On Solitude: Wir reichen uns die Hände
How can we transform embodied experience into collective care, curiosity, and change?
I’m not interested in pretty things or being pretty. Tell me what excites you. What shames you. What makes you shiver with fear. What makes you let out an uncontrollable moan. What makes you forget who you are for a few seconds. Pretty is not the same as beautiful. Beauty encompasses a wider range of emotions and boundary testing. Pretty implies being moderate, contained, aligning with social norms, and within the frame. I’m not interested in what is contained. I’m interested in what feels bigger than you. What takes you over?
They said a successful relationship is 60/40 where both people are trying to be the 60. So he wanted me to go to the beach and sunbathe. I wanted to help him pack the entire apartment. So xe told me to stay and continue talking to the cute boy. I said no no no bros before hoes; I don’t leave my friends for cute boys. We are the bros.
They said you love the way you want to be loved. So I waited at the bus stop with yellow flowers in my hand. So I sent out handwritten letters around the world. So I flew across the world just to spend some time together. So I shouted, “Don’t apologize for being who you are.” So I wrote down every poetic memory I have.
They said there is no sense of self without the others. So she told the others, “She is a very special Taiwanese” and I just met her. So he said, “Your confidence makes you a big person but it also makes it hard for you to ask for help or to be vulnerable” and I didn’t have anything to argue back.
They said three times a charm. So I arrived in Marseille for the third time in my life after being overstimulated from life and continued to be overstimulated from life.
“Tomas was appalled. Yes, he remembered making love to her on the rug (his friend slept on a narrow couch that Tomas found uncomfortable), but he had completely forgotten the storm! It was odd. He could recall each of their times together; he had even kept close track of the ways they made love (she refused to be entered from behind); he remembered several of the things she had said during intercourse (she would ask him to squeeze her hips and to stop looking at her all the time); he even remembered the cut of her lingerie; but the storm had left no trace. […] The young woman smiled dreamily as she went on about the storm, and he looked at her in amazement and something akin to shame: she had experienced something beautiful, and he had failed to experience it with her. The two ways in which their memories reacted to the evening storm sharply delimit love and non-love.
By the word ‘non-love’ I do not wish to imply that he took a cynical attitude to the young woman, that, as present-day parlance has it, he looked upon her as a sex object; on the contrary, he was quite fond of her, valued her character and intelligence, and was willing to come to her aid if ever she needed him. He was not the one who behaved shamefully towards her; it was his memory, for it was his memory that, unbeknown to him, had excluded her from the sphere of love.
The brain appears to possess a special area which we might call poetic memory and which records everything that charms or touches us, that makes our lives beautiful. From the time he met Tereza, no woman had the right to leave the slightest impression on that part of his brain.
Tereza occupied his poetic memory like a despot and exterminated all trace of other women. That was unfair, because the young woman he made love to on the rug during the storm was not a bit less worthy of poetry than Tereza. She shouted, ‘Close your eyes! Squeeze my hips! Hold me tight!’; she could not stand it that when Tomas made love he kept his eyes open, focused and observant, his body ever so slightly arched above her, never pressing against her skin. She did not want him to study her. She wanted to draw him into the magic stream that may be entered only with closed eyes. The reason she refused to get down on all fours was that in that position their bodies did not touch at all and he could observe her from a distance of several feet. She hated that distance. She wanted to merge with him. That is why, looking him straight in the eye, she insisted she had not had an orgasm even though the rug was fairly dripping with it.
‘It’s not sensual pleasure I’m after, she would say, ‘it’s happiness. And pleasure without happiness is not pleasure.’ In other words, she was pounding on the gate of his poetic memory. But the gate was shut. There was no room for her in his poetic memory. There was room for her only on the rug.
His adventure with Tereza began at the exact point where his adventures with other women left off. It took place on the other side of the imperative that pushed him into conquest after conquest. He had no desire to uncover anything in Tereza. She had come to him uncovered. He had made love to her before he could grab for the imaginary scalpel he used to open the prostrate body of the world. Before he could start wondering what she would be like when they made love, he loved her.
Their love story did not begin until afterwards: she fell ill and he was unable to send her home as he had the others. Kneeling by her as she lay sleeping in his bed, he realized that someone had sent her downstream in a bulrush basket. I have said before that metaphors are dangerous. Love begins with a metaphor. Which is to say, love begins at the point when a woman enters her first word into our poetic memory.”
If I could go anywhere around the world now, where would I go? To the place that has you. Traveling alone isn’t outside of my comfort zone anymore. I no longer care about the city nor see the world on my own. I care about the people. I care about who’s with me.
Late autumn, 2018. Thessaloniki
Those forgotten words fell out of The Unbearable Lightness of Being with my neat handwriting. I almost finished the book. The bus tickets that marked the stopping point were kept in good condition as if they were from last weekend. I was still very much in love but questioning what is love and what does being in love even mean. The whole book seemed to be stuck in 2018. Perhaps that was the reason why I couldn’t reopen and finish the book. Summertime is affecting my appetite, my sleep, and perhaps my way of being. I started to look back more, which is something I used to hate doing. I thought that was a sign of weakness; looking back, reminiscing, being nostalgic. I thought that stopped you from moving forward. Perhaps this is the transition. I didn’t plan my life beyond this point. Everything onward is an improvisation. Yet, all organisms capable of long-term memory are necessarily oriented toward the future. In other words, memories are in the service of future planning.
Life felt a lot better after deciding to stay. Where is not the point but rather the active verb staying is all that matters. The proactiveness of making a choice. I haven’t felt a sense of loneliness for quite some time, which concerns me a little. The feeling of aloneness always serves as an anchor for my thoughts and sense of being. It somehow solidifies me as a person. Aloneness implies that you have experienced being accompanied. It’s a relativity that there is someone or somewhere that you think might make you feel less alone, more accompanied, and that usually enters my poetic memory. You think is empathized; you can never be too sure.
Too much French, too much German, too much Bulgarian but something is always universal, such as rhythm, and when you both exchange a glance in the middle of laughing about the same thing. I almost forgot what it’s like to talk to travelers. Where moving is casual. Where multiple roots and places of residence are the norms. You don’t talk about the usual plans for the next year but rather where are you going next. Here and there. This and that. Nothing is surprising anymore. The only thing that doesn’t change is the constant change.
The past two years have been challenging on another level. It forces me to look into every corner of myself. Places that aren't so pretty to look at. It’s hardly avoidable. What do you tend to shy away from? What do you choose to give space to? What do you choose to ignore? It’s challenging because you’re confronted with yourself and you either ignore it or work through it. Sometimes I cannot tell if it’s more uncomfortable to look at others’ hearts or my own. Uncomfortable because it’s raw, authentic, and vulnerable. And I can always feel that as if it was my own. But then I’m not so interested in pretty things.
“Have I changed over the past two years?”
“Yes but not too much. The therapeutic side of you just becomes more outrageous.” And that made me laugh.
Midsummer, 2020. Sofia
Better Man by Paolo Nutini was flowing through my cozy apartment, which was newly decorated with fresh flowers. I’ve never felt so free and full of life force in my life before. Saltwater awaited. Daylight never seemed to end. I was turning 25 and anything seemed possible.
Early fall, 2020. Sofia
That brief awkward silence after you have said goodbye to each other yet neither of you wanted to leave right away. So you lingered with your gaze and smile. Perhaps on their lips. Perhaps in their eyes. You tried not to make it too obvious. Yet, you lingered.
Midsummer, 2021. Marseille
Waiting at an empty stairs for two hours.
The first time I realized how much effort I deserved and I could even ask for more. I slowly learned that most of the highest forms of love are presented in friendships.
Midsummer, 2022. Central Balkan National Park
Tears were coming out of my eyes and I couldn’t stop it. I remember the heat, the tears, and the endless walk. I was learning how to be with another person while both of you can still be who you are to co-exist in this time and space. It was so vulnerable for others to see your tears but even more to say “I was hurt by what you said.” I was learning and I am still learning.
Christmas, 2023. Seville
If being alone was a universal language, would there be fewer differences between you and me?
Early summer, 2024. Heidelberg
“Hello?”
Midsummer, 2024. Marseille
Sitting on the balcony, looking out at the Grand Basilica, one form of love in a mutual relationship is holding you accountable for who you are. A true friend holds up the mirror and reflects on who you are while being conscious of their own projections and assumptions.
“You dispose of past memories like turning pages.” He said it again.
“I know. That’s why I started to look back more now.” I said.
“You should take my mutual effort as the standard. Anything less than this cannot be your friend.” I said.
“Then that standard is very high.” He said
“I know but you deserve it,” I said once again.
It feels like a regular check: still humble, still responsible, still mature, but sometimes you let your guard up when it’s not needed. So now how do I adjust?
Being known is being seen; being seen is being vulnerable.
And this is the start of looking back. Not to know how to move forward but to know how to move closer to myself.
