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March 8, 2023
Yesterday at 14:34 my first Saturn Return ended.
Now I am flying over London towards New York.
Back home in the evening I was packing. I felt a bit stressed and moody. I couldn’t sleep much because of the consistent cough I’ve been having the past months.
Before I had to leave, my carry on luggage’s zipper exploded. At the airport I got a new one.
15:29
Flying above somewhere close to Nova Scotia. We’ll fly above Boston + Connecticut too, before landing on Newark.
So strange to see Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Washington so close on the map.
People began taking walks in the aisles. I feel restless too.
I am still not able to comprehend why and how I suddenly ended up in the USA.
March 10, 2023 - NYC
04:13
Brooklyn, NYC. 600 Flatbush Avenue.
The Q. Rise. Flaming Saddle. Industry.
Do I forget to breathe? At night, this cough.
At the club a sweet transwoman asking for my hug over and over again. I give my biggest hug each time.
Later in the night, I’m tired. Not drunk. But yes, past 2:30 I am tired and I feel the mellow dimness of everything.
I’m falling asleep.
March 11
McNally Jackson bookstore.
Matcha tea. Blue hexagon tiles on the floor with five light beams stretching forward. Brick walls. Doors, staircase painted in The Hague blue. Lined up woodbeams ceiling. Light wood stairs covered with old dusty carpet. Marble table tops. Big cups.
Last night it rained a lot. We’re now in front of the Fulton Market. My emotions are not volatile. Doesn’t matter, I just feel. I go through life and it goes through me.
F. likes milk chocolate with absolutely nothing in it. “I love milk chocolate, I like dark chocolate, but I want nothing in or near my chocolate, I also don’t like things with chocolate taste.” He, on the other hand, likes everything with strawberry flavour, but strawberries themselves taste very sour to him.
March 12
The Johnson’s, 369 Troutman St. NYC
Bronze tiled surface on the counter of the bar where S. works.
Mocktail with pickle juice.
Woke up at 6 am, L. and R. were not back yet from the techno party. I watched a reality show in bed until I fell asleep again.
Had breakfast with mushroom & tomatoes. Applied for funding for my new film. Took a shower & headed out.
Yesterday. Meeting at the Hotel 50 Bowery, after the rooftop terrace of The Crown. I doubted myself, looked for clues. It wasn’t true, I was golden. So this is how you did it, I thought, so this is how it felt. This is how you let go. I watched the New York skyline through the big window. Learned about the newest skyscrapers in the city. It felt good enough, also sad and hollow, fun and normal, extraordinary and affirming. Now that hollowness carries a tint of this.
Anyway. When Americans ask “Hey, how’re you doing?” it’s like just saying “Hello.” In response you can say “How’re you?” back. No need to go like “I’m good, thanks, and you?” S. said: “You don’t have to thank them.”
March 13
600 Flatbush Ave. Brooklyn
Today, after a long time, for the first time, L. wasn't my first thought when I woke up.
March 14
IFC Center, 323 6th Ave, NYC
Waiting for All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, all alone in the theatre room. I want to write this: left L. and R. after the bagels, walking to the cinema under soft snow.
18:24
Stonewall Inn. 53 Christopher St.
Nan Goldin documentary was so moving. I easily relate to brave, courageous acts against power. Nan found herself and chose it. Witnessed the life around her intentionally. “The real memory is not wrapped up in simple endings.”
Button machine, polaroids into pins.
“Her rebellion was the beginning of my own. She showed me the way.” -Nan, before she had to pause the recording overwhelmed by emotion.
D. told me that his brother married a woman 10 years older than him when he was 21. Now he is 23 and they have two children. D. said, in response to my surprise at his brother’s capacity for commitment at that age, “She’s hot, so that helps.”
March 17
Friday. McNally Jackson cafe by the pier.
L. said: “Your silence is your safest space now.”
March 19
M., D., M., M.
I want to make a beautiful film soon.
How can I ever?
Watching The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind for the first time since 2008. I was 16 back then. I clearly remember not being able to comprehend the massive pain of heartbreak; why someone would choose to erase another from their memory in order to move on.
I remember thinking all this melodrama was so trite. Now I cry watching this film.
Anyway. Times feel like they’re about to change completely.
I don’t know anything about anything anymore.
Tea with cinnamon and other spices.
With cream. In big cups.
Dark wood kitchen cabinets, green couch. Corduroy, my pants. Green painted small coffee table. TV not yet a painting imposter.
Bottles of mixes & potions & alcohol.
Rare tarot illustrations.
A wall full of ancestors. A designer’s mannequin. Fluffy pillows. Tall enough bed by the window, fresh air chill.
Privacy of a wall. Inaccessible courtyard.
Eating moustache.
Blue. Princely. Comfy & tasty smell.
Parting gift.
The crown: because it’s a rooftop?
A summary of the skyscraper skyline. A summary of travels.
Back inside. Observing the take off of a plane on the phone. Mentioning dinner plans.
Big windowside bed big curtains transparent with light of chinatown.
My never-ending coughs.
Snap it on if you wish, I’m good like this.
The tiger painting bought as a gift for tax purposes.
The scratcher-
bar was quiet, the bartender was kind.
No minimum for card orders. Glasses of water kindly brought.
Family histories.
Isn’t it such a pity that I don’t live here?
Joe’s pizza. It’s a good one if it’s someone’s pizza.
Umbrellas.
You shouldn’t kiss your train.
You will kiss your train.
And I’ll be off getting annoyed at another wedding.
Pannenkoek with father sadness.
A puzzle. Anarchist.
Anime inspired mundane city sights. Parked cars on a street.
Experiments, masks, bodies, portraits.
Anything that starts with “my” works.
Subtle, simple, elegant.
Bitten fingernails.
Long walk in Amsterdamse Bos.
A hill to slide off of. Dark and rainy and cold. Boiling, refused pasta repeatedly. Pasta, Turkish pasta, pişirme süresi 5 dk.
Overboiled. Searching for the salt.
Eloquent words threaded nicely.
But something is very odd!
So odd that I doubt if I’d ever return.
And I end up returning following days.
Yes, of course I remember.
My lips strawberry moisturized. My eyes milk chocolate.
With absolutely nothing in or around it.
Skin as a soft canvas. With a single wild strawberry, a spider's toxic bite.
A tonic touch for a toxic bite.
Waist for high waisted vintage pants.
“90s ruined everything.”
Cafe with rusty iron windows & doors. Matcha latte not mixed well but tasty.
We go uphill. Sun is back. It’s warm. We talk the Ottoman fez.
The green couch is comfortable.
86th st? Me, 8th Ave or Canal Street.
L. is waiting for Vietnamese.
I miss New York already even before I leave.
An ear and a nipple and shedding a layer in each return.
Another leap further away from L.
My inner portals are not
they are washed
are not carrying your mark anymore
March 29, 2023
On the train from Ams Centraal to Rotterdam Centraal
Lung infection.
Lina told me that lungs are the homes of grief. I’m on antibiotics.
A long walk in Westerpark with Victoria. We are both sweet and heartbroken, finding ourselves doubting. We recognise so much in each other.
August 17, Amsterdam
Summer of farewells.
Woke up early to prepare breakfast for C. and took her to her exam.
Back home read more on Benjamin’s copy of the book.
Went for a swim.
My life is changing so much, so fast.
In Amsterdam now. Sean-Claude cooked Jamaican; brown sauce chicken and sweet potatoes. I finished the book and cried a lot! Sean-Claude and C. hugged me. Wow, I feel so much.
Tomorrow Tobias will bring me the sequel. We will have dinner by the water.
My head hurts, I need to sleep now.
August 19, Amsterdam
I didn’t expect my ghost lover A.F. to come back. I hadn’t felt his presence or talked about him in such a long time. The big heartbreak he gave me 14 years ago! How good those kisses felt, I could never get enough of it.
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