what needs to be done

 the clouds balloon in a milky white overexposed sky. it is summer again. swallows and swifts elegantly cut through the heat ether while the trees hold their breath until a soft breeze invites them to dance again.

there is a young man with pale skin and a bitter disappointed face sinking into his bony body, limping through the coffee shop visitors asking for money. his right foot is wrapped in dirt white gauze bandages, a wound that had no time to heal.

there is good music, still, in this world, and in these headphones. Brothers of Santa Claus sing a song called 'figure it out' and the beat and voice reminds me of those days in Vila Madalena when life was closing in so narrowly the only way I could survive was by squeezing through a tiny crack that catapulted me into the stratosphere, further and further out into space where everything seemed bearable in its utter mysteriousness. much had to be left behind. much was lost. much milky white obscurity surrounded me.

M. finds himself in a predicament, his partner decided to come out with him and the baby as he is trying to bring me the keys to my apartment. i know he hoped to bring those keys and find love but his life choices and responsibilities are getting into his way, the price he pays for secrecy. the same way my choices and undercurrents brought me to this moment, without access to my home, witnessing mute intuitions playing themselves out. i knew, somehow, that this was much bigger, much more complicated than just a hand over. 

his worlds are clashing, just across from here, at the other side of the canal while I re-open my blog because there is no one I can think of that I feel like sharing all of this with. the judgement and concerns of my friends i am not afraid to deal with - but not right now. also my journal seems tired of my handwriting. as such this is the place now that i return to, in need of my own intransparencies and secrecies until the seedlings reveal their tap roots and sprouts and hopeful lives into the open. life holds its breath, until the winds get a hold of it and dance, dance, dance.

two girls laughing in the sun over their cups of coffee and a boy writing, in solitude, with his beer and cigarettes and references to night on earth and coffee and cigarettes by jim jarmusch. when M approaches I love his silhouette and his gait and his gaze as he arrives and his warmth mingles with the summer and my silly heart.

it is clear that life is closing a chapter. my thoughts and feelings are barely cutting through the mud, it needs more water. i swallow hard. the feelings balloon and want to discharge themselves in a big thunderstorm. there is no need for begging, the music reminds me. 

i look at the suitcase and the backpack idling by my table. the transience of being on the road humming and strangely comforting. 

Danube

The gray covers the canal and empty branches of the trees and the people huddled into winter clothes and speaks to this fact: the right ear is too small for this bluetooth headphone bud. It keeps falling out.

In a late night deep-dive into old Emails from her mother she finds a song that moved her strangely, more than a decade ago: Dumitriu Stanescu's interpretation of 'On the Banks of the Danube'. Tears smear all over her face, the toilet role tucked behind the lamp lest it looks too messy on the desk she originally wanted to dedicate her studies to. The pain of this grief is seemingly unsurmountable. She tries to hide behind pizza, behind Netflix, behind Instagram, succumbs a little then reaches out to others in a rare attempt to build a structure around her as she crumbles into the nameless pit of dark sorrow. Love, riddled with pain and sweetness, she doesn't know how to name things anymore as the contoures dissolve.

Mom said: your words are strong and poetic, I see a future there.

Mom said: come with me to Slowakia.

Mom said: If you weren't my daughter I would still find a way to cross your path.

The next day she has to go send a package to an unknown person who will take this laptop she received from another unknown person to a person she really only knows on Instagram in Tanzania. Ironic, considering the stack of unsent letters from her past.

It goes like this: She manages to choose the right package and the materials to cushion the laptop. She watched a Youtube video so she knows what to look out for: the corners must be protected. The tape the post office provides to seal packages is broken. She finds a way to still deal with it. She sends (!) the package and realizes ten minutes after, that she forgot to add the charger. Apple chargers cost an arm and a leg so she has to return to the office, ask for the package that hopefully hasn't left the premises yet, open it with a knife and add the charger. She does that and thinks of her headphone bud that keeps falling out from her right ear. Some things just don't work out right, it's like a curse. A different world that she doesn't belong to, whose language she doesn't fully speak - but the irony doesn't escape her so she chuckles instead, but a bit desperately. 

Mom is doing better, she is a bit high with all the meds. When asking her if she will give her blessings on her wish to have a baby she insists to get a dog instead.

Grief

 Today I cried about a milk coffee pretending to be a cappuchino. The liquid was caramel colored and tasted of pasteurized milk. My sister had insisted to buy it for me because she loves me and she saw how distressed I was about not having had my cappuchino yet before we went on a walk in the forest. I broke down and lamented the fact that I let people talk me into things when I really wanted to get this coffee somewhere else but then decided I didn't want it at all after all because Mom started coughing terribly and covid fears are real. 

I instantly felt sorry for guilt tripping her for something she had done so that I could be happy. Instead, I cried.

I cried because I'm hormonal - that's PMS - but also because I am at the verge of crying since a while: After years of mainly appreciating the way my Mother has been walking her journey into the big now (that is, dementia), I hit a wall of inconceivable grief this summer.  

My cousin says it's the grief of having to let go of your mother even though she is still alive. I thought I had already navigated those waters, relating to her more as a friend, but apparently that was an illusion.

So I cry and I cry and I cry and I cry an ocean of salty tears. It's simmering beneath the surface. It is magnified by PMS and bouts of depression. This is the third big loss in my adult life and you'd think you'd get better at it but each time it's so different and yet so familiar. 

The luxury of having my mother next to me, humming and singing into my hair as she is rocking me back and forth when she finds me a sobbing mess doesn't escape me. I'm deeply grateful for that. 

Yesterday, she asked with great empathy when I had calmed down 'where does it come from? Is it from a deep sense of wondernment or is it sorrow?'

I loved that she considered awe a possible source for these tears. And there is awe. But it is raw and fragile.

Full

Poetic was his love.

Perhaps that the key, the secret to the riddle. Allowing the full to blossom. In its wretched and blissful moments, full, honest, unbridled.

When I think of you I realize how restrained I have lived, how it was a decade of new moon and half. How I lived on the other side, waiting to be released. For a dawn to break a spell I have crafted myself. For shadows I have cast to turn with the tides. For sand to turn into dust.

I don't know what I could do differently. How to live full. How to walk away from lovers who guard themselves as much as I do. Hoping for a crack to appear, for a heart to unbreak and stop being so dramatically inward.

I want to live full. I just don't know how to walk out of the shadows of his love and live life poetically.

midwife

It's seven years now.

He writes: I don't think he could have had a better midwife.

And warmth fills me and I smile and I respond yes, thank you, it means so much.

I don't cry. I'm not overwhelmed. And that is a sign how far I have come. I know that it is true and he didn't have to say this to make me feel whole or at peace. But the fact that he did still does change a lot. It takes away some of the anxiety I have felt to go to his hometown. To be where all the people live who loved him so closely and who wondered who that person was he was with when he passed.

Because while I personally feel at peace there is still perspective and dynamics and questions and the last rest of doubts and fears. It's not a static kind of mental state you achieve: 'be at peace'. It's like a dance, a movement, to be on this side now, alive, to later also pass. 

It is true, Dad, it is true, what you said when I was broken in a million pieces, howling through the paper thin walls of the tiny quiet temple guest house that tried to shelter me after experiencing what surely should have been impossible: The future determines the past.

no place for sad

there is no one or place really to off-load this blue bulk of sad and not right.

i understand how kids can make a difference, somehow, if i had a girl that would snuggle herself into my arms so i can have a purpose and read a god-damn children book to her, or even better, make a story up.

sad engulfs my mind and it's definitely pms but i'm scared it might also be the depression that is coming back and the acupuncturist's prediction that i'm on my way into a depression is true.

it's funny because sometimes we think something big has to change for us to feel alive again but perhaps it's the small things, like going dancing finally. but here i am procrastinating my thesis so i can't go dancing. it's so lame.

oh no there are positive thoughts now crawling into my mind. for example: what are the things i love and they are RIGHT here. i can just take it if i want it.

past

Lonely nights spraying. Never got into a crew. Trained by a lonely wolf, a lonely wolf myself.

It's like I always could feel the heat but somehow was misplaced in time. Then later, LA and Hollywood nights. I think the drama patches up, nothing of greatness coming out of it except some poetry. I missed that whole Banksy thing and the elephant in the room but I saw that dude's camera stencils all over town.

My sister told me to tell myself that I'm loveable. I laughed at it but she kept repeating it, she was chatting with me, so it kept popping up 'You're Loveable' and finally I broke down in tears. Asshole.
But I guess yeah, it's a tough transition - from your 20's into your 30's and somehow not a man at your side. Where is that guy at? But most importantly, let's take stock. Let's do an inventory. Because things didn't just stop. There were the events at Bug atelier and later Wiesenburg and Teufelsberg the Summernightsdream. EAST. Building a track record. Making magic happen. It's just about putting things into order and documenting them for God's sake, I got to learn that.

Perhaps I owe myself to do once a week something that gets me out there. Like climbing or a self defense class or dancing. I will try that. And I am just so unsure about whether or not I should force myself to go on a date or not.

But you see how that goes? You go between guys and then your work. That's life I suppose. I am torn between thinking shit is ridiculous and wanting it. 

Hello and Good-Bye

You need closure. That's why it keeps coming back to haunt you.

She says.

I read a post called Concha Buika and see how I can find back so I can talk to my former Self. I see pictures at my former workplace. I looked so cute, so young, so innocent, so loving. His lips as familiar and beautiful as I remembered. With that smile. And he never took off his glasses.

We are all in our 30s now.

It is really really time to move on.

Kali says that when he last saw me he felt he didn't know me. He said I was broken. That was after the accident, only two years after. Death changes you, man.

Now, he says, you are back to how I knew you. Same vitality and joy. I am glad to hear it.

But I feel so different now. It is all about the work and how to dive deeper and reach higher. How to better navigate this life.

Sao Paulo is waiting.

I feel like I want to connect with my future Self much more than I want to connect with my former Self. G, who loved D. It was innocent and sweet and dramatic but it really is over now and it wouldn't have allowed me to create the life I want to. Can you accept that? Even a relationship with G wouldn't be the right thing. You are meant to move. And you want that. You want to focus on the work. On the beauty that can be created. You want to enjoy and love life. You want to dive. You want to build things. You can allow love.

Is it possible to look at myself with kind and forgiving eyes? At my former Self? Can I say, G, it is so beautiful that you loved so deeply. That you cared so much. I am sorry you had to to endure such a heart break. The mystical aspects of it drew you in so far. It was real. It is good that you let that go now. Do you really want to know how he is doing? \\ Because maybe not.

Revert

Revert to: whatever learned ways to cope.

I talk to him. I listen to Maroon 5 (odd decision). I go out to treat myself to questionable luxuries.

I know the better way. Today I am lazy. Today I do whatever, take short cuts. Delay other things.

I think of my wife and olden LA days. What is that? What is it, that draws me to this time?

In Los Angeles I was seeking. I delved down the avenues. I ran against walls and into abysses. Yes, in the plural. I soared high, in some ways, I sharpened skills and got to know the world and myself better. I learned about love and breaking. I saw you.

The puppet player keeps coming back to my mind. The way he moved his puppets, the fierce look of passion and concentration on his face. On Franklin Strip. How we sat down with him after his performance to drink some wine and learned about his loss. The girl I met months later in a taxi to the airport in Alberqueque. The wooden floor in Miles' townhouse. The interior design in that living room. Us dancing to the old school hip hop LPs he put up. Us dancing, dancing away.

Me lying in the bathtub at the hostel as the party went on. Listening to the sounds of people dwindling. The floating.

That night when my wife and I went with him to the hidden cove in Malibu, red tide.

I guess I want to seek refuge, I want to find a place to unwind and let go. To completely forget for one minute and reconnect with the unspoken. The dreadful honest love. 

Walking the Line

Man, it's hard not to fall into negativity. I can feel my lungs collapse in shame. My shoulders hunch, just a hint, and my chest constricts in pain. Not again!
Trying to breathe deeply is not easy in this body.
So I try to straighten it and open it and the emptiness that ensues in my ribcages and in between my heart and my lungs is deafening. I try to fill it with adequate emotion, invite it in. See the cracks in the cloud wall! There is a bird flying. I hate people. My chest sinks back in.

At the check-out counter I hum and tap gently on my chest bone. I can feel the vibration of my voice. Hummmm, hummm. There is a faint smile as I remember how embarrassed I was whenever my Mom sang in the supermarket.

The street is half dusty and half muddy. I jump over a puddle in my cowboy boots and hope my red skirt doesn't stray.

Yes you can do it! So cool! A challenge!

Learning to walk was so much more fun when I was a kid and fixated on my goals. Nowadays I get threatened to be thrown off by demons and dragons that try and conquer my soul.

Transforming them then it is.

Youth

I remember when we went to study for our final exams. It had snowed and we did sauna in Todtnau Berg at her Grandparent's vacation apartment. After midnight Chris and the crew stood in the door, he had come with his VW bus and we tied sleds to the bumper and raced through the sleeping village, him driving, us almost dying of laughing.
Later we all crashed, on couches, the carpet, the beds and Moon Palace and the red wine were forgotten. A couple weeks later the dust particles danced in the streaks of sun rays that flooded through parts of the window in the apartment where she lived together with the carpenter apprentices my sister was so infatuated with. I used her shaver and she hated me and then we couldn't stop laughing about one of the cartoons in the bathroom.
We visited someone in the other apartment, it was the cool kid apartment basically, full of punks and outlaws who hung out at the place they had goa and trance parties. They listened to the Pixies and a myriad of bands I had never heard of. Hanging out became a thing then, I got the hang of it, literally. The hours we spent at the river bank trying to understand vectoral equations and the time when she was sick and I took care of her because her parents lived in Switzerland.

Chris raced through forest dirt roads and then took a right onto a meadow and we almost crashed in a ditch. The bus jumped so high, that we bumped our heads hard against the ceiling and coming down was a hard crash. The adrenaline drove us almost mad, I begged Chris to stop, he thought it was funny. We slept in the bus and in the morning there were frost stars at the window and we got to school in our crumpled up clothes and unbrushed teeth. Johannes and I would take off to the train station in the 20 min break sometimes to get a coffee. He smoked, I didn't. He listened to the White Stripes and the Strokes and knew all the Pink Floyd albums by heart. We philosophized about a lot of things but I have no recollection of what we really knew. Sometimes we'd skip an English class and I'd buy a Machiato in the new Italian coffee shop and read a book in the back, sitting at the window, feeling a tinge of eternity.

you

It is true, what my Mama said.

"Get used to the thought, that you will always love him."

So it is. There will always be moments that bring you back to me. Only sometimes I wonder if the same happens to you or how you remember me.

I know that we were intensely beautiful.

People would stop us in the streets and say "ya'll stay together!" or "you look gorgeous together" or "if that isn't true love"... It is good to have lived that. It is good.

I still love you, I love what you touched inside of me. I love what you let me touch inside of you.

Now is a different time. I am getting ready for the next encounter.

The Beat

Not always things come together.

First of April is approaching, and it is four years ago now that I fell into an abyss of the unknown. Sometimes it seems as if it is a long and winding road. Not the easy way out, at all.

Love is trying to capture images that once moved. Love is trying to seep through. People move. They move. They move on. Only sometimes I freeze and access layers of the known unknown.

The Beat.

Is still coming through. It's still coming through. Breaking walls once shattered then rebuilt. Berlin is mixing with young Hollywood nights. My wife and Sean. You and then Him. Relationships break, transform, die and sometimes, people die but the relationships to them don't.