Ahh... Bliss!
Tuesday October 24, 2006
Yesterday I arrived in Sofia, Bulgaria, where I’m spending a week. The ostensible reason for this short holiday is a conference on the ethical philosopher Emmanuel Levinas. I’m giving a paper at the conference, which marks the 100th anniversary of Levinas’s birth. But although I’m looking forward to the conference, I confess that this is as much a pretext as anything; and I am just making the most of a few days away from work. I’ve been wandering round Sofia today – a nice, relaxed city – listening to jazz in the park, eating cheese pastries and generally relaxing.
This afternoon I take a bus up to Belitsa, which is about three hours away in the mountains, and where I’m staying with a friend for a couple of days. This should give stretch my admittedly rather feeble skills in speaking Bulgarian (I’ve spent hours with a coursebook recently, but I’ve not made a huge amount of progress… that only comes from speaking and listening, I think) as well as being a whole load of fun. Then I’ll be heading back down to Sofia for the conference, which is at Sofia University.
One thing I have been noticing about having a bit of breathing space is that there is much more room for thoughts to unfold in their own time. I’m a terrible tourist, so I’ve not been bustling around snapping things with my camera. Instead I’ve just been ambling the streets, having a cup of tea here and there, and thinking about stuff. This has been very fruitful, and I’ve already got several pages of notebook filled with ideas for restructuring the new novel. Sitting quietly and doing nothing, as that idle old Zen fellow once said, spring comes and the grass grows by itself.
