It’s 7:46am and I’m sitting on the train to Galway. It’s Saturday morning and I’ve been awake since 4:30am. I tend to have a rule that Big Life Thinking (with capitals) doesn’t get attempted when I’m feeling this tired but there’s something about the hum of a train and the sense of time pausing that had me leaning down to grab my laptop a moment ago.
I’ve felt a little stuck lately, in a different way to how I would usually say that.
As a writer and photographer, I tend to present ideas as they are once they’re fully formed to me. It’s why I like film photography so much maybe. I don’t edit any of my shots. They feel authentic and complete – a moment captured in its completeness, unable to be taken the same way again. You can’t overthink it. It is what it is and you’re merely the creative conduit.
But lately, I’ve had a lot of thoughts competing for brain space. A lot of beginnings of thoughts, rather. Not a tonne of endings. A lot of questions about what best to do next. But in a way, that feels ok for where I am right now. What it does do is make it challenging to communicate how I am.
I’m at the crossroads that I imagine all ‘creatives’ come to at some point – do we hate the term creatives? Artists? (that sounds pretentious). Regardless of what we call it, my question is - do I make my art my living? Do I try? I know the answer is yes. It has to be, right? I’ve had some amazing jobs booked for the rest of the year that I find absolutely titillating (the only appropriate word)…maybe I could have gone with electric, affirming, unsettling, but then…I don’t think we say ‘titillating’ enough anymore. Or ‘marvellous’. Anyway, I digress.
What I wanted to write to you about this morning was ‘faith’. Complex word. Kind of triggering. Words invoking religion before a morning coffee? Risky business. Maybe it’s actually more ‘fate’. Or a fusion of the two.
So, I’ll just tell you the story.
Two nights ago, on a run, I was pondering to myself what movie I should watch that evening. I had a yearning for something I’d seen before, something 90s/early-noughties, typically something with a little bit of romance. I hovered over Eat, Pray, Love (say what you want about that book or movie, it was a worldwide hit for a reason) but then veered. No. Under the Tuscan Sun. Ev was out for a late night summer surf so I thought a glass of wine and an Italian setting wouldn’t hurt a Thursday night.
On my way home from the gym about half an hour later, I’m walking down my street and who should I see looking for directions, perplexed expression across her face, but Diane Lane.
BLOODY DIANE LANE.
i.e. THE STAR OF UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN (and many other A List films)
Diane Lane, Under the Tuscan Sun (2003)
Diane Lane, looking for directions, in Dublin.
At first, I walked past her, eyes wide, mouth gaping at no one.
And then I stopped and turned around.
“Sorry,” I interrupted her awkwardly (she seems very much like the kind of woman that doesn’t like to be interrupted by the general public), “I just wanted to say Under the Tuscan Sun means a lot to me. It’s a really great movie.”
She looks at me for a moment, “Thanks so much. A great friend of mine wrote and directed it.” She replies. I can tell she’s a little put out.
“Can I… help?” I pause and ask. “Do you need directions?”
She looks me in the eyes for the first time in the interaction, a little vulnerable.
“My friend sent me the directions to this restaurant. I think it’s above a wine shop but…” she hesitates.
“Oh, I know where it is. You’re really close actually.” I stop her.
I point her in the right direction and she touches my arm and smiles at me.
“Thanks so much for your help.”
“Have a great night,” I say. And we part.
That night, watching the movie, it’s an odd sensation.
You see, I’ve been looking for signs a lot lately. Actually rather, I should say, I’ve been getting a lot of signs. Earlier this year, I kind of…put some feelers out…universally…as in, to the universe. (queue eye roll if you’d like, I won’t mind). I don’t know if I believe in signs or not so I thought…well, I might as well just ask.
And, hand on heart, some of them have come in with a resounding clarity. I don’t know who’s sending them, or what. I don’t know if that bit matters to me. But it seems rude not to acknowledge them…gift-horse-in-the-mouth and all.
A lot of what I’ve been asking is a variation of this:
If I make the jump, take the leap, back myself…will it/you/the universe/god…catch me?
I deeply believe that if you take brave steps, opportunities will rise to meet you. But I’m also not naïve enough to think that everyone who asks for what they want, always gets it. So, I’ve been asking, in a semi-kind of praying way.
And here it was, in the form of a story.
You see, in the movie, there’s a beautiful scene where the man who sells Diane Lane the house , Bramasole, tells her a fable, of sorts.
He tells the story of the section of the Alps called the Semmering – an area that’s impossibly steep and part of the mountains between Austria and Italy. He tells her about the people who “built a train track over these Alps to connect Vienna and Venice.” He says, “they built these tracks even before there was a train in existence that could make the trip. They built it because they knew some day, the train would come.”
I think at the moment, my life feels a little like this. Putting the tracks down for the train I hope…the train I know… will someday come. Maybe someday not so far from now.
Maybe it’s about faith. Maybe it’s more fate.
Whatever it is, I didn’t expect to be able to say ‘this week I ran into Diane Lane and it made me feel like I was maybe on the right path with the things I’m trying to dream into existence’. And that’s an unexpected enough sign for me this week.
Or maybe it’s a sign to buy a run-down house in Italy. I’ll take either.
