We took the ferry to Amsterdam North. I wanted to show him the cute, little Dutch houses on the Nieuwendijk and the other dijk-villages facing the Ijsselmeer. I was in a very good mood despite the greyness of the day. I found myself bubbly and entertaining. Roger seemed to be feeling pleasant as well. He told me he had gotten drunk the night before at Melkorka’s birthday party and needed to pee a lot. He had peed in a bottle earlier that morning since he didn’t want to go down to Ria’s flat. He lives in her attic. Sometimes he also goes out on the roof and pees there. But that morning he filled up the whole bottle with his pee.
Now thinking back, I wonder if all this entertaining, light-hearted energy was really genuine for both of us, or if it was partly forced. There is also a shyness and fragility between us which I don’t think I’m completely comfortable with. My guess is that my jovial, fun mood was an attempt at covering up this vulnerable state underneath.
Eventually the atmosphere turned more existential. He told me about some complex theories by Kristeva they have to read for Elisabeth’s philosophy class. He was wondering a lot about the meaning of words. In fact he seemed to distrust words. He remembered Aparna and how she often talked about the loss of meaning. What if the ground under our feet was just a concept? And what if we stopped believing in that concept? Would we fall through the floor? I think he misses Aparna a lot. They were very close. I miss her too. I still remember the day when Roger and Aparna both stopped talking for 24 hours. There was a time when I also distrusted words very much and even hated them. But lately I have regained trust in words. They allow me to get to know someone and to reveal myself to someone. I don’t question words so much anymore. I take them at face value. Of course they are confusing and there will always be misunderstandings. But actually that day with Roger I was more into sensory experience. It was very windy. I liked that despite the cold. Roger was wearing two hoods, a red one of his sweater and a blue-grey one of his windbreaker. It made me think of his poem about a hoody he recited in Noha’s second year piece. This poem really touched me because I knew the hoody it was talking about was Rodrigo’s hoody and they were in an intimate relationship.
Roger told me about a time when he was about 17 and lived in a caravan while picking fruit in Great Britain. He planned to go traveling with a friend, but somehow ended up alone and stayed in England for almost half a year picking apples and later working in a factory. He said that part of the time he lived with a Romanian guy he was falling in love with. To Roger intimacy is about sharing. He also talked about a warm feeling. We passed by an old tractor with a whole family of big teddy bears and other toy animals sitting next to and on top of the tractor. I asked Roger if he thought they shared intimacy.
He had picked up a small branch or stick and was talking about the loss of meaning and his sadness that creeps up on him unexpectedly. I called him the melancholic man in the wind. I could imagine the reason of his sadness but was too shy to ask. He also talked about laughing and crying and that he felt they are very connected. I think so too. We had done some laughing meditation sessions together before yoga class. I was very happy that he joined me for laughing. I had proposed to lead laughing meditation at 9am before yoga. Most days I ended up laughing alone. Yurie joined me during the holiday because she is working on emotions and laughing in her third year piece. Roger joined some mornings. Laughing with him felt intimate. It felt as though this laughter was washing away all the tension and shyness and vulnerable, hard feelings that had built up between us. It was cold and windy. Roger didn’t have any gloves. Only two hoodies. Sometimes the wind makes me teary-eyed. It happens a lot on my bike. I like it. We rode our bikes back to the ferry. I wanted to take him to my favorite café, Star Bikes, to drink a hot power chai. The place was empty except for the tall Dutch woman behind the counter. The cat was there too and I wanted to pet him but he didn’t like it. Maybe my hands were too cold. When Roger petted him he liked it. Roger told me about his cat at home in Barcelona. He got very excited talking about his cat and did a whole little performance for me in that café showing me how they play, fight and chase each other around the house. It made me smile and laugh. Roger had a blueberry muffin and I had a brownie. The tall Dutch woman made us two very nice power chais. I should ask her what her name is. I like her a lot. Her husband or brother came to sit in the café too and did some work on his laptop.
At one point Roger asked me out of the blue: What about love? It was tender and careful but also quite determined the way he asked. I was relieved he asked the question. So I told him honestly that I was still in love with Rodrigo - still attached, hoping, longing, wanting to let go but not able to. And he told me about his attachment too – about his conflict between head and heart. He had decided to finish this relationship but was still very much wishing and desiring. Wanting to let go but not able to. Whatever had made us fall in love with the same guy - it felt good to talk about this. I think we both had wanted to talk about it that whole afternoon, but had circled around it as though it was a taboo too delicate to be touched. It was like confessing our love, struggle and jealousy to each other and saying “Yes, I can relate to that! I know how it feels or I can imagine.” I was so absorbed and touched by this intimate talk with Roger I could feel tears coming to my eyes almost – without the cold wind. The tall Dutch woman was reading her book on the couch with her back to us. I realized that this was one of the most intimate talks in public space I had ever had. It felt slightly inappropriate and I was wondering if the tall Dutch woman and her husband were feeling uncomfortable. They could have been our parents on a lazy Sunday afternoon and the Star Bikes café our living room.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
second intimate walk with Min
I did a second walk with Min on our day off before going to the swimming pool. We had slept in and most people had gone to Reims in the morning to inspect the theaters there. It was Thursday but felt like a Sunday. We talked about the possibility of Min visiting me in Switzerland during the X-mas break. But since I will be working on our new piece "enter my bubble" in a residency in Bern, we thought maybe it would be too stressful and not the right time for a visit. I'm really happy that I have so many great working opportunities this coming year. But on the other hand it frightens me a bit thinking that the schedule will be so packed and there's not even space to spend some days with a visiting friend. This is exactly the conflict I know so well: Do I place ambition before friendship, discipline before emotional needs, professional responsibility before relationships? This conflict also plays a role in this intimacy research. To what extent do I follow my desire? To what degree can I stay professionally detached in my approach to searching for intimacy? Do I want to stay detached, in control, objective?
No for sure not. What I write here is very much filtered through my own subjective experience. I cannot and do not want to document my intimate activities from the neutral and cold perspective of a scientist. But I am aware that writing about and thus exposing the intimate encounters with real people is stepping on delicate ground. In a talk I had with Lucie she was wondering how much I give back to the guinea pigs who volunteer to participate in my research. Am I using them for my own selfish purposes? Is it ethically correct to extract intimate confessions from my victims/volunteers on our walks or in bed and then expose them the next day on the blog? Is it o.k. to create this setting of trust and intimate complicity without a longterm commitment to protect and take care of what has been built during the encounter? Most people who have participated so far in my research have told me they trust me. They feel that my motivation for this research stems from a genuine interest and desire to connect with people and learn more about myself in the process. So what precautionary measures must I take not to betray this trust? Is there something wrong with using people for my own purposes, as long as these purposes have an aim bigger than myself? I am thinking of an idiom or expression by some philosopher now who said something quite important and universal on this subject. But I don't remember the exact words nor who said it.
Antonio told me I should be a professional hustler. But who is actually the prostitute here? Is it me or the people I sleep and walk with? What do these people get out of sleeping and walking with me?
This is the last week of our residency at PAF and the general atmosphere is one of stress and last minute rehearsals and preparations to get ready for the presentations in Reims. I have been less enthusiastic to propose my intimate activities to people these last days because there doesn't seem to be the time and space for it. I'm not exactly stressed about presentations in Reims but the general atmosphere has an effect on me nonetheless. I get tired and frustrated by lengthy, drawn-out discussions about the organization and future of this group. As a result I feel less available an willing to be intimate with people. Because what I am quite sure of for now is that intimacy requires a certain openness and availability for the other. When I don't feel I can provide this I am very reluctant to go on my search for intimacy. In fact it feels wrong and preposterous to go for an intimate encounter when I am not available for it.
I have gone off on an intellectual tangent. Let's get back to the tangible, simple encounter: Min and I walked on the paved road towards the horizon. The sky was black. We felt tired and lazy but happy to be outside in the open. It was going to rain. We took a field path and arrived to a picturesque picnic spot surrounded by some trees and bushes. In front of us there was a hilly meadow for horses. We decided to sit down. We took off our shoes. It started to drizzle. We took off our shirts. Min asked me if I had ever taken a shower in the rain, a natural shower. I remembered a heavy, warm rainfall during a youth camp when we all danced and jumped around in puddles in a pine forest in southern Switzerland. Min and I stripped to our underwear and sat for a moment in meditation pose. The light rain opened up our pores and I imagined my skin in osmosis with the world around me. Pretty soon I developed goose bumps.
We got up and ran barefoot into the meadow through the long grass like horses. It felt like in a movie, a National Geographic documentary on wild horses. It felt great. We galloped uphill and started breathing hard, our lungs expanding. We arrived on top of the hill. The horizon opened up in front of us. This world belonged to us. We were on top of the world, in the middle of the universe. The grass tickled our legs as we ran back to the picnic spot. I felt alive and powerful. Embodying a horse is an empowering experience. When I think about it now this horse episode feels so surreal like in a dream. In the moment it was all we needed to know. Where we were is what we needed.
No for sure not. What I write here is very much filtered through my own subjective experience. I cannot and do not want to document my intimate activities from the neutral and cold perspective of a scientist. But I am aware that writing about and thus exposing the intimate encounters with real people is stepping on delicate ground. In a talk I had with Lucie she was wondering how much I give back to the guinea pigs who volunteer to participate in my research. Am I using them for my own selfish purposes? Is it ethically correct to extract intimate confessions from my victims/volunteers on our walks or in bed and then expose them the next day on the blog? Is it o.k. to create this setting of trust and intimate complicity without a longterm commitment to protect and take care of what has been built during the encounter? Most people who have participated so far in my research have told me they trust me. They feel that my motivation for this research stems from a genuine interest and desire to connect with people and learn more about myself in the process. So what precautionary measures must I take not to betray this trust? Is there something wrong with using people for my own purposes, as long as these purposes have an aim bigger than myself? I am thinking of an idiom or expression by some philosopher now who said something quite important and universal on this subject. But I don't remember the exact words nor who said it.
Antonio told me I should be a professional hustler. But who is actually the prostitute here? Is it me or the people I sleep and walk with? What do these people get out of sleeping and walking with me?
This is the last week of our residency at PAF and the general atmosphere is one of stress and last minute rehearsals and preparations to get ready for the presentations in Reims. I have been less enthusiastic to propose my intimate activities to people these last days because there doesn't seem to be the time and space for it. I'm not exactly stressed about presentations in Reims but the general atmosphere has an effect on me nonetheless. I get tired and frustrated by lengthy, drawn-out discussions about the organization and future of this group. As a result I feel less available an willing to be intimate with people. Because what I am quite sure of for now is that intimacy requires a certain openness and availability for the other. When I don't feel I can provide this I am very reluctant to go on my search for intimacy. In fact it feels wrong and preposterous to go for an intimate encounter when I am not available for it.
I have gone off on an intellectual tangent. Let's get back to the tangible, simple encounter: Min and I walked on the paved road towards the horizon. The sky was black. We felt tired and lazy but happy to be outside in the open. It was going to rain. We took a field path and arrived to a picturesque picnic spot surrounded by some trees and bushes. In front of us there was a hilly meadow for horses. We decided to sit down. We took off our shoes. It started to drizzle. We took off our shirts. Min asked me if I had ever taken a shower in the rain, a natural shower. I remembered a heavy, warm rainfall during a youth camp when we all danced and jumped around in puddles in a pine forest in southern Switzerland. Min and I stripped to our underwear and sat for a moment in meditation pose. The light rain opened up our pores and I imagined my skin in osmosis with the world around me. Pretty soon I developed goose bumps.
We got up and ran barefoot into the meadow through the long grass like horses. It felt like in a movie, a National Geographic documentary on wild horses. It felt great. We galloped uphill and started breathing hard, our lungs expanding. We arrived on top of the hill. The horizon opened up in front of us. This world belonged to us. We were on top of the world, in the middle of the universe. The grass tickled our legs as we ran back to the picnic spot. I felt alive and powerful. Embodying a horse is an empowering experience. When I think about it now this horse episode feels so surreal like in a dream. In the moment it was all we needed to know. Where we were is what we needed.
Monday, September 10, 2007
intimate interview with Jan Ritsema
Sleeping Beauty: How do you define intimacy for yourself?
Jan Ritsema: Of course I thought a little bit about it. Intimacy in principle means not to be timid or “timide”(in French)
SB: Ah it has something to do with timid.
JR: I don’t know. But of course In is non. Inconscience, Incontinent. So the meaning of in is non. So its non-timide. And that’s what is intimate. The interesting thing is that we change intimacy to a very small space, a very safe space where you can be intimate, we think. But what we mean with intimate is not "timide", is open to everything, is borderless, is every protection away, in principle. And it’s not just a small space where you can….
And then of course in history it’s got a very sexual connotation. For me ideal for society would be if we did not use the word intimacy. A society that is not timid. Timid is not a quality. When someone says someone is shy “Oh he or she is soo shy”- you have fear, that’s why you are shy. Intimacy is not a quality. Intimacy is a quality but it shouldn’t be called intimacy. It’s just that you are open. In this fearful society where everyone is putting daggers in each others’ back, usurping each other - the neo-capitalist society is like this - in this society intimacy is reduced to the bed, or to the most private space where you dare to be without protection.
So intimacy is the space where you are without the fear that forces you to protect yourself.
SB: Is this intimacy something you try to achieve in your life?
JR: Yes, I try to be as intimate as possible. I don’t think timidity is a quality.
SB: Quality meaning something good?
JR: Yes. But on the personal level, I always said about myself that I have an intimacy addiction. My mother died when I was three. So the little boy is still looking for protection. That’s the other meaning of intimacy, that is to be in a fully protected surrounding, in mommy’s arms, and feel safe. That’s not how I think we should read and use intimacy. Intimacy should be the normal state of us, namely without fear of each other. There is no need to be fearful.
SB: So it’s also a lot about complete trust?
JR: The word trust is not in my vocabulary. That’s another story. You cannot trust anybody.
Religion and power need people to be fearful, to ask for protection. They play the protectors. Their alibi for power is offering protection. It’s just a Mafia principle. We burn your shop or we protect you. And you pay us for the protection.
It’s the same “chantage” of religion and of every power position of somebody else over us. You have to trust that we don’t put fire on your shop if you pay us every month 1000 Euros, if you come to our Church. Then we don’t put fire on your shop – that’s hell. It’s Mafia – church.
So trust is an invention of people that want to have power over you. Trust does not exist. It cannot exist. We are unable to trust each other.
SB: What about trusting yourself?
JR: And I mean really trusting each other. You can never be sure if you can trust somebody. Never. You cannot know it. So don’t use it.
SB: What about being intimate with yourself or trusting yourself?
JR: How can you not be intimate with yourself? If you are not intimate with yourself you are ripe for personal problems. I must admit that many people are ripe for that.
SB: Yes I think for a lot of people it’s difficult to be intimate in general, and to be intimate with themselves.
JR: I don’t understand this. That’s the interesting thing: You cannot be intimate with yourself!
SB: You cannot?
JR: No.
SB: Cause it’s always about a relationship with someone else?
JR: No, intimate with yourself is a relation with yourself. Whatever tricks you use, whatever mutations and lies you make up about yourself, in principle they are all clear to you. Yourself is an open field to you. You cannot protect yourself from yourself. You can protect yourself from the others, but not from yourself. You are the victim and the perpetrator. You cannot harass yourself. You cannot rape yourself
SB: Hmm….Ok. I’m really trying to take in all this information. But it’s quite a lot. - Do you think intimacy is something we can create for ourselves in a relationship with others? Or is it something that just happens by chance when we don’t look for it? Can we create conditions for it?
JR: Yes, of course. It’s by eliminating the boundaries of protection. Every boundary you take away makes you less “timide”. So the less you act as a fortress, the less timid you are. But a fortress can have many forms. A fortress can act as if it’s very open. So the defense system can be “I’m so open, so open, so open! Let’s say everything. I am here. Ah you are so nice!” But you never allow a merging state. So intimacy is the moment where you merge, dissolve with the world around it. We are all very intimate with oxygen. We love it. We are intimate with a lot of food. So it’s where the filters, the membranes that filter whatever information comes to you, filter as little as possible.
SB: Mmmh - thanks. So when you see a performance – do you sometimes use the word intimacy or intimate to describe what you see in the theater? Or how do you relate that term to the theater. Cause I think it’s used a lot in my experience when there is an intimate setting, when there is very little audience, or when it’s a very closed space. what is for you an intimate performance?
JR: That for sure not. Because this reading of intimacy (going to a very private, protected situation) is not what I call intimacy. Intimacy has to go the other way around. You have to take away your borders and should not withdraw to a small corner. So I cannot imagine any performance that is intimate.
SB: According to your concept of intimacy it would be a performance where the performers cross a lot of boundaries and open up a lot of possibilities. So really liberating …that would be intimate?
JR: Yeah …(thinks) But it’s a very complicated thing. I know a performance- when I was professor at the Rijksacademie in Amsterdam – we invited every now and then performances. There was a group of visual artists/performers who asked us to sit around a big table. We were thirty people around the table. And they were on the table and under the table shitting and masturbating and pissing, putting it on themselves and mixing it, and using some masks and costumes and whatever but …. So that sounds as if this was borderless. It’s transgressive performance. People of course walked out of it because they had to vomit. But I don’t know – I wouldn’t use the word intimate. The action of being borderless is not intimate. It’s an aggressive action. So it’s like trust. It is a word that shouldn’t exist. It should be the normal state.
SB: Yes, but that is talking ideally. It is not reality.
JR: Intimacy is not something you make. It is an ontological state. It’s something you are.
SB: What is ontological?
JR: To be. It is like this. That’s ontological. It’s not a process. It’s a fact. It’s a state of being.
SB: Is intimacy something you are interested in seeing in the theater? Or in your own work?
JR: Not to see as a subject. But yes I’m interested in theater that does not protect itself so much. I’m not interested in all the masking that’s connected to theater.
SB: So you mean also theater that takes risks? If it doesn’t protect itself.it’s more risk-taking, no?
JR: I don’t know. What is theater that takes risks?
SB: For me it’s going into the unknown and not putting clear boundaries of how far this can go…
JR: I cannot make theater out of going to the unknown. Theater is a space that is occupied with certain actions during a certain time. Can this be more intimate or less? – I’m interested in soft. I am not interested in hard. I’m not interested in virtuosity. That is creating borders. I’m interested in soft.
SB: Subtle?
JR: Yes, for sure. Sensitive. But not in an esoteric way. Your brains can be very smart. And that I would call sensitive. Very smart and precise. I always talk about being specific. Try to be as clear as you can be. And that’s soft It’s all about being as little protected as possible. There is a state between the stage and the audience where it is easy to dissolve. Not to dissolve in being drawn by spectacularity. It’s necessary for me that people stay independent, that people stay independent but that they also want to dissolve.
SB: Do you think intimacy is possible on the web? Virtual intimacy? Or can it only happen in real time face to face?
JR: If intimacy is being as borderless as possible, then within the context of the border on the web that is communicating by screens, I would say no there is no intimacy. The screen is in between.
SB: Because I think there aren’t as many ways of negotiating or measuring intimacy on the web. I’m still stuck with this idea of trust. How far can you go? On the web you can say much more and then just delete it again.
JR: Maybe when I think about it now – even when you do skype-fucking you always stay alone. There is a certain way of dissolving a little bit, but it’s very task-oriented. No the web is certainly not made for intimacy.
SB: And still I think a lot of people are looking for intimacy on the web and spend much more time looking for it on the web than in real life.
JR: Yes of course, because it’s in the context of the protection of the screen, this huge membrane that filters everything. So you can never really be touched. Intimacy presupposes a sharing, I would say. When I was talking about dissolving, merging before – I mean on the web there is the idea of merging too. But it’s not happening. It’s very much an as if situation. That’s why we call it virtual.
SB: Do you think intimacy is disappearing? Do you think it is an endangered species?
JB: The more you live in a society of screens, you will communicate by screens. I always say why I like theater is because it’s the only place since the church is empty where we are all together alive. This live togetherness with strangers is something very specific to the performing arts.
We communicate so much by screens, whether it’s a computer, or a television or a telephone or whatever, they all have interfaces. And everyone who was born knows what it is to be taken in the arms of the mother, to have physical contact, to appropriate the world around you, whether it is oxygen or a piece of meat. You are all the time merging. You are appropriating the world and you are contaminating the world with your things. Our words, communication, are a way of infecting each other. I contaminate your mind with my words and you have to try and live with it – which is very difficult of course after what I’ve said. (chuckles)
SB: Have you had a chance to visit my blog? I would be interested to get some feedback from you. I want to go on with this research but also think about ways to put it in a performative frame. I wonder if it should be a lecture demonstration in Reims next week.
JR: What I see on the blog is a little bit this sweet and tender ..... social, nice atmosphere, esoteric thing. But basically the "demarche" about intimacy I like. It’s in all my work. My work is about this.
SB: About finding intimacy?
JR: About trying to be borderless. If you would do some more brain effort ..... ( ).... I think Derrida said a lot about this. You should watch this interview with Derrida. I show him because he is very intimate. This Eva Verdes is also very intimate. It’s naïve, but it’s one to one. And Derrida when he talks about his childhood and his fear about writing, it’s very intimate. I support this. But not in an esoteric way. I’m not interested in doing intimate in a fine, nice world.
SB: Why do you say esoteric?
JR: Because then it becomes a culture. Then it’s like in the screen as if we do intimate. You can create here a subculture of intimacy, of nice people who love each other very much and fuck around. A sixties commune that does “intimate”. And I don’t want to have a retreat behind the walls of PAF because then you go to the private situation of the idea of intimacy when you are in a bed with somebody. You have to look for ways of being intimate at the table. And you have a tendency to be – also the way you speak is quite soft. So intimacy is about being intimate in public, which doesn’t mean that you have to fuck on top of cars in the center of Paris. That is being transgressive. That’s also ok to be sometimes transgressive.
So for me a blog about this ? ( )…. – but a brain work please! I gave some notions in this talk - there is a lot to think about - I twist intimacy completely from private to public. The way Derrida talks in his interview has for me the dignity of intimacy. And I like to combine these two words. It’s nobility. And that is the ability to merge, to dissolve – and not to grasp. We are in a grasping, in a colonizing culture, in an appropriating culture. And not in a sharing exchange culture, which is a much richer culture.
Jan Ritsema: Of course I thought a little bit about it. Intimacy in principle means not to be timid or “timide”(in French)
SB: Ah it has something to do with timid.
JR: I don’t know. But of course In is non. Inconscience, Incontinent. So the meaning of in is non. So its non-timide. And that’s what is intimate. The interesting thing is that we change intimacy to a very small space, a very safe space where you can be intimate, we think. But what we mean with intimate is not "timide", is open to everything, is borderless, is every protection away, in principle. And it’s not just a small space where you can….
And then of course in history it’s got a very sexual connotation. For me ideal for society would be if we did not use the word intimacy. A society that is not timid. Timid is not a quality. When someone says someone is shy “Oh he or she is soo shy”- you have fear, that’s why you are shy. Intimacy is not a quality. Intimacy is a quality but it shouldn’t be called intimacy. It’s just that you are open. In this fearful society where everyone is putting daggers in each others’ back, usurping each other - the neo-capitalist society is like this - in this society intimacy is reduced to the bed, or to the most private space where you dare to be without protection.
So intimacy is the space where you are without the fear that forces you to protect yourself.
SB: Is this intimacy something you try to achieve in your life?
JR: Yes, I try to be as intimate as possible. I don’t think timidity is a quality.
SB: Quality meaning something good?
JR: Yes. But on the personal level, I always said about myself that I have an intimacy addiction. My mother died when I was three. So the little boy is still looking for protection. That’s the other meaning of intimacy, that is to be in a fully protected surrounding, in mommy’s arms, and feel safe. That’s not how I think we should read and use intimacy. Intimacy should be the normal state of us, namely without fear of each other. There is no need to be fearful.
SB: So it’s also a lot about complete trust?
JR: The word trust is not in my vocabulary. That’s another story. You cannot trust anybody.
Religion and power need people to be fearful, to ask for protection. They play the protectors. Their alibi for power is offering protection. It’s just a Mafia principle. We burn your shop or we protect you. And you pay us for the protection.
It’s the same “chantage” of religion and of every power position of somebody else over us. You have to trust that we don’t put fire on your shop if you pay us every month 1000 Euros, if you come to our Church. Then we don’t put fire on your shop – that’s hell. It’s Mafia – church.
So trust is an invention of people that want to have power over you. Trust does not exist. It cannot exist. We are unable to trust each other.
SB: What about trusting yourself?
JR: And I mean really trusting each other. You can never be sure if you can trust somebody. Never. You cannot know it. So don’t use it.
SB: What about being intimate with yourself or trusting yourself?
JR: How can you not be intimate with yourself? If you are not intimate with yourself you are ripe for personal problems. I must admit that many people are ripe for that.
SB: Yes I think for a lot of people it’s difficult to be intimate in general, and to be intimate with themselves.
JR: I don’t understand this. That’s the interesting thing: You cannot be intimate with yourself!
SB: You cannot?
JR: No.
SB: Cause it’s always about a relationship with someone else?
JR: No, intimate with yourself is a relation with yourself. Whatever tricks you use, whatever mutations and lies you make up about yourself, in principle they are all clear to you. Yourself is an open field to you. You cannot protect yourself from yourself. You can protect yourself from the others, but not from yourself. You are the victim and the perpetrator. You cannot harass yourself. You cannot rape yourself
SB: Hmm….Ok. I’m really trying to take in all this information. But it’s quite a lot. - Do you think intimacy is something we can create for ourselves in a relationship with others? Or is it something that just happens by chance when we don’t look for it? Can we create conditions for it?
JR: Yes, of course. It’s by eliminating the boundaries of protection. Every boundary you take away makes you less “timide”. So the less you act as a fortress, the less timid you are. But a fortress can have many forms. A fortress can act as if it’s very open. So the defense system can be “I’m so open, so open, so open! Let’s say everything. I am here. Ah you are so nice!” But you never allow a merging state. So intimacy is the moment where you merge, dissolve with the world around it. We are all very intimate with oxygen. We love it. We are intimate with a lot of food. So it’s where the filters, the membranes that filter whatever information comes to you, filter as little as possible.
SB: Mmmh - thanks. So when you see a performance – do you sometimes use the word intimacy or intimate to describe what you see in the theater? Or how do you relate that term to the theater. Cause I think it’s used a lot in my experience when there is an intimate setting, when there is very little audience, or when it’s a very closed space. what is for you an intimate performance?
JR: That for sure not. Because this reading of intimacy (going to a very private, protected situation) is not what I call intimacy. Intimacy has to go the other way around. You have to take away your borders and should not withdraw to a small corner. So I cannot imagine any performance that is intimate.
SB: According to your concept of intimacy it would be a performance where the performers cross a lot of boundaries and open up a lot of possibilities. So really liberating …that would be intimate?
JR: Yeah …(thinks) But it’s a very complicated thing. I know a performance- when I was professor at the Rijksacademie in Amsterdam – we invited every now and then performances. There was a group of visual artists/performers who asked us to sit around a big table. We were thirty people around the table. And they were on the table and under the table shitting and masturbating and pissing, putting it on themselves and mixing it, and using some masks and costumes and whatever but …. So that sounds as if this was borderless. It’s transgressive performance. People of course walked out of it because they had to vomit. But I don’t know – I wouldn’t use the word intimate. The action of being borderless is not intimate. It’s an aggressive action. So it’s like trust. It is a word that shouldn’t exist. It should be the normal state.
SB: Yes, but that is talking ideally. It is not reality.
JR: Intimacy is not something you make. It is an ontological state. It’s something you are.
SB: What is ontological?
JR: To be. It is like this. That’s ontological. It’s not a process. It’s a fact. It’s a state of being.
SB: Is intimacy something you are interested in seeing in the theater? Or in your own work?
JR: Not to see as a subject. But yes I’m interested in theater that does not protect itself so much. I’m not interested in all the masking that’s connected to theater.
SB: So you mean also theater that takes risks? If it doesn’t protect itself.it’s more risk-taking, no?
JR: I don’t know. What is theater that takes risks?
SB: For me it’s going into the unknown and not putting clear boundaries of how far this can go…
JR: I cannot make theater out of going to the unknown. Theater is a space that is occupied with certain actions during a certain time. Can this be more intimate or less? – I’m interested in soft. I am not interested in hard. I’m not interested in virtuosity. That is creating borders. I’m interested in soft.
SB: Subtle?
JR: Yes, for sure. Sensitive. But not in an esoteric way. Your brains can be very smart. And that I would call sensitive. Very smart and precise. I always talk about being specific. Try to be as clear as you can be. And that’s soft It’s all about being as little protected as possible. There is a state between the stage and the audience where it is easy to dissolve. Not to dissolve in being drawn by spectacularity. It’s necessary for me that people stay independent, that people stay independent but that they also want to dissolve.
SB: Do you think intimacy is possible on the web? Virtual intimacy? Or can it only happen in real time face to face?
JR: If intimacy is being as borderless as possible, then within the context of the border on the web that is communicating by screens, I would say no there is no intimacy. The screen is in between.
SB: Because I think there aren’t as many ways of negotiating or measuring intimacy on the web. I’m still stuck with this idea of trust. How far can you go? On the web you can say much more and then just delete it again.
JR: Maybe when I think about it now – even when you do skype-fucking you always stay alone. There is a certain way of dissolving a little bit, but it’s very task-oriented. No the web is certainly not made for intimacy.
SB: And still I think a lot of people are looking for intimacy on the web and spend much more time looking for it on the web than in real life.
JR: Yes of course, because it’s in the context of the protection of the screen, this huge membrane that filters everything. So you can never really be touched. Intimacy presupposes a sharing, I would say. When I was talking about dissolving, merging before – I mean on the web there is the idea of merging too. But it’s not happening. It’s very much an as if situation. That’s why we call it virtual.
SB: Do you think intimacy is disappearing? Do you think it is an endangered species?
JB: The more you live in a society of screens, you will communicate by screens. I always say why I like theater is because it’s the only place since the church is empty where we are all together alive. This live togetherness with strangers is something very specific to the performing arts.
We communicate so much by screens, whether it’s a computer, or a television or a telephone or whatever, they all have interfaces. And everyone who was born knows what it is to be taken in the arms of the mother, to have physical contact, to appropriate the world around you, whether it is oxygen or a piece of meat. You are all the time merging. You are appropriating the world and you are contaminating the world with your things. Our words, communication, are a way of infecting each other. I contaminate your mind with my words and you have to try and live with it – which is very difficult of course after what I’ve said. (chuckles)
SB: Have you had a chance to visit my blog? I would be interested to get some feedback from you. I want to go on with this research but also think about ways to put it in a performative frame. I wonder if it should be a lecture demonstration in Reims next week.
JR: What I see on the blog is a little bit this sweet and tender ..... social, nice atmosphere, esoteric thing. But basically the "demarche" about intimacy I like. It’s in all my work. My work is about this.
SB: About finding intimacy?
JR: About trying to be borderless. If you would do some more brain effort ..... ( ).... I think Derrida said a lot about this. You should watch this interview with Derrida. I show him because he is very intimate. This Eva Verdes is also very intimate. It’s naïve, but it’s one to one. And Derrida when he talks about his childhood and his fear about writing, it’s very intimate. I support this. But not in an esoteric way. I’m not interested in doing intimate in a fine, nice world.
SB: Why do you say esoteric?
JR: Because then it becomes a culture. Then it’s like in the screen as if we do intimate. You can create here a subculture of intimacy, of nice people who love each other very much and fuck around. A sixties commune that does “intimate”. And I don’t want to have a retreat behind the walls of PAF because then you go to the private situation of the idea of intimacy when you are in a bed with somebody. You have to look for ways of being intimate at the table. And you have a tendency to be – also the way you speak is quite soft. So intimacy is about being intimate in public, which doesn’t mean that you have to fuck on top of cars in the center of Paris. That is being transgressive. That’s also ok to be sometimes transgressive.
So for me a blog about this ? ( )…. – but a brain work please! I gave some notions in this talk - there is a lot to think about - I twist intimacy completely from private to public. The way Derrida talks in his interview has for me the dignity of intimacy. And I like to combine these two words. It’s nobility. And that is the ability to merge, to dissolve – and not to grasp. We are in a grasping, in a colonizing culture, in an appropriating culture. And not in a sharing exchange culture, which is a much richer culture.
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