# 16 || with nothing holding me, i hang like a - s t a r -

( paris last week, or the week before )

I.

There's something magical about stopping, standing still, for a minute and realising how close you've come to the clouds. Be the kind of person you'd love to meet, and today I could be quiet when I felt timide and parleyed in whatever language, when something of quasi-importance came to my tête. I throw myself in and out of my comfort zone, I float inside and outside of my head so I can hyperanalyse my environment and see myself from a wooden stool in the corner of the room. From the corner of the room I see une fille scribbling (non)secrets in a notebook balanced on her lap. From afar you can see her spinal column is uneasy but her fingers are calm, dancing across the page and along the tabletop. I think excitement is one of the best emotions in the world, it is one of the strongest catalysts (or predecessors) for happiness and oh boy! I'm excited for so many things to come. If you can see the future through rose-coloured glasses, I think you're doing something right.

Looking forward to things re-ignites your inner child, and some things haven't and won't ever change. School excursions are now comparable to plane trips or train rides to a place of your choice - a land far far away - and walking home from school knowing you're having your favourite thing for dinner is comparable to landing in the airport of a familiar place and seeing everything is exactly where you left it. Ice-cream and staying up past midnight should never lose its novelty. Growing up can be everything you love, amplified. 

( pardon my  h y p e r v e r b o s i t y !)

II.

( crumbles & bean in antwerp with my vlinderfille )

III.

Kiss people on the cheek twice, before they say a word. Hold their heads in your hands and smile as enorme as you possibly can. Legs against legs, arms against arms, heart to heart, tangled bodies sharing secrets in silence. I liked that my moonchild didn't understand what I meant about kissing your comfort zone goodbye, because it meant I had to explain it properly and remember what it is that I try and squeeze out of every day. Say the first thing that comes to your head because you find it hard to love a mystery. Enigmatic is so yesteryear, be coy and coltish and coruscating.

( la chambre of a cygne )

( indescribable affection, at the blaarmeesen yesterday )

IV.

There is a small but significant difference between a nice person and a good person. I might be the latter, who hides her dark musings in her hair and tries to execute the right action always - baffled by who can't muster up the moral to do the same. I assume every one alone on the train is just en route to their lover, a fresh-faced beauty with damp hair and pretty threads. But I am contained, hard and floral and garçon-ish, I hate it now.

You still flicker through my mind every day but I don't think of you fondly. Rather I hope what I'm doing is more magnificent and while I know is is, comparing and contesting kills the magic. So I'm trying to stop thinking of you because I am a good person.    

 ( my new favourite playspace, somewhere my bicycle took me )

x
 

# 15 || l'essential est invisible pour les yeux

(I'm in-between the headspaces at the minute, and while searching -- for tidbits and scraps and words I didn't want to discard but knew I would need later -- I found this little passage and thought I'd pop it here, just so I don't lose my writing rhythm. Stay tuned for upcoming dreams-come-true, I've got something magic in store ...) 

"Once upon a time doesn't always fit - but here it does, because although this isn't a fairy-tale, it is a legend and an eternal memoir for the children we were and always will be. A relentless timepiece will watch us grow into the grown-ups some will consider us, while we persist in being the youth of prior generations. The concept of all the "mis"-es - mis-understanding, mis-communication, mis-interpretation - may forever frustrate myself along with many others, and the lack of some curiosity astounds me. As an idealist I believe in a progressive future that defies the intrinsic attributes of mankind, and as a realist I understand that as separate souls we are designed to revolve around our own egos. Perhaps it would be ungracious if we weren't.

When I kissed adolescence a resolute good-bye, this merge into an official "twenty-something" was something similar to magnificent. The smaller lessons proved to have a longer shelf-life than their larger counterparts; wake-up calls can be forgotten faster than you can comprehend. The catalyst for the actions and decisions we choose to carry-out each and every day are precipitated by some kind of force, sometimes blurry and sometimes crystal clear. Something I do know, is that I want to keep learning until the day I leave this reality.

I'm traversing - "crossing over" - the border from Neverland to somewhere somewhat tangible and the last thing I want is to forget all that growing up taught me. From what I have experienced and what I have heard and learn and seen through my eyes and your stories, I think information has the potential to trigger comprehension, which - with luck- will trigger the empathy that breathes in the root of my hope for humanity.

This is a document of my "fieldwork" and consequent findings.

XX Afifa


PS. You can listen to this too, if you like.

 

l'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux from shecaves on 8tracks.