From Sofia with love

On my trip in Sofia last September I stumbled across an art supply store, that sold really simple, beautiful and affordable notebooks. I get really inspired by notebooks, and I had just filled my previous notebook, with pages full of improv notes from the workshops at Sofia improv festival, so it was time for a couple of new notebooks. I decided to make one of them an art journal, focusing on the topic of love. During the last year and a half I have often been wondering about the topic of love: What does it mean to be in love? What is attraction? Why can't I fall in love? How do I find a person to fall in love with? I have been pondering about love a lot and during my trip to Sofia I had a couple of experiences that made me think about the topic further. 

We stood in front of the window and admitted it. I felt like a cigarette. I do not smoke.

The first one was a very strong feeling of connection that happened during an improvisation exercise.

In general I love how improv allows us to feel and to connect to other people emotionally. The fact that I can feel something in a scene or in an exercise is not any less true than in real life. But it is different from everyday feelings because the feelings in improv usually happen in very fleeting moments, between people that are channelling characters or energies specific to that fleeting moment. 

What happened in this particular case, is that we both felt a strong emotional connection, had the courage to recognise it and say it aloud and then let it go, and continue our lives each in different paths. Still, I took with me the increadible gift of a strong emotional  and intuitive connection, and I shall treasure it as a beautiful experience of connecting with another person. 

On my last evening in Sofia I hung out with some of the friends that I had made during the festival. Me and three men decided to go for a couple of drinks after dinner, and our local guy took us to a special "underground" pub, nestled behind a thick door, at the end of an alleyway. We went to the door and knocked, and for a few seconds I second guessed my judgement in our guide as my imagination created a dodgy drug cave at the other side of the door. The door opened, and my visions were instantly changed as I felt at home. The place felt like how I would imagine a medieval tavern to be (or where an epic role play campaign would start). The place was lit by candles, and the old wooden tables were stained with melted candle wax. This dark candle lit place was a perfect inspiration for an evening of philosophical and emotional conversations about life and love. 

I asked my friends to write something about what they think love is in my little journal. The American man doodled a drawing in my notebook, the meaning of which, has long since escaped me. Our local man  from Sofia wrote a proverb about men and women and how they are regarding rationality and romance. The French guy crystallized the essence of love in one well though sentence. In the end, it is not important what they wrote or even what we each thought love was. The important thing was to share that magical evening together in that hidden away pub, somewhere in Sofia, and be there, present for each other, and connect. For me what is important in life are these connections with people. They are the magical moments that keep me going. I do not know an answer for the question what is love, not an answer that can be put to words anyway, but I feel it has a lot to do with the act of connecting with people. Perhaps what we describe as love is just a longer and stronger bond of connection where we reveal our true self and accept and cherish what we see in others. 



Oh Sofia, you really made me connect to people. I hope to see you again soon. 

P.S. It is always good to write secret notes about your true feelings in your native language.