01.01.10

Tonight: lunar eclipse. full moon. change of year. change of decade. 1-0-01 etc. for various personal reasons but also due to the absurdity of the past decade, let's make believe that the new one will be better; in the last two hours of 2009, a once-upon-time girl, now a woman just about to turn thirty in the new year, remembers one boy with golden hair, who laughs loudly and struggles with a sheep and a rose everyday in the asteroid 325.
"Look at the sky and ask: 'Has the sheep eaten the flower? Or not?' And you will see how everything changes. And no grown-up will ever understand why and how this is so very important!"

Look at the sky.and ask. perhaps things will become a lot simpler that way.and will reveal something about what you are.

Happy New Year 2010.

3

a cup of tea
and two clementines
and some red wine.
taste and smell persists no matter how much time has gone by.
the only other thing i remember is that it was raining that thursday. at least, tonight the sky is clear.

Homelands..

'In a love affair, most seek an eternal homeland. Others, but very few, eternal voyaging. These latter are melancholics, for whom contact with mother earth is to be shunned. They seek the person who will keep far from them the homeland's sadness. To that person, they remain faithful.' (Old Map)

'The only way of knowing a person is to love them without hope.' (Arc Lamp)

(Walter Benjamin, One Way Street)

soon?

Not only is time relative--temporal terms that we use in everyday language are even more relative. We say 'the other day' and we might mean a week or two months ago; we say 'often' but more often-than-not we mean 'rarely'. 'Last time'..which exactly and according to what, is that time classified as 'last'? And worse than anything else..'soon'. Who decides what 'soon' means?

Going back to good old Saussure and the 'signifier-signified' system of signs that gives my students immense headaches always, the linguistic signs that we use to refer to time are the most arbitrary of all; not only because they don't have any relation to the referent, term that they stand for, but also because the term itself is relative and one could even argue not existing. So arbitrary signs for a construct.

Hence, as a last thought of this week or potentially the first of the new week (depends on how one perceives the start and end of a week), i think that i wish to ban from my everyday language any linguistic reference to time: no 'tomorrow', 'yesterday', 'a couple of days ago', 'soon'. I could potentially keep only the references to hours that clocks count (knowing ofcourse how relative these are as well).But yes, if only I could ban all these empty linguistic temporal signs from my everyday communication--perhaps, I would get alienated from people but at least I would run away from yet another stupid, empty language game.

'when a person is lucky enough to live inside a story, to live inside an imaginary world, the pains of the world disappear. For as long as the story goes on, reality no longer exists.'

(Paul Auster, The Brooklyn follies)

friday (or the difference between a person and a place)

'I handed myself over. And you ran away.
You can't just leave people.
A person is not a place you can just leave behind.'
(David Greig. One way street)

two teabags later

it's been a while but the clock seems to have stopped..
curious, last night i dreamt of a white rabbit running and imagine i was following it
without a reason..it just made sense to me, in an irrational way

it's been a while but i am still sitting on the same seat by the window on a plane
my hair grew short but when i look at my image i am still wearing a purple top and have long hair

it's been a while but i still remember of broken glasses, walks in the sunset and some sweet words that made sense to me in an irrational way

pause..15 years later

no just two teabags..bugging me like the hours i spent by the window waiting for a car to arrive, a text to be received, a story to be told again from the beginning

it's been a while..a week or two..time is fucking relative. we knew this already. we just remembered again.
and you look yourself in the mirror, and roll cigarettes, and take boiling hot showers to wake up from the dream.

and wonder, as now, as ever: whatever happened to human contact? and why did you lie to me when you said that things are easy? the world is easy..

it's been a while, it's been years, it's been two weeks and a day, it's been just two minutes..long enough to make two cups of tea and throw the teabags away

the last night of a proces that begun a long time ago
in a flat that we won't see again.
that became a temporary home for two weeks
with wine and smoke
like good old times
that felt like green balloons and drinks on the rock and the perfect sunset in the summer of 2001 and paper plates thrown out of a window
looks like what it used to be
yet it is no longer

then it is gone
and then you hear the sound of someone typing on the keyboard
the same key over and over again

a moment of suitable silence adieu
roll the dice

and then we start again
or i do
me?

lisbon or what i learnt in IFTR

it's 02.31. am writing in a hotel. in lisbon. i have much to say. yet i have not much time. so i shall be brief. in lisbon in the past week,we talked a lot about silences; how can you talk about silences without being silent? how are voices filling silence and do they?
we have been walking a lot in a landscape of many surprises and variations
we have been drinking and philosophising a lot.
the topic of the conference was censorship; apart from the general rules and conventions of social life i dont think that we censored ourselves much.
people took many photographs. i took none but one: the writing on a wall in the metro station of citada universitaria: 'i am not a citizen of Greece; i am a citizen of the world only'. Socrates' words and the lovely company and the decision to write subverting the banal methodologies and the passion of some people and the potentiality of a nice winter in london and the beautiful air and sun and space of Lisbon and the view of the bridge this morning is what i will keep silent; not because I am censoring them, but because i hold them dear.
and perhaps what i have learnt in Lisbon in the past week, is that sometimes silencing things does not mean only censorship or self-censorship and not daring; it might be the strength and courage to hold them dear like that; silent and unadmitted;but be content.

and now it's time to go back home. for a very short time. but home or the closest i have to it.

re/dis-placing

what's the good in strength
when no miracles allowed?

swiftly moving on--everything will be just fine..absolutely.

01.07 am
humid horrible night
spilling drinks and words
a bin
covered with water and fake sun-tan like mud
threw the keys in it
walked away

postscript: the only place i feel like home anymore
is with you (A.D.N)

postscript

how i wish you were here

sometimes it's like silence
and it falls with a loud noice
leaving the rest unsaid

it's been a year, or maybe more, or maybe less
stuck with drops
regardless of place and season

sometimes it's like a silence
a moment of it is longer than you needed
the next step is not to be taken

really it's been a year
with or without trust
it's been a year

20 items less yet so much lighter

curious she doesn't mind it..
quiet yet inevitable

'give me something i could do/oh give me something I could give you back again/
give me just a little tiny something...
and please remember all those flowers, flowers,flowers..'
(Monika, 'not young in my youth')

long long time...

no see... my birthday is almost over and March is on its way out and I haven't written for more than a month.the reason why this is happening is because I am writing in another blog quite a lot and I am thinking about too many things all this time launching this campaign against comfortable and easy situations

BUT

it is a good time and I am already dreaming of a wet, humid and creative August in the vaults ...and yes, with a smile on my face, I am walking to bed thinking:

sleep scattered you
around me near me
without me being able to touch the whole of you

the simple life

somewhere between the mad days, the airplane and train tickets, the constant up and down the hill, the days with the snow and the snow melting, the endless hours in front of the computer and word documents being created, the piles of essays and exams, the powerpoints waiting to be created, the pages of the diary being filled in with a crazy rhythm, one can pause for a second..
and appreciate that even though much has been happening and it is hard to keep track of things and people and dates, this is actually one of the best and simplest periods of one's life.

this morning the sun entered the bedroom
I felt that someone was on the doorstep waiting for the door to open..
so I did
and I welcomed spring with a big smile

how long?

somewhere it's almost dawn
looking outside the clear glasses
light flickering in the distance

a body moves in white sheets
with leftovers of sand
and petals of lavender

somewhere a voice gets lost in the crowd
a phone rings
the lights of dawn evaporate
dissolve
dominate

nothing to remember
nothing to repeat
nothing to structure

how long before the sun blinds your eyes?

where i end and you begin (inter-blog reference)

Margo wrote a very interesting post the other day about the unknown paths of someone and staying relative to oneself, describing her and her students' journeys..and it put me in thoughts...

so let's start from the big bang:
my students were born in 1987,1988 or 1989, 1990 etc
when i talk about the fall of the Berlin wall, I remember myself at the age of 9 being absolutely glued in front of the tv watching--they were not even born or they were just babies; hence there is a gap in terms of reference, not necessary but it occurs many times..this is not the point, the point is that there is a gap that you might fall in.

then today, I was pacing up and down the exam room in my university looking at my students taking their final exam of a module on performance and globalisation (which was such a pain throughout the months between october and december). one of them asked me to go to the toilet (and i had to escort him, ah! the joys of invigilation!), on the way back I saw that he was wearing a big budge saying '21 today'..I smiled as I always do when I feel uncomfortable or guilty.

for the rest of the exam, I was thinking of a time travel machine that I could take and go back to the years 1999 or 1998 when these people where 10 and I was 18,19,20 writing exams, hating latin and thinking that I knew everything. I am trying to bring myself back in their shoes knowing that there is nothing more relative than the experience of being an undergraduate student.
and then tonight, my most favourite student ever and now a very dear and close friend announces his good news and prospects of study for next year; 'you are about to embark on a most delightful journey', the little piece of paper from the fortune cookie of the night of September 16th 2002 came to mind straightaway, the moment that I read his message; I am still travelling this journey and he is about to embark on one of his own...then is the gap growing smaller? it is just where you situate yourself in the line of this journey (very start, start, middle, towards the end, about to finish) that is different. or is it?

being relative to oneself means keep asking questions, right?
my questions tonight are:

1. has it really been 10 years since I got that funny book as a birthday gift for my brother and he was 21 and I was 19? (I froze tonight when he reminded me; 'no sense of humour' he said; true i find it very difficult to keep my sense of humour these days)
2. why do I keep on choosing to fall on my steps through the walk of someone else? and how can I not believe that time, after all the fuss, the trouble and the arguments, is indeed cyclical?

radiohead's song comes to mind...
'there is a gap in between, there is a gap where we meet,
where I end and you begin..'

13 gifts that i had in my sleep

a yellow raincoat
the bike I used to ride when I was 5
my cat
the book that I never finished
a parachute
a paper moon
a glass of the finest orange juice
a dolphin
my grandmother
words words words
a small ball of white, red and blue stripes
the sound of spring rain
the keys to the fourth dimension

and in my own time...

i started disliking airplanes
but mostly airports with all the plastic bags and the crap surrounding them
'smoking is not permitted in the building; please use only the designated areas..'
perhaps the term 'non-place' really is accurate; or empty place in my case
...
i also realised that an avocado can stay alive in the fridge for
more than 15 days..still decided to throw it away
...
i got rid of the christmas tree in one go
no second thoughts, no wondering of what might happen till next christmas
..
i have this crazy urge to start smoking in my study like good old days
i will keep fighting against it --for a while
..
heard the silence buzzing in my ears last night
had to turn on all the lights
and sing to forget it
i am still carrying it with me
..
am getting used to not hearing my top favourite phrases
'stuff' and 'how is life?'
...
am landing
...
how long does it take for a space to turn into a place?

in the meantime..2.

in the meantime, America is waiting for Obama's inauguration
there are websites counting down the hours
and I want to believe in the articles that claim that regardless of the pressure and the complexities of the present moment, the 44th American President can actually 'do it'.

but why are U2 always present in such momentous events?
I really don't like them anymore

in the meantime...1. a fragile ceasefire

a 'fragile ceasefire' was signed in Gaza, I read in the paper this morning
of course fragile..since some claim that 'the job has not been completed." Netanyahu, who is expected to be Prime Minister next month, refers apparently to Hamas and extremists..
i think that a large part of the international community thinks that 'the job' is anything but defence..

check out the article in The Independent for a brief but accurate account of 'What really happened in Gaza'..and enlarge the image of the man leaving his home, carrying his belongings and not looking back..