Dear Reader,
Please allow me to make this one remark: This little piece shows on the one hand my life-long love for reading and on the other it introduces you to my writing style.
Although this posting is for everyone I especially have in mind my fellow members on Goodreads.
There was no space on my Goodreads profile to add my mini short story there, thus I decided to do it here.
To all of you I wish lots of fun both with the topic at hand and my style!
Cristi-Ana
One happy summer day I decided it was time to buy myself some more books again. The academic year had just come to an end and I was hungry for other knowledge. Academic books can be fun, but when my mind demands more popular approaches to a variety of topics I’d better follow.
Equipped with the list in my hand I entered one of the familiar book stores downtown. The second I stepped in, a young employee joined me greeting politely and offering to help. We practically went down my list.
I always forget time when I am in a book store. It takes as long as it takes. A flow experience is exactly about losing the sense of time. We only noticed time was passing because the piles of my new little treasures grew and grew.
“What institute do you want me to send them to?”
“No institute.”
This poor young man fell into a shock. He could hardly speak anymore. And his smile was almost gone.
“Aren’t you coming from University?”
We were within one minute walking distance from the University, that was true, but to be mistaken for a bureaucrat was certainly not flattering. Clarification was badly needed.
“I’m buying them all just for myself!”
Language completely gone, smile vanished into thin air, just a frozen facial expression left to remind how scary it looks to feel scared.
How did I manage that?
He was embarrassed. He was not sure which one of us had done anything wrong. Neither was I.
“I’ve never seen a person buy so many books just for themselves!” How apologetic!
Should I have mentioned this was not my first time? Have some mercy, Life! Besides after all these years in Vienna, why didn’t I know anything about how many books people bought just for themselves? Was it his fault I was an absolute alien to normal human habits?
I paid my many books, took my bags and left to find a cab. His words haunted me. He triggered a mechanism in me that had nothing to do with him. I was sure he meant no harm whatsoever because he had the frequency of a kind person. His experience was apparently limited though. I could not imagine being the only one enjoying reading books and buying many of them all at once.
My love affair with books had already started in my childhood in Romania. I dare say I devoured them. I did my homework as fast as possible and did it well too and then I read for hours at a time. I have a curious mind and an inquisitive soul always open and hungry to assimilate knowledge. This habit has kept me company ever since. I was born this way, live this way and will also die this way.
Once at home I had to ponder on this most unexpected and unusual encounter. There was something tragic-comic about it. I could look at it from both extremities. Mentally I had that freedom. Emotionally not. I felt bad.
“What have I done? Why was he so shocked?”
Clearly, I was more focused on him than on me. Why would anyone ever focus on a complete stranger?
“What if I’m crazy?” Where did I get that idea from?
“I know! I am out of control! Beyond good and evil!” Could it be I faintly heard my mother’s voice in the background confirming my self-labeling?
Our upbringing obviously teaches us what to be and what not to be and out of control is nothing to be! I was in trouble. I had been brought up to be a pleaser. And it was exactly the pleaser in me who could not accept that most horrible and unbearable thought.
Pleasers are conformists, aren’t they? It had never occurred to me I could be a non-conformist! All of a sudden the main question for me became: Was I more a pleaser or more a non-conformist? And how could my innocent habit of buying many books at once turn into a major inner conflict as if something immoral or illegal?
I was confused and lost. But not for long. I checked the energies. Why had I been born with access to energies if not to help myself? That was easy. A simple habit in my case. Would I maybe need shadow work? After all, shadow work is central in spirituality. Central or not, the message was clear: No shadow work needed immediately. I would feel when the time was right for me to get into it. What a relief! Maybe I had jumped ahead of myself thinking straight of shadow work, but I did feel bad, that bad. Why not get right to the root of the problem? If no deep digging was in place I decided to let go of the episode. And just to observe what the incident would do to me. Although my issue bugged me. Above all, I felt ashamed. I was a bad girl. I would keep my problem under control.
“Ha-ha!” I hear you say.
Worth trying, don’t you think?
That’s how the years passed. Recently though my issue surfaced again, big time. The context was similar. What else? But not identical because this time around my conflict revolved around books in different languages. You see, only my maternal background is Romanian. On my paternal side one grandparent was Austrian while the other one was Italian. There you have it. I did not end up in Vienna by accident. No, no!
Regarding languages there are a variety of layers in my case. Romanian is my mother tongue. At the university level, I was trained in English and German. My reading and speaking foreign languages are French, Italian and Spanish. I also watch television in these languages. Great fun! And then there are two more learning languages in which I don’t yet master either the reading level or watching television at the point of understanding them. This is why they are called just learning languages. My inner conflict is challenged enough even without these two which can only be expected to evolve in the course of time. And then what? I am already doomed as it is. What’s the next higher level of doomed?
There are many ways to be rich in this world and one of them is by reading books. One language alone is already a universe all on and of its own full of wisdom, joy and marvel. Let alone different languages! All the comparisons, the mentalities, the cultures! Not to forget each language’s little idiosyncrasies! What a synergy for intellect, heart and soul!
There is an intense competition for my attention coming from each language because every one has something unique to offer and at the same time only all of them together fill me with the adequate vibrations on all levels.
And how had I spent the last twenty-five years? By taming my inner tension, appeasing the non-conformist and supporting the pleaser! But the taming had lately started to fail me! If the voice of my inner struggle had been hardly audible in decades, now it has reached the highest volume! And buying books in my various reading languages is just the tip of my iceberg! Of course, just the tip. Because the truth is my non-conformism touches every aspect of Life, not just my life, your life, but Life!
In the final analysis, I felt invited to do my shadow work, better said to start it because it is never ending. And I felt ready too. It was time to have a closer look at the different parts I had thrown into the dark. We all do it when we are young in order to make peace with our upbringing. As adults, however, we claim them back in order to make peace with ourselves and harness our identity and authenticity. Only by having the entire spectrum of qualities at our disposal are we complete and thus can accomplish our spiritual mission.
I have learned to accept that my non-conformism is a characteristic of my soul. That’s who I am: The mild type of non-conformist! It is as simple as that. And what did my inner non-conformist turn into? A problem-solver! And a mindful one too! Over the years I could help people improve their quality of life by bringing in new perspectives and facilitating creative changes. And if what it takes are also many books in many different languages I find that a most meaningful and rewarding investment. I can only embrace my inner non-conformist! I enjoy the idea that I can contribute and give according to my highest standard and ability.
As to my inner pleaser…When I want to express this part I do that too because I learned to transcend linear contradictions. I discovered that I identify with it, on my terms I’d like to add. After all, also my inner pleaser is a non-conformist!
Cristi-Ana Montesanto 