Tonight, I came across the music from Doctor Zhivago, Lara’s Theme. This music takes me back to the Sunday afternoons of my adolescence.
Within the few hours available, however, I always had the feeling that I was living every minute to the fullest, as if I was ingrained by them. I already had all my homework done, everything that my mother would ask from me, and now I could think about anything I wanted. Maybe I was reading something, listening to classical music; the options were very limited, I remember that I used to create stories or try to memorise some arias of operas (the texts, as I did not sing), endlessly rereading poems and dreaming with my eyes open.
That state of dolce far niente is really hard to find now.
Nowadays we are always in a hurry, we switch from one activity to another without much analysis, we cannot afford to enjoy a few hours when we can dream, to live in the moment, to disconnect and not to think about what we have to do and how our to-do list seems to never end.
I try to have such moments in the morning and in the evening; it does not always work, most of the time I am against the clock. But I wake up early to read and drink my coffee in silence. At five o’clock in the morning I do not receive messages and knowing that most people are asleep gives me a sense of freedom.
In the evening, when I am home early, at 7 or 8, I pour myself a glass of wine or champagne and read, listen to a podcast, watch a movie or look out of the window. The glass of wine/champagne, which I do not necessarily drink, is an object of transition that takes me to that state of dolce far niente of the Sundays of my adolescence.
What is your way of creating such a state?