My little story about Sheffield...

My life is changing in such a drastic way that I run after it like a fool. Everyday is a number: yesterday it was 61, this morning it was 60. My nearest and dearest make it clear that I am not a child any more and I have a number of responsibilities. Information keeps coming to me in the form of emails and letters, but everything new - I swear - I can hardly chew and metabolise.

Sheffield was a relief. It made me discover the power of myself. In fact, I had forgotten how to process the power of myself. That conference made me open my eyes again. (Uncertainly...) was it the conference itself or the fact that I was all alone for a while? I wouldn't know. It had been ages since the last time I was all alone, in a room, talking loudly to myself and pulling my own leg.

Also, I discovered a lovely place in Sheffield city-centre. I used to spend ages there looking at the trams that come and go. People who were passing by would thing that I am a villager who had never seen such a technological miracle before: the vehicle on the tram lines moving and making noise like a modern monster, with a Cyclopean eye on the front and an antenna to support itself towards the sky... (there is no gravity on the hills of Sheffield, hahaaa).

In reality, it was not the trams I was looking at. It was the tram lines. I took a picture to show you and the moment I was taking this picture I suddenly felt like Antoine de Saint Exupéry sketching a boa that had eaten an elephant...and definitely, not another hat, not another grey hat...

This is the picture. Not a great picture, I know, but for me it is a very special one. You can clearly see my dilemma in this picture. Which way to go? Right or left? After all, life is like an Y letter. We should spell it LYFE, not life... and there are so many decisions of 'right or left' we need to take during our 0 to 130 years...



As about me, at the point I had to chose right or left, I chose to follow right. It took me to the train station. I waited and waited and waited there... until I decided to catch the train to Gainsborough. It started snowing. The snowflakes had an early April sunshine trapped inside them. One of these snowflakes was wearing a white wedding dress, moving nervously here and there, up and down...

And that was my little story about Sheffield...



Text and photography by Marsia Sfakianou. All rights reserved. Pictures taken in Sheffield.