Theloopylululog

Switching lives, are we now?

If I were to be switching lives with a fictional character for a week?

That’s a no brainer. I don’t even have to think about it. It has to be him and him only!

Does this sound like I have been sitting around waiting for someone to switch lives with me? No way.

No. I am extremely blissed out with my life, thank you very much.

But the character that came to mind on reading the prompt is one of the few characters from the fictional world whose life I would love to embody, even if just for a week.

Johann Phillips Moeller from Everything The Light Touches by Janice Pariat is based on the real life German writer and thinker Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

Until I read the book recently I didn’t have much to do with Goethe. I came across him sometimes when I unwittingly ended up researching on quotations while on a quest for something else totally unrelated. Other than that he didn’t even figure in my radar of everyday life.

The book happened to come to me for free and I have been fascinated since, actually enamoured by Johann.

Johann is one of those soft men I usually find myself shamelessly falling for. Show me brawn and I am usually out. Show me heart and I am in without even a customary welcome mat!

Seeking a cure for severe burnout from his restrictive life, bogged down by tedium, stifling relationships and probably even mid-life crisis, he escapes to Italy overnight without letting anyone a peep into his plans. He simply ups and goes.

I wish I could say the same about me aloud.

He is a traveller, not a tourist.

Like me.

He is travelling through 18th century Italy. Entering from the Alps, moving through Trento, Lake Garda, Verona, Padua, Venice, Bologna, Rome, Naples and finally Sicily. Thoroughly absorbing the Mediterranian climate, cuisine, art, culture, history and engaging with the artists and antiquities of the era.

The exact same places I have been dreaming of travelling to ever since I came across the name Italy as a school kid.

The man even climbs Mount Vesuvius.

Another wish of mine since I read about Pompeii.

Johann finds friendships despite being on the wrong side of thirty, who he shares his heart with while on long walks in Italy.

I am 45 and I wish I could find atleast one friend that I could ramble on and on about perimenopausal mania. Let alone go on long walks.

He draws, sketches plants and creates water colour paintings of Nature.

I want to since forever!

The writer in him goes on a frenzy while in Italy. He finishes works that have been languishing for years as if inspiration agreed to move in with him with a limited stock of chocolate flavoured condoms!

I really wish I could write like that. I wish I had all that time without one chore after another calling my name every few seconds! Psst…I won’t mind mango or strawberry flavoured ones please.

It’s Italy. Obviously our hero falls for someone. It’s a very unlikely pair. He comes from wealth. She works in a restaurant. He is used to seeing the world with a certain eye that is rigid and narrow. She is all about details who forces him to see the same world they both inhabit in an entirely different way. She cracks him open, softening his rough edges.

I have lived a love story like that. Lost it to godonlyknowswhat. Now I want more…

And the best of the best?

Nature is Johann’s soulmate. Italy gives him what he always sought. Freedom to explore Nature in her bountiful best. This is where he truly comes into his own. Nature is where he loses his old rigid, restrictive thinking and Nature is exactly where he finds the ground-breaking concept of All is leaf which lays the foundation for his seminal work on metamorphosis of plants.

Nature dissolves Johann of the old so the Soul within him could emerge into the new sun. So he could stop meandering and get down to fulfilling his Life’s work and purpose.

Nature has always been where I find my respite. The one who can claim to know me inside out. My soulmate. My panacea. My therapist. My friend. My inspiration for my Art, Photography, Travels, Writing…pretty much my breath.

I want to dissolve too. Like Johann does.

I know my purpose. I do. But I want a overhaul. A rejiggle of my rusty parts. A renewal. To emerge afresh. New and shiny hopefully fully recharged.

All said and done, I really don’t mind living as a care-free man from the 18th century in Italy for a week. For free at that! (The prompt doesn’t mention anything about an exchange tax being levied)

IS that too much to ask?

BTW by switching lives, I take it Johann gets to live mine for a week?

The poor man from the 18th century wouldn’t know what hit him! And I don’t mean the technological advancements or the most populated country in the world.

I mean my parents!

I know it’s not an exchange that would benefit both parties, but for once I want to be selfish and grab the opportunity.

Johann in all probability would feel cheated, waiting for the week to end with his hair falling out in clumps with a tan that would be no one’s envy.

BUT in all likelihood he would have figured a way out to solve the puzzle that are my parents and knowing him, he would leave behind extensive notes. Probably all sketched and painted in my new obsession – water colors!

P.S. And hey Johann…sewing and cooking are skills everyone needs to learn! They aren’t dreamy or drool worthy like yours but you never know when you might need to fend for yourself. Your wealth won’t last if you plan to sit on your arse all life and write about leaves. So there!