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2022
February 2022 - Rotterdam
Heading to St.Paul-de-Vence soon.
To Nice Cote d’Azur Airport, then Bus 400 from the stop Aeroport Promenade, 10-15 min walk from the terminal.
Stop: Village St.Paul-de-Vence. 9 Place de la Grande Fontaine.
My hosts are Florence and Jean-Louis. Closest supermarket is at the entrance of Vence, 5 km up the road. But Le Fromager de St.Paul and Epicerie des artistes have fresh bread, ham & cheese, homemade food. I might visit Cagnes-sur-Mer, Èze, Monaco, Vence, and perhaps even Cannes.
I will light a candle.
James Baldwin & St.Paul-de-Vence
After the assassination of MLK Jr. in 1968, Baldwin retreated here.
Friends who visited are: Nina Simone, Miles Davis, Stevie Wonder, Lucien Happersperger (Baldwin’s lover, died in 2010), Josephine Baker, Marlon Brando, Ray Charles, Angela Davis.
Baldwin met Lucien in 1949, he was 25 and Lucien was 17.
Baldwin has been to Istanbul, Ankara, and Bodrum too. Harlem, Greenwhich Village, Paris.
Baldwin’s Turkish decade enabled him to re-imagine himself as a Black queer writer and to revise his relation to the US identity and racial politics.
Owner of the local St.Paul-de-Vence restaurant and inn, La Colombe d’Or, Madame Pitou Roux has memories with Baldwin.
Chez Baldwin is not protected. Its grounds were turned into “Le Jardin des Arts” luxury residences.
Gradual erasure of this domestic space, reading of the house as a transnational space.
It is also in that house he wrote his “Open Letter to My Sister, Angela Y. Davis” in November 1970.
What will I do?
Stay curious, vulnerable, intuitive; open to wonder and possibilities.
Consider what I settled in/for/with for the last 6 years to achieve certain goals. Now that I secured some, what is the next step?
Cultivate a quiet ear, a sense to better perceive the most nurturing, exciting new movement I can lean into.
To compost all that happened in the past 29 years.
Fill up with love, aliveness.
I want to see the night sky full of stars!!
February 22, 2022 - Saint-Paul-de-Vence
It’s beautiful here.
The bus ride from Nice airport was easy and nice. I arrived at the village in an orange sunset haze. Florence and I ran into each other and she guided me a bit, showed me around. I met her husband, beautiful old man, very handsome with bright cunning eyes. I’m staying in the room “La Fontaine”. Ironed my shirts and pants, had Thai food at a restaurant Florence recommended. Then I walked around the exterior walls of the city, evening time, it was almost only me in the streets.
Things I want to do tomorrow:
-Go see what remains of Baldwin’s house.
-Go to the boulangerie on 808 Route de la Colle to get croissant or brioche.
-See the cemetery.
February 24
I was sitting on a stone bench, and was looking over the stone walls of the village, and was thinking: I’m 29, here in this village, an artist on a quest. I’m here alone, in direct communication with myself, looking over the hills, walking thousands of steps. Life is still soft and sweet to me. I feel cared for. This life experience, I sometimes forget all that happened and who I am. Honestly, I mostly forget who I am. I don’t carry a single sword.
I would like to retain a more present sense of who I am, and I think this can happen in the absence of fear.
February 25
I’m feeling pain, grief, heartache. Me and my objects of affection is a complicated affair.
I'm so romantic.
Anyway. I’m cold now and need to pee.
19:37
I will eat soon. Writing helped. Sunset also. And taking walks in this beautiful village, occasionally resting at my room above the fountain. Afternoon naps. Maybe tomorrow Nice. But Sunday unless something better comes up, St.Paul and Monday too.
February 26
Retrouver le solei / Qui nous manque / Qui va bruler toutes nos peines
Yesterday’s anxiety dissolved into a beautiful day in Nice. Sun left my face red. I met Kiri, we got some food and then ice-cream in the old town. We then climbed on a hilltop and watched the city next to waterfalls. The water of Nice is beautiful blue, we dipped our feet.
I’m having dinner at Le Tilleul now, people are so kind to me. I’m sitting outside.
So today the sun wrapped me up and gave me the warmth I needed and eased the pain.
I want to come back here sometime soon, already, even before I left. I want to make a film here.
I walk on the city walls and look over the view and I watch the sunset and my own presence to me is soft and kind and listening and observing and understanding. Collaborating. It is loving. My attraction with myself has always been strong.
February 28
I watched the sunrise. Watched almost all of its sets this week. This time I went on the walls to welcome it in the morning. It was cold. After seeing it orange and red fiercely shining, I headed back to my room and slept a bit more. Not a deep one, I was half awake but it was restful. Around 10 am went for breakfast, then back to respond to emails and continue my research on Baldwin’s time here. Also on Matisse's relationship to this place, and how his monument relates to Baldwin's destroyed home, too.
I visited the grave of Alizé's grandfather in the village cemetery.
I’m reading Undrowned.
March 1, 2022
On my first day here, Florence showed me the fountain, and she didn’t know why the water was not running.
This morning the fountain flow was back.
Grief appeared half way. Sun burned my pain. Sunset was a balm.
I said some au revoirs in St.Paul-de-Vence.
A film I imagine:
He arrives in St.Paul-de-Vence.
What’s in the luggage?
And what do the memories contain?
Which characters are in the mix? What is he there for? What will that place bring him? What does he bring with himself? What’s his drama?
The first couple days are sunny and optimistic. He takes walks, reads about Baldwin’s time there, makes drawings, photos, watches people play boulee. Writes in journal. Writes to a friend. Has contact that enhances his mood. The freshness of the place helps him be present and enjoy that time. He also makes a new friend at those moments.
Something starts to set in.
Pensive/contemplative character.
Feel the sun, a sunny character. But sun burns. The longing is the sun, to be out there under the sun.
What about the lunar character? Watching films late at night. Reading & writing quietly.
What’s so attractive about someone reading?
Sun allows him access to his emotions. Brings his body back to life. When the sun is gone, he feels the collective anxiety of the earthlings. Patience, it will come back, it always has!
What comes out when you are finally by yourself somewhere you've never been before?
His time figuring out the maps, locations, the bus.
Is darkness abundance?
He goes through FEAR! False evidence appearing real.
So then poems come up.
March 2, 2022
St.Paul-de-Vence reopened my heart and softened my chest. Filled my body with the thrill of possibilities when I let myself move. Reestablished my touch with layers and layers of archives and stories overlapping and piling up and interacting with each other.
It shook something in me. My heart became more tender.
It feels like a change that will ripple in ways I can't even imagine at the moment.
I packed up my stuff, took off the sheets for cleaning, said goodbye to the fountain from my window, said goodbye to Florence and Jean-Louis.
Goodbye Jimmy, goodbye Matisse, goodbye oranges in the trees and the sunlight pouring through.
2023
Victoria McKenzie & Mayıs Rukel - Portrait by Dora Lionstone
May 15, 2023
On my way to St.Paul-de-Vence with Victoria. In May this time. One day after the Turkish elections. 1 year 3 months after the grief of J. 4 months into the grief of L.
This time going there to film. It will be exciting to be in that village again.
Grief transformed me. Saturn return is over. Victoria told me that the upcoming 30 years I will be supported by Venus, Mars, and the Sun.
I am so lucky, I always receive such rare things!
May 16, 2023
Woke up to a message from L.
I was surprised. Don’t know how to respond yet. Don’t want it to occupy a lot of space in my head. I need to focus on filming these days.
22:00
At Le Tilleul. Being & filming with Victoria is wonderful. I’m proud of the work we do together. We are giving it our best.
I am different kind of alive now.
I responded to L. kindly.
May 18, 2023
We've been filming with a beautiful rhythm, and I feel we really manage to capture something special. I adore Victoria, our communication works with so much care and sweetness. We share more and more with each other about our lives, joys, struggles. As she becomes Noa, she remains herself too, and becomes me, and I become her, and I remember how it was being Noa.
L. and I spoke a bit more. He asked me what the film is about. It's about us. But it's also about something bigger than both of us. It's about love, grief, loss, archive. Anyway. I said something like "It's kind of a story about two lovers. And also about James Baldwin's archive, who lived here the last 16 years of his life."
Jill was so sweet. She gave us banana cake and organic white wine while sharing her stories. We stayed long and I had way too much wine. We couldn't really film today, but that was totally okay.
Friday more time with Jill again!
May 19, 2023
After witnessing what Jill protects, and how she protects it, Victoria and I felt clear that this cannot be a process of extraction.
This archive is held by love. It deserves reciprocity, thoughtfulness, care.
So the images will display Baldwin's material, but the audio will tell the story of Jill, and how it is through love that she got to hold these precious objects belonging to Baldwin. How her love with David Baldwin is an intrinsic part, a container, an extension of this archive. And so are the Turkish man and Jamaican woman that came out of the blue one day and wanted to tell its story.
L. has been very kind in our messages, and I thougth I was fine with it too, until he sent me a selfie.
I think he just tried to kindly reciprocate the photos I sent him the past days. But something about receiving one from him stirred anxiety in me.
I don't know. Maybe it was seeing him with the longest hair I've ever seen on him, which looked beautiful, and running my fingers through them is no longer an option. His face, eyes, his fingers giving the peace sign. Everything. Seeing his handsome face gave me the bittersweet feeling of seeing the spark of a star that is long-gone, but its light still reaches the planet earth, albeit inevitably fading. His work uniform gave me a flashback of seeing him in my beige sweater; my memory can be cruel like that. And I always loved exchanging photos with him, so why did I get nauseaus this time? Maybe because his new lover was on his profile photo, and exchanging pics felt somewhat wrong, when we don't really know where we stand with each other. Are we even friends?
One moment I remember how he came bearing Frisian gifts the first time we met, and I feel my entire heart burst into flames. Next moment I remember the horror of reading: “I’m not very keen on sharing those details with you.” Deadpan. Dismissive. Lethal.
When I said Have fun with him, he said thanks.
How can I sort all of this out?
So with a heavy feeling I felt the need to kindly close our conversation.
Sweet man, true gentleman, a star love of my life. Reacting coldly to you is not natural to me. And of course I did many things I regret; and you truly hurt me too.
A truth among all of that is, if you spent a single day without thinking of me the past few months, then we must be two very different kinds of people.
May 20, 2023
It's surreal that thanks to the permission of Georges Matisse, we were able to film inside Chapelle du Rosaire, under the strict but sweet, watchful eyes of Sister Bernadette.
When I first visited the chapel and saw how the sunlight fell on my body through the stained glass, I became obsessed with it. I wanted to capture it, but filming and photography is strictly forbidden inside the chapel and it's attentively enforced.
Being able to film inside today and to capture that colourful light falling onto our bodies satisfied some deep desire within me.
I've been reading Audre Lorde's poems again. One particular poem is calling for me, it's called Movement Song. I remember reading it the first time many years ago.
I think it's the name of our film too.
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