Both the theater workshop I had organized and the couple of weeks on the TV set were fantastic experiences. I remember I called my dad on the phone during those days to tell him about everything that was happening, and I noticed how excited he felt for me at the time, like he was about to go and repeat everything to the rest of the family as soon as we got off the phone. I felt and was happy.
Winter was starting that year, and in Bologna you could already see the many Christmas decorations and hear people talking about their plans for the holidays. My year finished among family and friends: for Christmas I was able to be with my cousin and my aunt who were in Milan at the time, and for New Year’s we celebrated beautifully with a group of friends in a house in the middle of the mountains, far from the city, where we stayed for three days before going back to Bologna.
The point is that everything got better and better since, and I was absolutely ecstatic. It was the moment when I was really starting to live. I felt invincible, I was a now indestructible wheel that may have taken its time to start rolling down its road, but it was finally doing so. I was taking on a new and exciting path that allowed me to accelerate more and more, and instead of fear I felt the excitement of discovering even more, both about the world and about myself.
It was a quite intense and interesting couple of years in many ways. I was working in different fields, from collaborating with production houses and creative agencies, to participating in theater festivals with my plays and workshops. Also, thanks to this I met many people, forged new friendships and acquired specific knowledge that I never thought could interest me before. All of this led me to see my own future with different eyes: maybe it was time to step out of that line that had once served to define myself and was now limiting my growth. Perhaps, my studies in theater should not imply that I could only work in theater and that, if not, I would have been a failure. At first, I thought, with the early creative jobs that had nothing to do with theater, that I might still be able to learn a certain know-how and integrate it into theater through either team management, project writing or handling collaborations, for example. But then I felt that, perhaps, the purpose of these experiences was actually to reconfigure my own perception.
Those were years of much growth and exploration, where I reconsidered my relationship with the outside world and my role in all this, where I always felt the hand of Luck, or God, or the Great Flow close by. I felt I had it all, as if every single thing I’d wanted was already present in my life. Now all I needed was to intensify the proportions, but that was only a matter of time. This doesn’t mean those were flawless years, without sorrows or difficulties: just as I began new partnerships, others ended very unpleasantly, and just as I forged new friendships and started new relationships, others demanded temporary or even permanent distance. But one learns that serenity and harmony come not without pain.
During these times there was a point when talk of a flu emerging in China started. Some spoke of a virus, others of a light disease. Those were the rumors at least. Suddenly, the phenomenon was spreading wide, colonizing and isolating entire countries little by little. Everything changed with the pandemic, everything began to move differently. The air wasn’t the same, not only because of the masks, it was as if we could breathe the concern and anguish of others. I think we could feel everyone else’s fear that was added to our own, as if those emotions were trying to materialize themselves somehow.
As I said before, those were intense years, for everybody. And in those years, which had led me to reflect upon my career and my capabilities in relation to society, I met a person who turned everything upside down without my wanting or expecting it. It was then, with that person, that the true waters of transformation arrived.
(to be continued in Deep Waters Are Not Still – Part III: (from the) Deep)
Originally written in: Spanish
Daniel Vincenzo Papa De Dios
