Koen's intimacy

I met Koen at the entrance of the zoo today. At the beginning of the month we had a nice talk after the Amsterdam premiere of Keren's Prize Piece. I felt very good then, grateful, receptive, vulnerable in an open, available way. Koen came up to me after the performance in the bar and we talked about Raimund Hoghe, about the process with Keren, about many things. There were things to talk about. Conversation happened to us. I was happy he came to talk to me then. And we agreed to do an intimate walk on one of his days off.

Koen reminded me of Swiss chansonnier Michael von der Heide today. He had a cold. His voice sounded a bit hoarse. I find him endearing and good-looking. He has this sweet, sad boy look sometimes that I love. We passed some zebras. We didn't talk about intimacy at all. Koen is intimacy embodied. He is very sweet and tender. I hope he will be at the next annual meeting in Oporto. I was determined not to channel or manipulate the conversation in any direction whatsoever. It was an intimate walk merely by the fact that we had agreed to meet and go for an intimate walk. We didn't mention the word intimacy as far as I remember. This is what I found out about Koen: He likes Art Deco. He would like to live in Berlin if it wasn't for his boyfriend who lives in Antwerp. He was impressed by the Japanese architecture in Almere. They performed Keren's piece there and the theater and a lot of houses were built in this Japanese style he liked a lot. He has read two books by this quite popular Japanese author who is on a lot of bestseller lists. At least I think it is him. It's an easy read and quite light hearted. He recommends the film Hairspray with John Travolta. He likes light, uplifting books and films lately. This surprised me because I always saw Koen as someone with a tendency towards the melancholic, dark side. But he can have something frivolous too I guess. He talked to me sometimes with a kind of intimacy I didn't know we had established, a kind of confidential old-friend-you-can-talk-and gossip-about-everything intimacy. We stood in the sun in front of the new public library. He asked me how much the library pass was and I didn't remember. We talked about money more than I was comfortable I think. He talked about the Dutch-Flemish culture gap, about little things that annoy him about the Dutch.
He said that he felt very connected to his family at a recent funeral of his uncle. He isn't really looking forward to spending X-mas with his family. But the funeral bonding he appreciated. He likes to cook and when he is in Antwerp he likes to stay at home a lot. His boyfriend Dan likes to go out though. He ordered a toasti and tomato soup at the Star Bikes cafe. Later he met Annette (she was the dramaturge in his last duet) at the Central Station. They wanted to go to the Van Gogh museum. There was an exhibition about Barcelona art. He invited me to join them. But I really liked the music at the cafe. It was lounge/house music. Quite unusual for the cafe. But it was perfect for my mood which was a bit melancholic. I wasn't completely satisfied with the reading on my intimacy thermometer.
Koen insisted on treating me to my Power Chai. I protested weakly and then let him. I didn't have any cash on me anyway. Koen left and I stayed. Maybe I had hoped to spend more time with him, I think I wanted to share more with him about my personal turbulences of the moment. Instead I had stayed rather placid. Had I at least succeeded in being a facilitator? I wonder if he felt intimately connected. Or if he too felt that our encounter had stayed on a superficial level.
If intimacy is about sharing maybe he was satisfied about his part of the sharing. He had shared quite freely. I think he felt comfortable with me. And I have reason to be happy if that's the case.
So what was the cause of my slight disappointment? I think it's the fact that I tend to stay too much in control: I am so nice, pleasant, accommodating sometimes that in the end I realize that I wasn't really voicing any clear opinion, offering any resistance, counterpoint, friction. Everything had run smoothly. It had been a pleasant, uneventful meeting. And they lived happily ever after.

reflections on the research

I am collecting people on this blog, collecting and archiving experiences with people.
Each person is a tool to help me understand better what I am doing.
I am not an academic researcher like Jan. But I am like Jan trying to accommodate intimacy, trying to create conditions for it to flourish. I am facilitating intimacy.

I am doing this because in my family we never talked much about feelings, sexuality, intimate stuff.
I am doing this because I want to overcome shyness. I want to show more emotions in public. I want to share more about myself, show more of myself.
I also want to be an empty vessel to receive others, to give the space to others to express themselves and talk about intimate, subtle things that move them.

I wonder if I really need to set clear parameters. Do people need to know that they are on an intimate walk with me? How much shall I influence the course of the conversation?
Do I need to bring the conversation back to intimacy when it digresses too much?

Intimacy can be so vast and vague. Still birth is on the contrary very specific.
Do I need to have a stronger backbone, put my foot down and be more manipulative to get what I want out of this research?

For the last two weeks I have been very lazy, burned out, depressed. The rehearsal process with Katy for our duet "enter my bubble" was very difficult. Towards the end we got on each others' nerves. We were moody, judgmental, defensive. We pitied ourselves and didn't want to bear the pressure and responsibility that come with such a big production by its very nature.
So I was hiding out in Roberta's studio, didn't go to class, experienced angst, loneliness and a general sense of guilt and blame.

I watched Billy Elliott on DVD and cried throughout the film. I was super proud. Finally I was able to release my tears. My psychologist says that was because the film reflects the needs and longings I experience in my own family situation. I have a deep, unsatisfied need to be respected, loved and supported by my father - to have a meaningful relationship with my father. Maybe my therapist is right. He says that crying always expresses a need, a strong desire or longing.
In Freudian terms (which he thinks are outdated) crying is the release of too much pent-up emotion. Since last summer I had three major crying events. The first one was with my mother. It was triggered by a sense of helplessness and losing control and frustration. The second one was after Rodrigo's intimate walk while watching his video. The third one was with Billy Elliott. So these were moments when I felt very intimate with myself. I was able to express strong needs/desires and in the process experience change.

The other day I was walking with Aitana in Vondelpark. It was cold and sunny and I told her about my coming-out-of-depression adventure with this boy I ended up going home with after de Truut. I am very glad to have Aitana in my life because she confronts me with my patterns and my weaknesses. And she challenges me to explore more options, to follow my desire and to be more playful. I didn't want to kiss this boy because I was worrying about a funny taste in my mouth. Aitana could relate to that because she also worries about funny tastes in her mouth. She said that kissing for her is one of the most intimate acts in sex. That walk with Aitana was an intimate walk as well even though we didn't frame it as such. I remember I felt a great support and respect from Aitana. I feel she allows and even encourages me to change and become more of myself while totally respecting where I am and who I am.

recent intimacy with Jan on top of loud music

To come out of my winter depression I have started to go out more.

Yesterday I met Jan from Leuven who does research on still births (when a baby is born dead). He studied history before and now is doing his PHD on the phenomenon of still birth. He places ads all over Belgium and then goes to people's homes who volunteer to talk about their experience. He interviews people. He is a good listener. But that evening at the Badhuis party he was talking a lot and I was listening mainly. Looking back I think it's quite special that he told me so much about still birth in this very loud party environment. I was genuinely interested in his research topic. Plus I found him very intelligent and quite attractive. I was feeling pretty good about myself yesterday - outgoing, slightly intoxicated, accommodating.

He has found that the most efficient way of interviewing people is not asking too many questions but just letting them talk. He tells them at the beginning that everything they are willing to share is of interest to him and that they cannot do anything wrong.

I found some similarities between his research on still births and my research on intimacy. Both raise the question of emotions in public. Fifty years ago parents dealt very differently with still births than nowadays. Then it was all about letting go and moving on. A still birth was met with silence. Doctors, midwives and other professionals assisting with the still birth dealt with the situation in a professional, detached way. Today intimacy, the sharing and voicing of emotions are stressed. Fathers are encouraged to hold the dead body close to their own body - a moment of bonding - fathers have yet to become fathers. Skinship. Skin-to-skin intimacy.

I was under the impression and under the influence. Jan had Flemish charm. Later we danced. For an academic he is a very good mover. I liked his structured and well reflected way of communicating with a subtle sense of humor. He has something very grounded and sincere. And I could tell that he loves what he does. He has a passion for it and is reliable and dedicated. Yes, I confess I was checking him out. I allowed myself to sense some underlying sexual tension.

Actually Lea was the reason we met. She likes to play matchmaker and is interested in opening up my vision for potential intimates. Thank you Lea. I enjoyed meeting Jan.
Too bad he is moving back to Leuven in one week where he will finish his research and Phd by September 2009. We left Badhuis together cycling towards Central Station. He lives very central in a small room in the red-light district. We stopped in front of his place for a while talking. I thought about the possibility of physical intimacy with him. I felt we were both too modest and nice. Yes I think he is a genuinely nice person. And I was afraid of involving him in my messed-up and complicated sex life. He gave me his Belgian number and talked about Stuk in Leuven and that I should apply for a residency there. We gave a good-night kiss. I said wel te rusten. And he said slaap wel in Flemish.

reflections on the research

I apologize for neglecting and postponing reports of intimate walks in the near and distant past. Sometimes I don’t find the time to immediately sit down after an intimate walk and report on the intimacy experienced. There are still some walks back in France that haven’t been reported yet. I feel guilty for having put these blog entries off for such a long time. For sure I don’t remember a lot of intimate details about these walks back in September. It’s a shame and a pity! And I find it a lack of respect for the people involved.
I realize that in most blog entries I have given a lot of attention to detail. They almost seem like chronological and psychological descriptions of a specific experience from A to Z. I am aware that I write very much from a subjective point of view. Therefore I always thought that by writing about my experience and my impressions I expose above all my own intimacy – and not so much the intimacy of the other. I think I’m quite ok with that.
But now I have started to question the value of my format. Why do I try to recount so meticulously the succession of events in each walk? Is the sense of duty to give a detailed and accurate report overshadowing the real search for intimacy?
I still believe that this project is about negotiating and finding intimacy. And this is different with each person. With some people I find more of an emotional connection, others stimulate me intellectually, and still others touch me by the shyness they provoke in me or by their own shyness. Yes I think intimacy has a lot to do with shyness for me. Is it ultimately about overcoming shyness? Could be.

I feel I need to change the way I write about these walks. Sometimes it is not even during the walk itself that intimacy happens, but in the café after the walk or the day after while watching a video. I think I want to focus more on the essence of what intimacy can be with each person. Otherwise it is mere memory work or I lose myself in the psychological analysis.

intimate walk with Roger

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.

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.

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.