My personal inspirational leader, that fancy blogger from Nantes, got up really early this morning. She was active, slim, and adored pear spiced latte in October, mint latte in April, yet drank only black coffee during the rest of the year. Perhaps, this was the major factor that triggered Lia’s affection and appeal to this woman with thick black hair – shoulder length, impeccable hair-do (daily!), – bizarre blue eyes and passion for everything Italian. The latter also appealed to Lia – yet she was as much passionate about everything French, and never had her coffee without milk and cinnamon accent, even during the summer period. For her, cinnamon was not ‘autumn spices’ or ‘Xmas flavor’, but rather a taste of agility. Maybe it was not coffee that awakened her every morning after all, but that very special taste of decent dose of cinnamon in the cup. Maybe, it was a premonition of the future, carefully wrapped up in the air, in the rain drops or smell of the heat in July. Maybe, it was the cheering experience Lia got every time she visited profiles of eternally happy, successful and luminous bloggers. Who knows.
Perhaps, social media do not kill our reality as many experts nowadays claim – maybe, they trigger original interest to life and unveil our potential after showing what this world got for us. Probably so – we do need to see what there is to be hungry for it, to be eager to get it, to taste it, to feel it, to own it, to refuse it.
Lia’s morning flows among crowded streets of distressed from the very morning New York habitat, smell of coffee and something dangerously tasty and unhealthy, eternal traffic, stylish crossroads and unconditional chase for the taxi. Noise of cars, shrieking ads and voices is the lullaby the city whispers to those ready to listen and delve deeper. She loves it, she hates it, she accepts it in all its wholeness and simultaneously – beautifully fragmented nature. She cherishes every new morning when the dawn sees the night home. This is a new chapter, a new prologue, a new method to structure your time.
Here she arrives. The office, the lazy net of halls, office boxes and transparent doors greets you with a wicked smile ‘Welcome to Benevolent Hell!’ – and this is not her imagination, there is a real inscription in bloody red and midnight black above the head entrance. Their boss thinks it’s smart, realistic, and funny – and oh yes, he thinks it motivates. Cause it’s so honest and kinky. Yep, he uttered exactly that word at their meeting dedicated to changes in the company aimed to enhance their performance, attitudes, and relations.
The Benevolent Hell consumes Lia, and up to the evening she ceases existing. The System instead works impeccably: customers are served, texts are completed, the true meanings are revealed or embedded in conventional words. For the System to function, the individualism is to be eliminated. Working hours are all about it.
The dawn and the dusk are times when Lia awakes – twice per day, correct. All the evenings belong to her. That is not enough time to contain everything she wants to do after work, yet they are most certainly enough for her to attend lessons of French twice per week, dancing at RockBabyCityHall studio as much, and observe the life she strives for in the near future on Insta profiles of traveling gals. Paris, Venice, Barcelona – it was another world for her, such a desirable one, the one she longed for and felt as something she belonged to. Lia sincerely could not understand people from those beautiful European cities striving to move to the States.
Why bother? Why come here and stay for good?
This city was hungry day and night – for vital energy of people burning their years in tremendous bonfire dedicated to feeding the NY essence. The Benevolent Hell indeed. Europe that she worshipped belonged to another type of urbanistic spirit – the one that fed the citizens with its beauties, marvelous legends behind this century, and faith.
– Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, – Max told her once.
Perhaps, it was so indeed. Lia knew one thing for sure: she could not find beauty in her soul for the city that consumed hours, days, and months of her life so fiercely and greedily. She was almost ready to leave for European dream – only a year and a half was left for her to have the amount of money and competence to move their for good. Meanwhile, there was always the beautiful and vivacious blog of that gal from Nantes and a pear spiced latter to look for in her city-as-per-now every new morning.
Author: Mila Sol
