Renjun: Day 39, The brightness, it makes me happy, for the first time I have a goal again. The Italian sun, the landing on the airport next to the sea, all of this exciting, because there is this lady, Yuta's friend I want to see.
She lives in a house with renaissance pillars, mythological creatures sculptured in the stone around each window.
She opens up a little room for me, a few books on the shelves, two pictures of scientist on the wall, a huge map of the world pinned up opposite the armchair I'm asked to sit in.
She's 82, she jokes she's like an oak, as she had studied the lifestyle of happiness for over 50 years till she found out the answers.
I tell her about the book, the journey, the girl who had rejected me. I break out into tears.
"There is no love."
"What is love?" she asks calmly.
"Destruction, pain," I say clenching my fists.
"That's no love. Anything that brings destruction and pain, even if people call it love, it isn't love. That's the way you can define it, by the feeling it brings you," she says.
"So... what is love?" I ask so stunned.
"It's the only force that can move you from this chair, the fact that had brought you here, that allows you to carry on despite all the struggles, all hardships," she smiles and I fell there's something strange opening inside me, a space, a new undiscovered space.
"Love isn't relationships, intimacy, another human being, we need them, not because we need their love, they could live without our love, but we can't live without our love, it's us who need them to bring our love out. Another person can feel so much love towards us, but we won't get anything from it, if we won't feel our own love. We can't feel other people feelings, that's why we are so easily fooled by the illusion someone else will give us their love, their happiness and make us happy. Nothing more wrong."
She looks at me when reality is so visible, so touchable, the answer almost there.
"But love is not only people, it's everything we are ready to fight for, ready to give our time and work for, everything we are for."
"My writing," I whisper sinking deeper into the armchair.
"Yes, your writing, this book. Imagine how much love do you have inside you to make a travel around the world by yourself just to write a book, how much love is it to work on the reports each day, no matter if you're tired of jet-lagged, heartbroken, happy, convinced or not, but you still do it, you never leave a report out, may it be one word one sentence. Imagine, what love brings you here today?"
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