# 19 || you're the glitter in the dark

If you feel like an earful of erratic eclectic melodies while you read, you can listen to this here.
Some of the prettiest songs I've heard since take-off 79 odd sleeps ago.

 

ø

 I don't know whether you need to experience true discomfort to know what that you've probably been living in the closest thing to a cloud all along. Perspective is ambiguous, an endless debate - like living in the present. I don't like this concept of "being present" that seems to be somewhat en vogue, as of late. When I'm present I lose track of what's really real reality, because when I'm inside the moment I'm trapped deep in my head, drowning in whatever emotion happens to be heightened at the minute. Fear, ecstasy, introversion, euphoria, tragedy -------- it washes over me like a wave and suddenly I'm soaking in my own sentiment and forget what is wonderful or wicked. I forget my cats and my beautiful sister and my autumn-coloured jeans that fit like a glove. Leave me in the intersection where you can wear a sweater if you feel like it but if you forget to grab one as you walk out the door, it doesn't matter. Leave me in a café with a half-finished latte and a notebook with a few blank pages left. Leave me in the sky where you're not sad about take-off anymore and you're not yet excited about landing. 

ø

In the end you'll write the best stories about how you felt, not what you did. Harlequin adjectives will decorate your journal and make you smile when you read your words days or weeks or years later. You won't need images when they might not come close to matching the rainbow memories in  your mind. I don't know. What am I really trying to say here? I want to tell my great-grandchildren about my pursuit of happiness and the butterflies and the time  I had a really perfect playdate with somebody somewhere at sometime and that feeling of accomplishment and the time everything fell into place. Can you find dreams? Or do you have to make them with your hands and your head?

It's not that the ache skips the door to my heart when she does her rounds, it's just that I don't let her haunt me any longer than she has to, and I do my best to show her the way out when she comes to visit. I can't remember how it goes exactly, but it's something like we spend our whole lives searching for the perfect place to stay forever but that consistency we crave only comes through movement. That's not quite right, but it's a bit like that. I'll rearrange the words and cut and paste a little when it comes to me.

ø

 

 

(by s)

x

# 18 || "... and at once I knew, I was not magnificent."

.I.

Some things are too beautiful to recount with mere words, and I'll admit that, because I love words more than fresh croissants and caramelised pear tea served boiling hot. Black letters on a blanc backdrop makes my mouth water, truly. Words with e and a nestled up together (d r ea m , l ea f, s ea, cr ea ture, t ea, f ea r, cr ea te), sentences strung together with salty emotion and paragraphs that take you places you couldn't possibly have imagined ever existed. But really, how do I tell you about the magic? The freedom? The ease? The love? Rosé by the water, we are mermaids. Non, I that's not true. We're a duck and a whale who share with each other the best of both worlds, stories of the sea and the shore. I write because I want to enlighten and be enlightened, I want to remember and forget, I want to savour both the sweet and the sour memories. Here the clouds tell stories, "that-summer-feeling", 5 supermarkets later we found film to remember one of the prettiest days I've ever seen, "home-is-whenever-I'm-with-you", a 2.a.m ice-cream interlude, I never knew my heart could feel that full, and not explode into a billion shards of glitter.

.II.

Coat your heart in your favourite colour to send away the sorrow when it comes a'knocking. (night)Dreams are just dreams, and sadness, like jet-lag is just a figment of your imagination. I don't believe we're here to suffer, the notion is beyond balmy to me. I think melancholia is just a test to see how we rise to the occasion. You know, I'll be wearing my favourite dress, with flowers tangled in my tresses. Freedom comes from the inside, it starts in your tummy and emits from your eyes in lightform -- twinkles and stars. Corny perhaps ... still, one day you'll feel it like the wind in your hair but it's now sweeping through your body.

               I want reality,                          I want to be enraptured all the time. 

Is that a bad thing? 

Will I lose the                  balance & perspective                  that I cherish with all my heart? 

       

          I want to live in a world where every person is a romantic -                               

                             where impossible is nothing 

    and there is always here. 

                             Where people dare to dream 

    and see the light outside their window on a grey morning. 

I'm really happy. Pas toujours, but for the most part. And it's the pure kind of ecstasy, the golden kind, the strong, billiant, shimmery stuff. Make the magic you want to see in the world and everything could be as perfect as you can imagine it. Stop and scrutinise --- I'm sure you're living in at least a fragment of a dream.

.III.

(images by sarah hermans, my phone, etc, etc)

xx

# 17 || "I’m restless. Things are calling me away. My hair is being pulled by the stars again."

∆

 

∆

I woke up this morning dreaming of trains and tresses and tea. My novel is going nowhere, it seems all of those lazy summer afternoons I imagined - my figure strategically placed in the semi-sunshine with Lua the laptop and cigarette - will never ever happen. But for lack of anything real to write, here is an excerpt from a story that is so incredibly far from finished . . .
  

"We embrace under the sun and I’m mute because the ecstasy is overwhelming. I could never say that two hundred days apart from her felt like two hundred y e a r s of grey sky. Tiare can comprehend a lot of things but she wouldn’t believe me. Not because she doesn’t know what it feels like to be in lust but she would never think I would say something so unreal. I converse in silence all too much; it’s a lonely covert world sometimes.

The river running through the world reminds me of bluebirds and leaky pipes. Tiare is telling me about a land she encountered once upon a time, in a land over 16,600 kilometres away. It might as well be another reality, because I’ve never been Anywhere. It seems as if Tiare encountered someone or something so magical there I think she might spend the rest of her last eight lives trying to match the same euphoria. I don’t know why she has never mentioned this place before. She says this feeling is like throwing your heart down the rabbit hole and forever waiting for the laws of physics to send it soaring skyward again. Because she believes what goes down must one day fly up and it’s not a theory, she says. It’s candor.

And we both agree that you must hold onto your hope and never let go. Because impossible is nothing, ever, at all, but keeping your dreams alight like fire is a choice not an entitlement. Me, I believe in an imperfect world, where everything would happen as you wished it would. Human beings might walk on cotton wool clouds and bruise black-and-blue if a butterfly comes too close. Everything happens as it should, and we must hold onto ambition because it keeps us on the solid side of the cliff. Dreams aren’t easy concepts to carry, but do so with every shred of strength and I promise  you will thank me later. Because lately I don’t know what to wish for, it’s white noise from the moment I awake. And believe me, it’s far worse than disappointment."

∆

Sometimes I am surprised at how exceptionally precious and involved we are. Sleep on a stone floor under your great-aun'ts bed for 3 nights in a row, wake up in a hotel room with white walls / without windows, dream on a creaky bed with a lifeless cockroach inches from your eyelashes. Get caught out in the rain, swim in an eerie lake and forget to bring a towel, eat a supermarket salad on a damp bench with everything you treasure in a canvas bag that is slipping down your shoulder. And smile because your alterego on the other side of the piazza thinks you look just fine, - perhaps a little spooked - nobody can see the fear trembling your heart.

I write to remember and savour and romanticise everything so it glitters. You'll see how when you focus on the details everything seems a little more luxe. The roof over your heard, the time you loved something, the fact you can see these letters and make words with your mind. But if you like you can focus on the tears and the grief and the aching and remember how glorious all the times were when you felt free ! Remember the thousand deep breaths that saved you from screaming and strangling. My heart glows and the void ebbs and flows.

∆

It's not that everything is falling into place, it's just that I am falling into some kind of rhythm that keeps one foot in front of the other always, I'm moving and mastering. Or rather I am just realising that 'there is always here', and I'm exactly where I am which, by coincidence, is just where I need to be. What does wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time mean if I wouldn't have known and seen everything I am, if I hadn't been where I was? It's simple, it's present and it's free(dom). And I don't know, it's not coping, per se. It's locating the sparkle and igniting something inside of it. It's not a silver lining but it's the antidote to terror and quelling the ghosts. It's just a phase, a rut, a dream, a nightmare.

and truly,

    x

# 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.