Greedy with Hope
The Body, Brain, and Books: Eleven Questions with writer & yoga teacher Imola
For the next week, we’re filling in the Beyond Questionnaire together in the Chat. Come join us! ❤️
Welcome to another edition of The Body, Brain, & Books. If you enjoy reading these quick, insightful interviews brimming with wisdom and hope, please subscribe to Beyond.
What are you reading now?
I am reading “To Bring You My Love” by Aïcha Martine Thiam. Her writing – whether it’s a poem, or an essay – always gets me right in the gut. She is political without ever being preachy or too on the nose. And above all, she is so human. Every time I read her, I find myself nodding and crying, like she knows my most intimate thoughts before I could articulate them for myself. She is my favourite contemporary writer who continues to inspire me both in writing and life. Reading her is always a very emotional experience, so I like to take my time and savour each word.
What are your most beloved books from your youth? Did you ever hide any from your parents?
I grew up in a kibbutz where I lived with my classmates, so I didn’t need to hide anything from my parents. But I did have a reputation for being the weird kid, or the “geek” who loved to read all the heavy stuff. My first love was Gabriel García Márquez, whom I first read in Hebrew (“Chronicle of a Death Foretold”), then in Hungarian (“Love in the Time of Cholera”). And once I read Sophocles’ “Antigone” I got obsessively into reading Greek drama and mythology. I was also drawn to the poetry of Hannah Szenes and later, Pablo Neruda.
What’s your favorite book to reread? Any that helped you through a dark time?
I tend to reread poetry, and books I first read in Hungarian, Hebrew, or English, before I could speak Italian, French and Spanish. I loved Emmanual Carrère’s “Yoga” so much that half way through the book in English, I decided to switch to the original French. A personal goal of mine is to re-read all of Gabriel García Márquez’s works in their original Spanish. I feel encouraged by reading “En Agosto nos vemos” this summer. Oriana Fallaci’s “Letter to a Child Never Born” was a huge influence on me when I first read it in Hungarian, and since then I have read it countless times in Italian. I discovered Elena Ferrante in English, but now I read and reread her strictly in Italian.
This might sound corny, but reading one canto each morning from Dante’s “Divina Commedia” aloud in Italian (and then referring to the English translation) during the Covid pandemic was my lifeline. This practice, which took about forty minutes every day was my “incantation” to keep my spirits up during the darkest days. I feel that I owe much gratitude to Dante, and hope to be able to honour him one day in a creative work.
What’s an article of clothing that makes you feel most like you?
There is something very comforting about wearing white. I have way too many white tops and dresses. But then again, I love to play with colours, especially as I get older! I absolutely adore my yellow coat I bought in Budapest and the green coat I bought in Rome. I wish I could wear them now, instead of my boring, big, black coat that is the only thing that keeps me warm during the cold Montreal winter.
What’s the best piece of wisdom you've encountered recently?
Just last week I happened to stumble upon an interview with a divorce lawyer who said the most obvious, yet profound thing on love and life. He said, “Love is not permanently gifted to you, but is on loan to you.” He reminded us that every relationship will end in death. Either physical death, or symbolic death, like divorce. But this dying love doesn’t mean it was all for nothing, nor that its gift doesn’t linger in the present. He was a divorce lawyer who worked in palliative care, so this statement I believe was very much influenced by his close brushes with death. The word ‘love,’ can be replaced with the word ‘life,’ and this statement will hold just as true. I was so moved and inspired by his words that I immediately began to take notes and ended up accidentally writing a short poem, called “Soften.”
It made my heart soften into acceptance, and although the subject was dying love and death, I felt strangely more hopeful about life and love. It has reminded me that maybe I just overcomplicate and overthink things when they could be simpler.
Tell me about any special relationship you’ve had with an animal, domestic or wild?
My daughters campaigned really hard to have a dog and went as far as preparing an impressive - and very convincing! - power-point presentation, and write a beautiful hand-written letter to my landlord. Still, we are not allowed to have pets in our home.
What's one thing you are happy worked out differently than you expected?
Most things in my life, even though they didn’t seem like that at the time. I wasn’t happy when my mum promised us a trip to see palm trees, and then informed us that we were never going back to Hungary. The eleven years I spent in Israel, especially the six years I spent in a kibbutz, were far from easy, but they have also made me into the person that I am today. I used to feel a sense of loss about never belonging anywhere, until I realized that there is a certain advantage to not fully belonging to a specific group. It means that I can find a sense of belonging quicker with people outside my identity group, and extend compassion to groups I am not supposed to. It never ceases to amaze me how much I find in common with people who don’t look like me, or speak the same language as me, as long as I sit down and listen to them. I love to listen to people’s stories more than anything in the world. Maybe this is why I love learning languages? I want to make sure that those great stories never escape me. And I find that no matter how you “break” a language, people will always appreciate it when you try to speak to them in their language and are likely to open up to you in ways they wouldn’t, or couldn’t, in English. On my last trip to Colombia, I met this extraordinary woman who told me the most intimate, vulnerable parts of her life, all in Spanish. Sometimes I needed to refer to the dictionary, but we cried and laughed in each other’s arms within minutes. I am pretty sure that my life trajectory would be very different if I had stayed in Budapest.
Singing in the shower or dancing in the kitchen? Or another favorite way your body expresses itself?
Singing and dancing anywhere, as often as possible! This becomes very embarrassing for my daughters when a good song comes up at the grocery store, or a café, but I can’t help myself! I love to dance!
What are your hopes for yourself?
I hope I will never lose sight of all the beauty and kindness even when things get difficult and challenging, which they often do. I hope to be able to laugh, and learn until the day I die. I hope to have a positive impact on people’s life, even if it is very small. I hope to be able to read, write, and learn more languages. I hope to be able to open my heart to love. I hope to be able to build that Italian home/writing and yoga centre, where I can continue to learn and teach. I hope to stay curious and greedy with my hopes.
What’s a kindness that changed your life?
Too many to mention here! But the most obvious is the ten years that I spent as an au-pair to two American families in London. I was a lost and insecure twenty-one-year-old when I landed in London, and as much as I was there to be their helping hand, they accepted me as part of their family. It was in their homes that I learned about the healthy functioning of a family, and was invited to participate in the task of raising their boys. More than twenty years later we keep in close contact, and they are always the first to comment on my Substack posts. Their boys have grown into impressive young men and it gives me hope about the future of my girls. It is challenging to raise the next generation, and I think of all the valuable lessons I learned in their home every day.
What’s a guiding force in your life?
Grace. I don’t always get it right, but I try my best to be a decent human being. I am very aware that my daughters watch me, so with everything that I do, and with every decision that I make, I ask myself, “in years’ time, when I look back on this decision, will I feel at peace with it?” When I walked out of my ten-year marriage with a queen-sized mattress and my daughters’ art work, I was very scared. I had many things to be angry about. But I was adamant to do separation gracefully, for my daughters’ sake. At times, it has been challenging to maintain an amicable and respectful relationship with my daughters’ father, but it’s one of the things I’m most proud of. I hope I can continue to choose grace, and kindness, even when I have to stand up for myself and the people that I love.
If you enjoyed Imola’s questionnaire, you may also enjoy this one with
:
⭐️⭐️Thank you gigantically to everyone who’s joined this beautiful, growing community — we’re nearly 19,000 strong — devoted to bringing as much light as possible into this world of ours. If you would like to support my work, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. Beyond cannot exist without you! ⭐️⭐️
This was sooooooooooooooo delightful! Imola, I knew you were multi-talented but my God the languages!! I only ever read longish stuff in English, except for the Quran which I read in Arabic. Also I love love love your winter outfit where you're trying to inject colour into the grey day. Just lovely.
YAYYYY Imola!!!! I’m so happy to see you here ♥️♥️♥️♥️
Also, I now feel like I’m missing out by not reading in different languages 😍😍😍