My-dearest-giulia - GIULIA

by ashlypic

21|06|2022

2/30 days of self care

Self care things I did today:

read first thing in the morning

went on a walk in the morning (while listening to an audiobook)

didn't force myself to study when I wasn't focusing anymore, instead I turned to another productive, but more creative project.

Journaled

Today went well, the combination of reading right after I wake up, as I drink my tea, and then going for a walk before studying is working amazingly, I feel very relaxed when I start my daily tasks. Today I continued working on those historiographical articles I have been reading and annotating. I started working on the last one I had downloaded, it's quite long, and mid-morning I wasn't focusing at all on it. I decided not to force myself since I am not fully back at my normal energy levels, and instead I started working on a creative project. I am creating a reading journal I will be gifting at the end of the month. Working on something creative while listening to music felt regenerating. In the afternoon I continued reading the article, and then I planned my tasks for tomorrow. I also did my daily practice of Irish on duolingo, and posted this reading update.

tranquilstudy's studyblr challenge // day 6

Today I am grateful for having listened to my body

What have been some things that have changed for you this month? Are they big things, little things? How do you feel about these changes? How do you feel about change in general?

In general I do not deal very well with change, I never have. Although I have gotten better with the years chance scares me, plus I am a very habit based person in general, which doesn't help. As I was saying I have been doing better with the years, I have accepted the fact that often change is for the better, so I feel like I am (slowly) growing.

🎵: Running Up That Hill covered by Rain Paris

Diana Giacometti stood on a crowded platform of St. Pancras Station in London, not quite sure what to do with herself. Her suitcases stood next to her, brown leather accents on green fabric. There were three of them, one and a half were occupied by clothes and toiletries, and the rest were other necessities (mostly various books in Italian and English). She also had a matching messenger bag crossing along her front to rest effortlessly on her hip. This contained her phone, a journal, and a battered copy of The Iliad, which was, quite strangely, in modern Greek, a language which Diana did not know, nor the language of the original text.

She’d just gotten off a two-and-a-half-hour train ride from Paris, which she’d taken after a harrowing journey through Europe. Said journey had started with a nearly ten-hour ferry ride from Olbia (in Sardegna, an island off the coast of Italy) to Rome. Then, after staying in quite a classy Roman hotel (at quite an expensive price) for a night, she hopped on an eleven-hour train ride from Rome to Paris. After that, she took a train across the channel to London, and here she was. The worst part of the journey was the fact that she was travelling entirely alone. Now, she was a thirteen-year-old girl standing alone in St. Pancras Station at 9PM.

Two more trains. She took the tube from King’s Cross (the station attached to St. Pancras) to Paddington Station, her first time on London’s infamous subway system. She was a bit sad that she was leaving London before she’d even stepped outside of a train station, but the fact remained that she needed to be at school the next morning.

After arriving at Paddington, she took her last train to Windsor and Eton Central, only a half-an-hour.

Standing in the eerily quiet streets of Windsor at a time which Diana reckoned was quite near midnight, the cold, just-rained air pressing on her; the past few days felt like a fever dream. Paris and Rome and countless views of European countryside blurring together while clashing with the shiny, linoleum trains and stations, and processed snacks from overpriced stores. She hadn’t seen very many travelers her own age. A band of three British boys, a scared Danish girl, and no less than five French siblings traveling with their mother.

She thought now that she might’ve stood out quite plainly in the crowded European stations, a middle-school-age girl in a tweed jacket standing idly. She’d sometimes whisper lines of the Greek in her copy of The Iliad, sounding out words and phrases that she didn’t know the meaning of. This invariably startled anyone seated near her, while simultaneously shutting her up for the foreseeable future.

Well, now might be a good time to describe the way that Diana looked. She had chocolate hair that poured from her head in coils and swirls, draping itself across her shoulders in a charming way. Her nose was a bit big, and a light, red blush stretched across the middle of her face, like a cat lounging in the sun. Her face was harsh but not ungraceful, an elegance hidden in the way she composed her features. She had large, red lips that complemented her face perfectly, along with unkempt but not untidy eyebrows that arched slightly. Her large eyes were a deep blue, a sea of dark waves, outlined by long eyelashes.

I might also tell you of her character here. It was not unlike the harsh, beautiful Greek that she read from that book. Her voice was eloquent, even-tempered, and she commanded respect around her. The wall that she placed between herself and the world was almost unnoticeable, her façade pinned up on it. She seemed sure of herself and what she said, kind at moments when you’d least expect it, nearly perfect to most people. Some thought her cruel and cold, while others thought her too loud with her opinions, but most saw this perfect self that she had instructed herself to portray.

In reality, she was afraid. She was afraid of herself. She was afraid at every minute that she’d say the wrong thing, wear the wrong outfit, tell the wrong lie. Who she was changed slightly from person to person, and she hated it. The wall of lies she built was splotchy and built of different materials at different sections, having been carefully constructed for years. She prayed that everyone thought they were looking at the same wall, that no one would dismantle it, brick by brick, or knock it over, sending it crashing down on her. Clermont was her opportunity to paint over it all in one stroke.

Only one person had ever managed to build a back door to this wall, and he was dead. It was his Greek book that she carried around, complete with his annotations in a mix of Greek, English, and Italian. She’d catch herself running her thumb over the words scrawled in the margins of that book, knowing that he’d written them all those months ago.

The sound was muffled; all he could see was Theo’s gorgeous eyes, looking down at his sketch. He leaned closer to see what he was drawing, placing his face closer to Theo’s. Theo smiled over yet another drawing of Alexander. Alexander looked back up at his eyes, and Theo couldn’t pretend not to notice him this time. Alexander’s face was angled in such a way that he was looking up at Theo, quite a rare occurrence. Theo looked straight into those emerald eyes that stared into his. Alexander moved so that his head rested in Theo’s lap and his legs dangled down the hill. His eyes glanced down at Theo’s lips.

Without thinking, Theo pulled his lips up to meet his, a perfect moment, a perfect moment. Warmth spread through Alexander as if he were drinking a scalding cup of hot chocolate in bed on a cold night, the warmth burning the back of his throat and spreading through his body. His hand reached up behind Theo’s head, clutching onto his tawny curls. He didn’t want this moment to end; he couldn’t let it. His mouth did not leave Theo’s, his fingers intertwined in Theo’s hair. He could feel Theo’s hand move down to his back. Their lips parted, a too-long goodbye. Theo looked at him, some sort of expression on his face, not exactly a smile. Alexander shared it. Alexander closed his eyes as Theo sprinkled magnolia leaves on his face, laughing. He knew this moment was never meant to last.

Take care of your costume and your confidence will take care of itself.

ig: l_reads.

Last night, I told my mother "I wish I was dead" in a fit of rage and winter clouded her eyes. But it wasn't white and it wasn't quiet, it resembled something like helplessness and rage. She was in pain and I knew I hurt her. I wanted to say something, anything, but how do you withdraw a declaration of war? How do you stop the bombs that already destroyed homelands? In that moment I remembered how she always told me that when she was a kid, she was too afraid to sleep with the lights on. Not because she was afraid of monsters, but because she feared her grandmother would die. Because when you're a kid, not seeing it means it doesn't exist anymore. I saw the winter in her eyes again and I knew I had switched off the light, she wasn't angry, she was afraid.

And I also remembered how she always told me I'd always be 3 years old for her, always a child, and for the first time, I heard in the voice of a three year old "I wish I was dead". My heart broke. And I wanted to hug her and hold her, tell her I was sorry, that I didn't mean it. Before I could move a hand, she left the room. The entire evening, I saw myself as she saw me, a 3 year old child. I saw the child hurt herself and cry herself to sleep every week, fight her friends with her tiny hands and two ponytails, I saw her depression and her anxiety, I saw her yell "I wish I was dead" and I knew. I knew. I wanted to shout through the walls, yell and cry and tell my mother that now I KNEW, but I didn't. I wept and wept until I heard a quiet knock and a soft familiar voice whispered, "Dinner is ready".

-Ritika Jyala, excerpt from The world is a sphere of ice and our hands are made of fire

I believe that a morning should never describe a day. Of course, I don’t believe mornings listen to mortal pleas and reasoning, but I try to enact this rule myself. Yet, it is a morning’s nature to bleed into your perception of a day, tint it with sorrow or with beauty. The only times when I forbid myself from enforcing this rule is when my day is unknowingly stricken with a morning of perfect quiescence, an awake before the world has begun to turn. Those rare mornings can feel free to pour through the seams of time and stain the parchment of afternoons and evenings a beautiful shade of rose. I’m quite a hypocrite, I do know.

Why are all the best things I write just flowers and vanilla and sunlight? Honestly, I’ve detected a distinct theme. I’m not sure if I’m complaining. I do like flowers and vanilla and sunlight, and I do enjoy writing different types of light, especially that honey-gold, early-morning sunlight. I just wish I could be that good at writing anything else.

Factual

She wants to learn 75 languages