Month: October 2016

Do you know that hollow space?

That triangle that forms in the space bordered by your collar bone, neck and the upper part of the trapezius muscle when you lift your shoulders and push them forward at the same time?

It can hold rain water for your kittens or parrots.

It can collect only a limited number of kisses before it collapses and faints.

It can serve a sip of red wine to your lover.

It can warm up two fingertips before they slowly draw a path up the neck line or down the chest line.

It can offer the eyes a place to rest for a while and recover their strength.

It can host the title for a poem.

It can learn new things.

 

Rituals

Shuffling dead leaves and crushing cigarette butts with their high heels, all wrapped up in their thick black clothes, the hookers are pensive tonight. Clients are few and far between. Turning tricks is getting more and more demanding. Every other day someone offers to pay in meal vouchers instead of cash. Since winter is coming, men hardly ever shower anymore. Why stick around? Why not move to Barbados? It’s not like the country cannot do without them. No one is irreplaceable. If the situation becomes desperate, there’s always the option to import.

Checking up on the hookers every night I go running gives me comfort. Just like hearing the church bells ring every Sunday morning. Or the muezzin performing the adhan when I’m in Turkey. It gives me something I can rely on. No matter how crazy life gets, no matter what happens to me or to the world, the hookers are always there every night, opposite the church, the church bells ring every Sunday morning and the muezzin performs the adhan five times a day from the minaret. Rituals. It’s one of the first things I learnt when I started working in Waldorf education – children need rituals; they give them a feeling of safety, something they can relate to, structure.

And all this time, up there, the moon is quietly filling up again, just like it does every month. Life can get as crazy as it wants, heart can be broken, hopes crashed, dreams postponed, days filled with work, week after week can pass with light speed, wrinkles can deepen, hair can whiten, earthquakes can shake, lies can be told, illusions can be created and destroyed, love can be fallen into and out of and so on.

So, as I’m heading back home, sweaty and tired, I’m counting my rituals: the hookers opposite the church every night I go jogging, the church bells on Sunday morning, he muezzin’s call to prayer five times a day (no matter how far I am from it), the moon filling up and becoming new again. Oh, and jogging itself. But that’s more personal, it depends on me, so it doesn’t feel safe enough. More about that another time. So go on, life, bring it on. I’m good. Ready for anything.

PS Photos taken last night, as I was riding my bike on my way home.

My city, my body

“Look, mom, the lady is going on holiday!” a little girl exclaims when she sees me riding my overloaded bike, moving the last pieces of my luggage to my new life.

Last year, as I was moving house, I decided I would live my life as a traveler. I mean every day, even when I am in the city I live in, all caught up in my daily routine. More often than not, I forget about my decision and spend too many of my days wanting to be somewhere else, waiting for the next trip, the next adventure and forgetting to be curious about where I am now, to be an explorer, a discoverer of beauty and of stories.

Yesterday was a rainy day, but I put my camera in my backpack along with the stuff I usually take with me to school and I took it out on my walk back home. As I was shooting photos (not yet on manual mode, unfortunately), I started thinking that we tend to treat our town the way we treat our bodies.

Let me explain. We’ve lived with our own body for a while now. We were born with it. The time of wonder, exploration, discovery and awe has passed for many of us. We have got used to it. We know its secrets, we know its flaws and we know its best parts. We have seen it all, pretty much. So we just carry it around, we are no longer curious about it, it’s become purely functional.

We do the same with our city. We know everything we need to know about it. We know what we like, what we don’t like, we know the shortest route to work, that restaurant where we used to go on anniversaries, the park where we broke that heart, the street where we lost our earrings, the shop where we bought those great shoes, the pub where we took control of the playlist and danced like we owned the place, that cozy bookshop. We know how the streets are flooded when it rains, the traffic jams, the sound of leaves cracking under our feet, the unbearable heat in the summer and everything else there is to know. It just cannot surprise us anymore. So we switch over to auto pilot, we mind our own thoughts, we make plans, remember things, chant mantras and what not as we’re walking down these familiar streets.

On the other hand, when we are in a new place, all senses awaken. Just like when we are exploring another body. The auto pilot is suddenly switched off and we become alive and curious and involved. We look, we search, we taste, we feel, we take risks, ask for directions, talk to the locals, learn words in the new language etc. That’s how I want to live in my own town. I want to feel alive in it. Offer it my attention, my respect and my love. And do the same for my body. Especially since I do not have permanent residency in either.

Take a walk with me around Harmony Street:

There’s this island in the ocean

I don’t know which ocean, it’s not like I can check my flight details. I just get here. And I land on this wet pebble road. I can see my dark brown leather boots, my feet taking hesitant steps up the hill.

It’s so foggy, but I can still see the ocean all around the small island through the white floating veils. It feels as if the island, like a round bellied woman, is shy and has shrouded herself in these white silk veils, barely covering her, hiding and revealing at the same time.

I can see stone houses in the distance, wet and slippery, streams of fog sliding down their rooftops. No light, no candles burning at the windows, not a soul. I keep walking up that hill. As I’m squinting, trying to catch sight of a living soul, I’m starting to wonder what made me come here in the first place. Why in the world would I leave the comfort of my home country for this deserted place in the middle of the ocean?

Because you wanted to leave the past behind, I hear my own voice in my head. You want a new life. You said goodbye to all your attachments, another reminder pops up. You no longer wanted the dark cave of the lost. You set them all free. It’s ok, I’ll only be here for a short while, I say to myself in an unconvincing tone.

Everything hurts. As if everything has been pulled and stretched when cords were cut. So my eyes are heavy, my head is tied in a plastic bag, my throat is befriending the cactus stuck in there, my kidneys carry the burden of exhaustion and all my muscles are sore as if I’ve swum and walked all the way here.

Suddenly, I’m back at the school again, feeding the children black grapes.
“Are you all right?” a colleague asks me.
“I think so”, I reply. “I just need to get some fruit.”
“You know, Daniela, I’ve always admired how you are always in charge, always so strong and authoritarian and loving at the same time.”
“Really? I’m just tired, I don’t think there’s anything to admire there.”
And as he’s helping me give out the grapes, I’m popping grape berries in my mouth and suddenly realize I’m dreaming and I’m thinking grapes, no matter how sweet and juicy, are not good in your dreams. So I wake up.

It’s noon when I get out of bed. There’s this pressure in my ears as if I’m underwater. I take off everything, including the bed sheets, put everything in the washing machine and get in the shower. When I get out, I light a candle at my window, one at the bathroom mirror, another one on the kitchen countertop and two more on the table. Time for a new life.

PS Photos taken in Porto, Portugal, in 3-5 September 2016.

 

 

 

 

A dead white rose lying on the hood of a grey car

Was it the impact? I wonder. What is it transitioning to? Everything seems to be a transition. This day is a transition between yesterday and tomorrow. Life is a transition between birth and death. And so on. I didn’t invent this, of course, I’m just expressing truisms. That’s pretty much what I do all the time.

I’ve been thinking about how people need to mention their profession when they introduce themselves. “I’m a driver.” “I’m a teacher.” “I’m a writer.” “I’m a lawyer.” “I’m a manager.” I like the ones ending in “-er” – they seem easier to get out of, easier to change, less dramatic. You can be a doer of something. But when you are a doctor, a judge, a nurse, a model, a director, an artist etc, it does seem as if you are that profession instead of just a doer. It becomes you.

What about the hookers? Two of them tonight, all black from head to toe, leather, hair, everything, smoking while talking on their phones. Transitioning between tricks, cars, clients, hairdos, outfits etc. Hooker is an “-er” ending profession, so they are doers. So it must be easier to change than other unfortunate professions. They can get out of it, right? Unless they are prostitutes.