On the verge of something amazing
It was half a lifetime ago.
We were young, so young.
And we did not know that good things come to those who wait and those who don't alike.
Anyways, we weren't going to wait.
Promises had not yet been broken, life was still new.
Writing our hearts out, pouring our hopes onto paper, telling our lives in love songs.
We sent letters across countries and we felt less alone, less confused. More alive.
Your life in another world- a different language- was the source of all my daydreams.
I grew up learning to love your foreign words; pazza, scema, strana...
I wore them like charms on a bracelet, letting them embrace me and define me.
Our letters read like the interactive diaries of two hopeless romantics on the verge of something amazing.
"Diaries are our lives, aren't they?", you wrote me in august 2001.
For a 16 year-old, you were pretty clever.
On the compartmentalization of dating
In the light of the fashionable mensplaining,
- anecdotes of condescending men explaining "complex" things to supposedly less capable women- ,
I am trying to come up with a word for its not-so-distant cousin.
Men who patronizingly try to explain, analyze or criticize the behavior of the women they are dating.
- for the women's own good, of course.
Obviously, in any relationship there must be space for constructive criticism.
My fascination lies in the kind of things that men feel they should and must, point out as flaws with women.
Have you ever been called too independent, too clever, too ambitious?
Too deep, too complicated, over-thinking?
Did he call you a coward because you did not give up everything for him?
It means stop challenging my authority. It means stay in your place.
It means don't forget what you are, what you are supposed to be.
And we- women- are all accomplices in this.
One friend told me to just pretend a little. To be a little more like a woman.
What does that mean?
Writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie talks about the Nigerian expression "bottom power",
the treacherous and false sense of power women wield when we use our sexuality to persuade men.
False because we are just making a small dent in his authority, buying into the idea that the power is indeed his.
"it is easy", my friend said. Works every time.
I am torn between a profound sadness at the cynicism
of a world in which a woman knowingly cuts off her edges,
as to not hurt the fragile ego of a man who supposedly loves her,
And the anger at knowing that women cope with these ridiculous demands by inventing an insane logic
that diminishes men and women alike.
We expect nothing more than what we get,
in this world where everything is pardoned in advance
and therefore everything cynically permitted.
Unscorched by the blaze
I want to write meaningfully, with purpose.
About the destruction and desolation too expansive to be comprehended.
Deconstruct the clichéd imagery of occupation and terrorism,
decode the language of division; of invasion,
I want to carve away the ideology, dig behind history,
Write the story.
A taste of blood in my mouth.
Is it fear?
Fear for them or fear for me?
Fear of never being able to do anything I promised myself?
How shameful.
People are dying and I am shaking under newly washed sheets.
My sheets smell of Marseille soap and the people are hiding, screaming, exploding, giving up.
People are fasting, for faith, for hope, for love.
I am hungry, I think.
I am angry.
haunting abstraction
Emotional analytics is bad for business.
too much knowledge can wreck any imaginary happiness.
Proving yourself right is not the only way forward
And not all dark places need light.
There is no binary truth.
No grand narrative.
No alchemic formula.
There is only embracing uncertainty,
the courage to let go of all premonitions, predictions, calculations.
Trusting that copper coil of desire, buried so deep inside you're not sure it's still there.
Kicking off your shoes, walking the tightrope barefoot to something that may or may not become.
- is there nowhere out of the mind?
All I wanted to do was to rest my head on you,
On the idea of you, just for a minute.
The fear of you slipping away is tangible; I don't even know who you are.
The sense of things falling into place is laced with zemblanity.
Serendipity is zemblanity until proven otherwise.
A new frontier; the forensics of love.
A fingerprint of betrayal?
The DNA of neglect?
Everybody's guilty until proven otherwise.
How many fantasies in an infinitesimal space?
