Soliloquy with
New Recording 23.m4a
June 2022
Speaker 2: Hey, my name is Tony, and I am no chicken at the moment. It's my signal.
Speaker 1: It feels like a Greek tragedy that is going on for too long. I almost feel like a spectator of my own drama. Days go by without any kind of feeling to it. Obviously I have lots of feelings, but there is just nothing progressing. To an extent that I just want something radical to happen, a disruption.
I guess I haven't figured out how to deal with it myself, because for the longest time, I hoped that I could change my surroundings towards an understanding. But my surroundings don't change. So now the question is, what am I going to do with it? And part of me is: okay, everything has to burn. I mean, metaphorically. Maybe let it all fall apart. I don't know how to hold it together anymore.
So either changing myself or risking everything. But I don't have a strategy for either of them, which has turned me to that passive protagonist, watching my own Greek drama. So I'm stuck.
It doesn't lead to anything. I mean, we have figured out that the hero isn't coming around the corner. And if the hero isn't coming around the corner to pick me up, well, then what am I passive for?
That's the dilemma because I haven't figured out in which direction I can be active. Is it the activeness towards me changing myself in order to survive, or is it me letting everything actively go to shits because there's nothing to lose? The theory of the Phoenix rising from the ashes… if it's not working like that and it's not working the other way too, then it has to be burned down and out of the ashes something new can arise. Which is connected to a lot of risk and a lot of not knowing and the unknown obviously is the scary part.
When I was in Berlin, we were in the park with my sister and my niece and lots of people around on a hot summer day. And there is a body of water and obviously all the kids are jumping into that water at some point and everything gets wet, diapers are hanging low now. So at that point, all these kids are naked. And I was watching my sister changing my niece and the way it was so cute, the way my niece stood there butt naked among so many people in the park - like the most beautiful human being on earth. And she stood there and she's just herself being naked, being dressed doesn't matter. She has no concept of shame. She has no concept of sexuality. And I looked at her and I thought, it's so sad that we lose that growing up.
That little piece of freedom she embodied. A basic commonality we all share as human beings, having a body, but having a body without connotation. Just the body, the manifestation of matter. And that pureness of that moment, I really thought, we have lost so much in this society that this is only possible as a child, because for some reason it changes.
But also because it wasn't just her feeling so perfectly fine, but also because everyone around her was perfectly fine with it as well. Because there she was butt naked, over there was another child butt naked, and another…. Not because everyone was nudist, but because things get wet, get dirty, you have to change and you're not hiding away.
And it's so weird that when we're adults we lose the pureness of our bodily manifestation.
It’s curious to me, how we create these spaces where it's fine and where it's not fine - the age of appropriateness. Because on the other hand, I go to the gym and I'm in the changing room. Guess what we all do? Getting butt naked and no one cares because it is a defined space. And obviously we are all women. So, the male gaze is not there, which makes it always a bit easier. But still we are strangers getting naked in the changing room, having all different bodies. And yet that doesn't matter. Isn't it crazy that we need these spaces to do that?
There is that movie I watched a long time ago and loved it: Leon - The Professional with Jean Reno and a young Natalie Portman. And I completely identified with it. It's essentially about this young girl and he who is this killer living in the same apartment block. And there is this typical male scene; him cleaning his gun in a white rib shirt or so - I mean, it’s the 90s. And then the girl who lives down the hallway and her household is abusive. So she's always out of that apartment, roaming around. And she's very fascinated about this dark human. And he appears rough at first and stays away from her. But then a friendship starts to form and they start to understand how they need each other because they are very lonely and lost in their own way. And obviously it's Hollywood so although he is a killer, he has morals and he really hates violence against children.
It was a movie I used to love because of those oddities coming together and obviously I saw myself in the kid who is getting into a world of danger, but also of excitement and of adventure. And you can do whatever you want because you don't have to care about all these social boundaries that are set. And you can make your own home, break away from what is bad and instead see the world and make your own destiny. Long story short… she is basically leaving the toxic household and guess what? All she takes is a pot plant, that's all. It's the thing that reminds you of home or marks a new home.