Sunday, October 28, 2007

intimate walk/dinner with Rodrigo

This was going to be a difficult walk for me. I am in love with him still. Even after three months away. My feelings haven’t changed. And I am afraid when writing this to sound stupid and naïve and pathetic. But I wanted to do this walk with him even though I knew that maybe it wasn’t a good idea.

We were supposed to do yoga together like how we used to. But he had rehearsal with Emma. I did yoga alone in sunny 809. I was nervous because an intimate walk with Rodrigo was full of potential for me. Although I knew I shouldn’t have any expectations, my expectations were high. Doing yoga helped me feel more calm and relaxed. Outside it was windy and cold. It was the first day of winter.

He was waiting for me in front of school on the bench next to the canal. He looked a bit cold like he had been sitting there already for a while. He suggested we go home first to eat something to have energy for the walk. This meant we were going to go to his place, to David Zambrano’s place where he lives. I didn’t even ask if Matt and David were home, which would have been o.k. but not my idea of intimacy exactly. I just trusted him that whatever he proposed was going to be fine. I was more than willing to give up control and responsibility. Because giving up responsibility was necessary, I felt, to be available for whatever kind of intimacy might come my way.

So Rodrigo cooked for me and welcomed me into the house I had wondered so often about. This whole last spring I had lived in the same neighborhood and kept wondering what David’s house looked like, how Rodrigo was feeling there and what he was doing there.
And now suddenly the mystery was revealed to me. The house was like a little miniature museum - full of little statues and paintings, full of color and character and detail.
There were two cats quite eager to receive physical intimacy. Their purring made me feel at ease. I was ready to just be a guest and to receive all of Rodrigo’s carefully crafted attention. Rodrigo offered me a pear juice he had made himself with the same spices that go into chai tea. And it did taste like chai tea, but also very refreshing.
He served lentil soup, a rice dish with green peas and carrots and green garden beans. I was impressed by how he managed in the kitchen and how much he seemed to feel at home. We talked a bit about intimacy. And Rodrigo said that to him intimacy was about knowing somebody or something in detail, it’s about observing and spending time.
I’m not sure I got it all right. In fact, I think I spent more time observing the details of his gesture and expression than what he was actually saying about intimacy.
But it makes perfect sense to me. His idea of intimacy is what makes him such a great video artist. He is very skilled at observing. And spending time with him also sharpens my own observation. Every detail becomes intimately dear to me. Rodrigo always listens to music when he is home. I imagined having this personal DJ next to me who was playing all these songs to make me feel good and create a nice atmosphere.
I almost didn’t feel like going for a walk anymore. But this was the project and so we went. We walked along one of the canals towards Westerpark. We saw an art window with a video installation of a snowy mountain. Rodrigo said it looked like Chile. In Westerpark we walked along the water towards the field where some older Dutch men were playing basketball. We started talking about sports. Rodrigo’s father used to be the manager of a football team in Chile. As a small boy Rodrigo was taken along to the football field every Sunday although he never got into football or any other games involving balls. I always twisted my ankle when playing football and hated it.
We went to sit on the swings at the playground. I had asked him to perform an intimate action for me before the walk. He gave me his i-pod to listen to a song while I was on the swing. It was a song about a house at the sea and three sisters. I couldn’t focus on the lyrics too much. The swinging messed up my sense of balance and before I knew it I felt quite nauseous and had to stop. It’s very much like him to give songs to people. And I’m often quite fond of his taste in music. He has given me songs by Sufjan Stevens before, which has become my way of remembering him. When I listen to certain songs I feel immediately connected to Rodrigo but also nostalgic. We decided to walk back home as it was cold and I was still feeling a bit dizzy from the swinging. We sat down for a while at a bus stop with a big poster of Penelope Cruz. The walking home part felt a bit awkward. I didn’t really know what to say. I had memories of our walk to the beach last New Year’s eve. I felt embarrassed that my desire for physical intimacy was overshadowing this whole experience.

Back home he made tea for us. We sat in the living room with the cats. I don’t even remember so much what we talked about. He said his neck was stiff. I offered to give him a neck massage, which is something I think I’m good at. Luckily he accepted my offer. Although we do this all the time at school, feeling the weight of his head release into my hands made me feel lucky and special.
Suddenly I had this longing to lie next to him in bed - a very narrow-minded and conventional concept of intimacy I should say. And surprisingly enough I had the guts to ask if I could stay in his room a little bit. He has this tiny little room, a small shed out in the garden. It’s just big enough for a queen-size bed and a small closet.
We had to turn on the heating as it was very cold in his room. Rodrigo explained that it was rather damp and there were spiders – big black ones he was afraid of.
That’s why he usually doesn’t even turn on the lights. I stretched out on his bed hoping he would do the same. But he stayed standing regulating the heater. I could tell he was feeling uncomfortable. He said he would like to smoke a joint and asked if I wouldn’t mind going with him to buy some in Haarlemmerstraat. I realized I had intruded on his privacy quite a bit. Maybe he needed this joint because my company had become a burden to him. But then again maybe he just wanted to relax a bit more. Anything to save our intimacy was fine with me. He makes these very thin joints with no tobacco, just grass. I love to watch him roll a joint. We went to the garden to smoke. I took two drags and didn’t cough. I was proud. I imagined we were two teenagers smoking our first joint secretly in the backyard.

Back in the living room the conversation ran much more smoothly. Or maybe it was a monologue? I suddenly talked a lot and felt very lively and connected. The joint had increased the level of intimacy considerably. Or was it an illusion? At least for my part I felt more relaxed and I think Rodrigo did too. It was the Jan Ritsema kind of intimacy at play. The overcoming of shyness, the sharing of personal impressions, opinions, feelings without fear. He asked me about PAF and I told him details about performances I had seen there, things we had done. I talked a lot about myself and even performed a little dance to illustrate what I had seen in a dance piece. I felt entertaining and had the impression Rodrigo liked it. I wanted to touch him. I put my head on his shoulder and stayed there. Eventually he moved saying he was going to fall asleep in this position. My clumsy attempts at physical intimacy didn’t go anywhere. It became quite obvious that he didn’t want to go there. I kind of apologized for my behavior. I felt embarrassed and needed to talk about it. He said he was sorry but that he thought it would be too confusing. It was a very valid answer and I felt stupid and guilty for insisting so much, especially knowing that he had just broken up with Roger at the beginning of September. Still I needed to know if the reason he didn’t respond to my advances was because he didn’t feel attracted to me in principle or because he just didn’t want to complicate our already fragile friendship. He didn’t have a clear answer.
He said he really appreciated talking to me and spending time with me. I believed him.
Eventually I forced myself to leave. He gave me the video portrait he had made this summer about a Dutch painter lady, a good friend of David. I watched it the next morning. It was so touching I found myself crying for about fifteen minutes while watching it. The first part of the video was shot in David’s house. Rodrigo made the paintings slide down from the walls and gather in the living room on the couch to watch the portrait of the painter, their creator. She paints colorful portraits of animals, a lot of cows and a sheep and a cat. The humanity of it, the unique editing, very Rodrigo, the songs he had selected to go with some of the footage – it all made me realize how much I appreciate this guy for who he is and how he sees the world. Of course I will never know him as much as I would love to. But in that moment while tears were rolling down my cheeks I was immensely grateful for all the intimate moments we have shared already, for how much he has moved me and keeps moving me. And crying that morning with the colorful animals on the screen of my laptop was surely one of the most intimate moments of my life so far.

Saturday, October 13, 2007

intimate walk with Catalina

Catalina, a guest student from Uruguay, asked me to be in her video project. I was impressed by her way of working. She seemed to know exactly what she wanted, had a very clear story board and was very simple and precise in giving directions.
In return I asked her to participate in my intimacy project. We first went for a coffee after a shooting. I had a chai, she had a cappuccino. I explained her my project. She seemed interested and told me about a meditation teacher in Uruguay from the Sufi tradition who once said something to her about intimacy: "You shouldn't worry about losing your intimacy because your intimacy stays always with you."
Maybe I didn't understand exactly what this Sufi guy meant. Why would I be afraid of losing my intimacy? Although yes I can relate to a feeling of losing my balance and groundedness if I make too many appointments with too many people and feel exhausted and empty at the end of the day. So the fear of losing one's intimacy is a fear of spreading oneself too thin.
I don't know if it was the chai or Catalina. But I suddenly found myself talking a lot. So many words and sentences and concepts coming out of me. I hardly recognized myself. I was bubbly and energetic like a volcano. And this just a few days after returning from my Vipassana meditation where I had learned noble silence. I apologized at the end saying that this was not really my usual character and that it must have been the spicy chai tea which made me so excited and talkative. Or maybe it's just that I felt very connected to Catalina. She is a great listener. I think I tend to feel connected to people from Uruguay. I have two Uruguayan friends who are like Catalina very receptive and calm in their energy. They make me feel super at ease and welcome to share my ideas and thoughts freely. According to Jan Ritsema this is what intimacy is all about. So let's say I felt intimately connected to Catalina right from the start.
Today we went for our walk. It was a sunny, beautiful autumn evening. Again I found myself talking more than usual. Catalina told me she was a gymnastics teacher. And I told her about my brother who is now studying to become a sports teacher in Switzerland and is teaching gymnastics to children. In fact both my brother and my sister teach gymnastics and do gymnastics. And I also did it when I was younger. There was a connection already.
First we talked about our day, about our plans for the holiday, about things maybe not so related to intimacy. Yet there was definitely a strong connection and a strong appetite for sharing.
I realized at one point during my walk with Catalina that intimacy to me is about connecting - with people, with the environment around me or with myself. I thought about a book by a British author I once read or started reading. I think it's called Howard's End and it's very much about this concept of connecting. "Just connect" is a key sentence from that book.
Then I remembered that I would like to read more books by British authors like Jane Austen or Oscar Wilde or Virgina Woolf. I like their sophisticated way of writing and the high teas and mannerisms of their characters. I wondered if intimacy was more difficult to find within this stylized, formalized way of behavior. But then I thought that each society has their own codes of behavior and maybe intimacy is about dismantling these codes and connecting through them or in spite of them.
To Catalina intimacy is mostly a feeling or concept related to herself. She says she believes there is much more to Catalina than what she knows about herself or how she sees herself. And this unknown territory of herself is what she calls her intimacy. She also confessed that sometimes she puts distance between herself and other people to protect her intimacy. But now she is trying to change. She realized that this distance is actually unnecessary because her intimacy will always stay with her no matter what, like the Sufi meditation teacher said.
Maybe I am simplifying her concept of intimacy. I am sorry if that's the case. What I am sure of is that Catalina's way of thinking about things is very sharp and subtle at the same time.
She asked me a lot of questions challenging my view on intimacy. I found out that actually I don't have a single, clear view. Although I feel I have a lot to say on the subject my idea of intimacy is still very much in-the-making and undefined. While passing under a bridge I said that my wish to be more intimate with people is actually a wish to show my emotions more freely in public. It's a desire not to stay in control of the situation, but to let myself be affected by what's happening to me. That's it! Catalina found this very valid. And it made sense to both of us.
On a small bridge we found a big heap of small, brown pellets. To me it looked like food for horses and for some strange reason I had to jump into it and take a handful of it as though it were a pile of fresh snow. Catalina told me to be careful. To her it looked like rat poison. And I promised to wash my hands. My childlike attraction to these strange pellets was a perfect example of how I would like to become more intimate! It's about appropriating something (a feeling, an object, a person) without first analyzing it. It's about diving into something without knowing what it is.
After a long, sunny walk across the canal from Artis zoo(Catalina saw her first live zebra) we walked back towards the central station and went for a power chai and cappuccino at the Star Bikes cafe. It was my idea to take Catalina there and I was very happy she liked the atmosphere and the music. I love Star Bikes cafe! It is a bike shop and cafe all in one. So it has this working atmosphere. But it's also very cozy and intimate. Catalina and I sat on theater chairs and pretended we were watching an improvisation performance. We noticed a lot of details and the performers were so amazingly natural!
I had a lot of fun with Catalina. I also felt intellectually challenged and alert. Usually I am not so much into conceptualizing and intellectualizing. I get easily tired of intellectual talk. But with Catalina it somehow happened. Maybe we share the same intellectual wavelength. Maybe we share intellectual intimacy as well.

Friday, October 12, 2007

intimate walk with Helena

Helena and I realized that we had a lot of things in common. She just got back from a wedding party of Javi's brother in Spain. We spent some time talking in the living room while she was checking her email on the couch and I was trying to skype with bad connection at the table. Helena made a piece about virtual intimacy and got to perform it in Avignon this last summer. We found out that we both spent time in PAF thinking about and researching intimacy. But in different moments. Helena had done a lot of intimate chatting and skyping and smsing until both her computer and her mobile phone broke down. Helena was about to travel to Belgium for her first Vipassana meditation retreat, while I had just gotten back from my first Vipassana retreat in Barcelona the week before. We decided we had to go for an intimate walk together.

I came right from psychotherapy for my intimate walk appointment with Helena. I was still a bit lost in analytical thought about relationship patterns etc. We met in front of the school. She was full of life-embracing energy. She changed into her boots and we deposited our bags in the locker down in the lobby of the school. This would help us feel more light and free on our walk.
Helena found a small white feather and gave it to me as a present. Then she told me a story about a man who collected feathers his whole life with the deep desire and belief that once he would have gathered enough feathers he would be able to fly. He carried a heavy bag behind him full of feathers. He grew more and more tired and weak because the bag became heavier each day as he kept on collecting feathers. One day he tried to lift the bag over his shoulder with a huge effort. The tremendous weight of the bag made him collapse. As the bag crashed down on him he died. And in that moment he flew! Helena laughed and apologetically remarked that it's a bit of a Christian/catholic story. But I think one can interpret it in different ways. I liked the story and I think it's worthwhile reflecting 0n it.

We continued walking. I think it was mostly Helena who spoke. We smelled roses from a rosebush that grew in front of one of the small Dutch houses. Helena told me that she went for a walk one cold morning in November when she was in PAF. There was a layer of frost on the vegetation. She came by a rose bush with white roses that were still blooming. White frozen roses still in bloom! "Is there a thing more fragile and beautiful than a frozen rose blossom?" She said it with such happiness and love for life that I felt touched. And I stopped analyzing my relationship patterns. She can be so enthusiastic and life-embracing - similar to Javi's enthusiasm when he gets excited about something, but different. She even said it right there: "I am in love with life." I said to her that I am afraid of life. "Me too, very much!" she replied immediately. She painted this image of a man riding his fears like a wild horse. I was intrigued. Maybe that is what makes her so enthusiastic about life: this wild ride and her holding the reins.
We ended up at Nieuwe Markt. We walked several times around de Waag, which is an old castle-like building where they used to burn witches in the Middle Ages. Helena likes it because she likes to picture herself burning at a stake in the Middle Ages.
She is convinced that they would have burned her had she lived in the Middle Ages. And they would have burned me too. "Yes of course they would have burned you, Chris - doing laughing meditation and looking for intimacy with people, you would have been a great danger to society!" I felt excited and proud of this image of me and Helena burning at a stake as a wizard and witch in front of de Waag. This image made me feel intimately connected to Helena.
We then got to talking about therapy, about psychotherapy. We got to thinking that maybe it's fashionable nowadays to talk about your therapy sessions and about your therapist with your friends over a coffee. Therapists are not allowed to talk about their clients with anybody. But are clients allowed to talk about their therapists? Helena made me realize that I have a fucking privileged and luxurious life: I had started my day with a laughing meditation, followed by a yoga class, followed by a session with my psychotherapist. Then I went for an intimate walk and at 15:00 I was going to meet Matthew for an authentic movement session. What a perfect day! And this is my work, my study, my research, my therapy, the way I fucking choose to spend my time and make a living. It's ridiculous and at the same time very important for me.
I don't feel guilty. I feel privileged and happy and I know that I can give something to my fellow human beings. I believe it's time well spent and a life worth living. We decided right there to lay down on the ground and do a laughing meditation. In the middle of Nieuwe Markt between horse piss and pigeon poop. It was Helena's initiative. She told me that sometimes she likes to touch the hard surface of the street, of stone and asphalt and cement. She likes to kneel down and caress the floor like a sensitive skin. Even in dirty places like the metro or the central station. So we laughed and almost peed our pants. It felt great! People were looking at us strange and curious. We were looking up at the sky, laughing with our legs up in the air, sometimes looking at each other and sometimes laughing straight at the passersby, laughing with the passersby who were passing by with a smile or with a frown, with amusement or concern. Then we did fifteen minutes of silent meditation. With all the life going on around us I felt like a statue spreading peace and tranquility. The thought came to me that I would like to do laughing meditation in the public space more often. I would like to do it in the shopping mall in Kalverstraat, at the Bijenkorf, at the Central Station and in the post office. I agreed with Helena that we would try to meet once a week and do laughing meditation in a public space. It would be fun to do it with a group of people. It would be great to do it in a place where people are usually bored or stressed or serious. It's the laughing revolution!

Saturday, October 6, 2007

intimate walk with Tashi

I feel bad because I haven't been keeping up my blog entries. There are two intimae walks in the forest around PAF that haven't been documented yet and some intimate incidents in Reims and on the way back from Reims.
Today I went for an intimate walk with Tashi in Amsterdam. He is leaving to Finland tomorrow to make a piece with Anna. I'm glad we found time to go for this walk before his departure.
We started with a laughing meditation in studio 809 of our school. Then we walked through the small streets behind the school towards the waterfront. It is autumn now in Amsterdam. The colors of the leaves are starting to change. Tashi found a leaf red as blood. He kept it.
Tashi told me that the most intimate walk he ever walked with someone was with a Dutch woman four years ago in Arnhem. He was in love with her. She knew it but didn't feel the same. They walked for about two hours through the city almost without talking. When they arrived at a pond Tashi danced a bit and they talked a bit. On the way home they didn't talk much either. Tashi said talking felt too cheap.
We went up to the sunny terrrace of Nemo where we sat down in orange chairs. Tashi had a water bottle. When he drinks he doesn't touch the bottle with his lips. It's easier if you want to share the bottle with someone. In Japan people are much more particular about saliva or physical contact. Friends don't hug and don't take bites from the same apple. I drank from Tashi's water bottle respecting his tradition. But Japanese people make less of a fuss about blood compared to Westerners. We came across the subject of scatology (I think that is when people get sexual pleasure out of playing around with shit and pee). I said I wouldn't mind having somebody pee on me because pee is disinfectant. If someone I am very fond of was to pee on me, I think I could experience this as an act of intimate bonding. Why not?
Later we got to talking about death as well. Tashi's mother has breast cancer and he doesn't know how long she will live and whether he will see her before she passes away. He is in a tricky and shitty legal situation concerning his residence permit. Tashi feels that more and more people in Japan are getting cancer. It's probably true for Europe as well. I'm not sure though. We think that cancer comes mainly from poor diet. All those conservatives and chemicals in the food we eat. That's why I would prefer to only eat organic food and why I am so obsessed sometimes about healthy nutrition. Death has been quite present in my life lately. I told Tashi that I got two emails last week from two close friends informing me about two deaths. My best friend's dog Shiva passed away last week. When my dog was still alive these two dogs were best friends. Me and my best friend used to go for long walks and for horseback riding with our two dogs. This summer I went hiking in the Swiss Alps with my best friend and Shiva. And now Shiva is in dog heaven too. I hope they found each other again in dog heaven.
I'm not sure I believe in heaven. But I think I want to believe in dog heaven.
So talking about death created some kind of intimate link between me and Tashi. People often say that talking about death is quite intimate and that you have to really trust somebody or feel comfortable with somebody to be able to talk about such a heavy subject. And why is it such a heavy subject? Because we usually don't talk about it. Becasue it makes people sad and because we don't like sadness. But in Madagascar for example and I'm sure in other countries as well they have very festive and lively funerals where people get drunk and have lots of fun. I think death is less of taboo in some other countries.
We walked back to school holding hands. Tim suggested to hold hands on our intimate walk in France. We ended up not finding the time to go for a walk in the forest and instead did it in the city of Reims on the last day of our residency. Only about a minute of walking hand in hand. Tim felt quite uncomfortable. So we let go. I think it was more the fear of what the French locals in Reims would think of two men holding hands in their city that made Tim uncomfortable. I was o.k. in Reims. In the small village of St. Erme it might have been more provocative. In Amsterdam it felt totally fine. Of course it's an unusual way of walking with Tashi. Our hands got a bit sweaty. Tashi said he would feel funny if we met somebody from SNDO or DasArts now. And then Laurens from mime walked up behind us. We walked with him almost all the way to the school still holding hands. He didn't say anything about our holding hands. We talked about theater, about life after graduation, about Dutch society.
We walked all the way to the post office to post a letter. Tashi had to get the letter out of his bag and so we let go of each others' hand.