engineer. By now I have understood that these considerations exist only in my own head. Thoughts like these would never occur to her, she doesn't need them and if good things happen, it will be because of her and the will of the universe. But I am happy that I can feel this way. We explore the city on foot, pass by a coffee shop with exquisite filter coffee, which feels like a sacrilege here in one of the founding cities of espresso, the square where Nietzsche met his horse. I find it funny and a bit tragic that they pasted an AI image of superman's body with Nietzsche's head next to the memorial plaque, the Egyptian Museum. The museum is really well done. I wouldn't call it in depth, focussing mainly on items found in graves, but it is playful, let's you explore it's premises like an explorer walking through narrow tombs in the valley of kings. I get pleasant flashbacks to my own [[Trip To Egypt with Mom in 2005]], of which I don't remember many facts but feelings and certain images that I will keep with me for the rest of my life. It is there that I became a writer, because I wanted to matter for thousands of years, like [[Ozymandias]], like the Pylons of [[Luxor]] and mysterious queen [[Hatschepsut]]. It's also there that I first identified with [[Thoth]] and bought myself a statue in some cheap tourist shop. Afterwards we go out for dinner, with her husband. He is a nice guy, welcoming and very present. It would take years probably for us to warm up to each other, let the guard down, talk about stuff that matters. I personally don't think it will happen but I entertain the possibility. Dinner is simple, stracotto and a local desert called a Bonet, a rum and almond flavored pudding which was dense as a brick. Already in this short moment I am exhausted, hardly talk. He brings me home, plans visits that they'll do with me on sunday, offers an umbrella and is generally very caring. But I am glad the day is over. I do not feel that wonderful calm I used to in the presence of my friend. I could have spend my life just sitting in the same room, the same city even and enjoying life, knowing that I have her exact kind of person in it. That feeling is gone. A certain Ungeduld des Herzens settled in, some sort of pressure not to show my own weakness, that I think my life didn't take the best possible turn, a fear of being left behind. That's a personal problem time will heal, it's already happening. Still I could not stand being with her or them for any extended period. That's why I planned a day off from the beginning. I am going to do a pilgrimage to the [[Sacra di San Michele]] near the city. It is a beautiful abbey from the 10th century. I have for a long time confounded it with the place they used to shoot [[The Name of the Rose (1986)|The Name of the Rose]], for which they actually used a set. When an add in the train to [[Siena]] showed it last winter, the decision was beginning to form. I had no plan other than I wanted to have a reason to be alone. It was cold and raining. The train was full of mentally challenged people, but the fact that they had an organized trip, gathered from many towns the train stopped in and were welcomed in a community made me smile. When I got off in [[San Ambrogio]] and saw the height of the hill the abbey sits on, I knew I was in for a ride. My friend called and said I can come over any time or we can do something together, "don't bother hiking in this weather!". Sweet as she would always be for the handful of days we'll get together. But there won't be enough of those so I need to keep my boundaries up: "It's for emotional regulation", I tell her and she leaves me alone. On the way up, I have a spiritual experience by the fact that I am completely alone and exhausted on a very severe hike. I begin to think of something to do. Before coming I told my friend N that I wanted to write up there listening to [[Arvo Part's Trisagion]], but as I was stopping at every cross, the town below shrinking, the mountains rising around, I was overwhelmed by a torrent of grateful thoughts for both my friend and my gf. Reasons why I am thankful that they are in my life. Why having them both is a blessing. I am not religious nor spiritual, but I know they are. I was actually going to pray for them! This was exactly the right day for this trip. Horrendously wet and cold, the heroic effort necessary to reach the abandoned abbey made the brain imaginative. The sight was stunning: mountains shrouded in clouds, low feathers of mist, rain and wind splashing against the imposing verticality of Saint Michael's fortress made me take on the robes of a medieval monk. From time to time I'd meet another visitor, staring gloomily into the distance, only heightening the impact of the towering stone. When I arrived in the chapel, a first aid team was rescuing a man in bad shape. He wasn't moving but clearly alive. My friend had told me once, that she secretely prays every time she hears an ambulance. "Don't make fun of me", she said, but I wasn't going to. Instead, I use a simplified version of her prayer now too. No belief, no adherence to any religion, but just the idea that you would dedicate a moment to think about another human being with sympathy and care was like opening a hidden room in my own self. Like reconnecting. Once they shipped the poor wretch off, and some families with noisy kids left, I was alone and wrote. I wrote about my wishes for the two women in my life, the two true friends in my life. Happiness for my gf, family and health for my friend, and that we'd all get to enjoy some more of each other. On the terrace behind the chapel, I was light headed and very cold. How long had I been writing? It felt like I could just as well write a poem about the wild and deep view and the joy of discovering thoughts you would have never anticipated or jump off the cliff and call it a day. I see this as a good thing. Life, as of now, is fulfilled. I love my past, love the present, don't care about the future but hope it will be interesting. If it isn't, that's fine too, I don't regret a thing.