top of page
Grief summer ‘23 / movement songs / fallingwater
Someone gave me this Jules Laforgue poem from an obscure book long out of print:
J’aurai passé ma vie le long des quais
A faillir m’embarquer
Dans de bien funestes histoires,
Tout cela pour l’amour
De mon coeur fou de la gloire d’amour.
Oh, qu’ils sont pittoresques les trains manqués!
Oh, qu’ils sont « A bientôt! à bientôt! »
Les bateaux
Du bout de la jetée!
De la jetée bien charpentée
Contre la mer,
Comme ma chair
Contre l’amour.
This is how I hear it in English:
I will have spent my life along the docks
Almost embarking
Into ominous stories.
All of it for love.
As my heart is dazzled with love's splendour.
Oh, how picturesque missed trains are!
Oh, how "See you soon! See you soon!"
I hope to see you soon
Like the boats
At the very end of the harbour wall
That harbour wall
sturdily built
against the sea,
as my skin is
against love.
July 13, 2023
This summer feels like my early-teen summers at my grandparents’ country house. Time slow, sun moved unusually slowly over my body through the window as I laid reading or drawing or dreaming all day with the radio sound of grandpa’s Turkish classical music. Hours long walks by myself over the highlands. Helping out in the garden & the hazelnut orchards. Reading grandpa’s comics from the 60s. Grandma casting me protective nazar spells because the elders in town see my growth & give me compliments (increased risk of evil-eye). In August seasonal workers would arrive for our orchards. Grandma prepared feasts for them for each day’s dinner, grandpa getting joyful tipsy with them with his homemade wine he’d allow me a glass of. Feeling curious of friends’ summers, not having a phone to check in. Swimming in the rocky Karadeniz & playing on the shore with summer friends. Just doing nothing.
Nothing much cognitive lately. I’m just the body singing movement songs.
August 15, 2023
Watching light fall in different places. No phone summer. Keeping screen time below 1,5 hours since June. Then timely arrivals claim their space. Been wearing a thunder heart on my sleeve, microdose truffles & grief. My secure-attacher privileges meant that I never needed to learn about attachment styles until this year. It goes back to grandpa who brought lilies of the valley to my mom on the day I was born to welcome a May child like himself; before he primed all my desires & deep trust in love. Apollinaris; discovered by Apollo, gathered by Süleyman and shared with me. Then I went on a ferris wheel at the Milkshake festival to see the moon higher. Wearing more blue when I’m on the run with you. I too remember everything.
August 22, 2023
Sun worship. Two hour lake walks. Tree climbing. Fresh August figs. Tomatoes cut into quarters. Basil & olive oil. My quiet life. Calling on a whisper. Calling it a day. Calling it a summer.
October 24, 2023 - Gummersbach & Wirst
:) I'm writing. No internet but lots of mountains.
November 6, 2023 - Paris
Anything we love can be saved.
In Paris with Victoria. We're staying at the home of an Ottoman prince who lives in Mexico. We chat in the kitchen in the evenings, we take walks in streets we didn't know was dangerous, and we dream and dream and dream. She even got a phone call!
November 24, 2023 - London
I arrived at the capital of the Empire feeling historical & continuing annoyance, collective human grief, and a major side-eye, to find it filled with very kind humans. Maybe very kind humans are easier to find than it seems, everywhere. It feels terrible heading back home to the Netherlands following the election results, where 2.3 million humans voted for the party that calls humans like me the problem. Are there very kind humans among them too? I know there are. What are their reasons for their votes? In what way do they feel unheard? What creates and sustains a reactionary movement? Why are we stuck in a moment of a massive lack of imagination for so long? How do we believe that we can make it together, tending to each other’s pain? How do we live together?
I feel very sad going back home. I’ll feel it all.
bottom of page