brocante à Arlon…

azur skies.

it’s exceptionally warm for this time of year in the land of lux. i sit outside, with the dogs and some flies and some birds. all day i sit and try to work. i manage from time to time. in between, my spirit flies away and wonders what you’re up to. emily dickinson said it beautifully. i don’t know whether this is what i mean, but it goes well with the sky and the breeze and the day.

Love is anterior to life,
  Posterior to death,
Initial of creation, and
  The exponent of breath.

luxuryburg.

unfortunately i did not have a camera on me when i walked past this pharmacy yesterday in the centre of our fairytale capital. it is on the ‘place d’armes’, and it had two huge posters in its two windows.

take a guess which ‘medication’ they were advertising?

one had a huge syringe with a crooked needle. botox your wrinkles and your worries and your age away.

the other one was the picture of a guy’s balding head- advertising some anti-balding product.

it was, i reckon, an apt metonymy for the state of this country. i hear lots of stories about people going absolutely mental with too much ambitions in the area of health/youth/beauty – which somehow get interlocked in strange and upsetting ways.

to name but a few things in at least one person: sunbeds every day, aesthetic surgery, bonzais that cost around 2000, jeans that cost over 400 euros, and let me run around in circles to go to the sports event, scheduled at 7.30 just after i have been to my psychiatrist and my other specialist doctors to get my weekly chemical cocktail. itching skin and the pain. the pain. the pain. the pressure. the insomnia. oh and in the space of two hours three ‘joking’ comments on suicide wish.

f”@*% me – what is this? mais j’hallucine ou quoi?

i was really taken aback by the stuff i was told.

depression as a socio-cultural phenomenon. the hyper-inflated individual extremely conscious and anxious and empty and busy and pressured.

six days.

i felt as if caught in a time warp, boards of canada blaring in my ears a music of anti-emotion and numbness. the feeling of inadequacy, restlessness and fixity resurfaced. i was faced, yet again, with aspects of my research that i do not master or understand and that make me feel as if the whole project is redundant and impossible to finish. they flood my being with anxiety that now leaves its cohabitation with me rarely.

last night, i reconsidered a lot of opinion-matters and realised how much being opinionated can get in the way of true communication/communion. we got to the stage i was so tired i talked freely and was surprised at what i was saying. you astounded me, and i felt grateful to be able to spend time with friends. i wish that i will never get too caught up in professional discourses that are, often, alas, one-sided.

i’m going home in six days, and i cannot wait to leave, to hopefully roam and think quietly and come back and get on with writing. strangely, i feel i have absorbed some of the stories told to me in romania about the waiting for indefinite time to arrive and it never does.

my thoughts stray to the south, again.

before going out…

this week she decided to start dealing with some issues, show less restraint and be a little bit prouder of her beautiful self. no earthquake-like event at the origin of this. while she felt, as usual, affected by most people, and felt them as if they were part of her self, it had been pointed out to her that she needed to differentiate between other people’s feelings and her own. thanks to the friend who mentioned this in passing and somehow, in his customary matter-of-fact insight, hit the bull’s eye. that was exactly it. she knew it would always be hard to know the exact motivations for why we do things, but she was going to keep that in mind.

she had been writing so much this week that suddenly she felt exhausted from the work. her eyes felt old and her bouncy humour had suddenly been shed. the social persona that she had been all day, surrounded by friends and colleagues, gave way to a quieter being, one that did not feel she had to keep the jokes coming to gloss over the frailties she felt in other people and herself.

then she left the house, went for a walk.

zu arel op der knippchen…

do sin di lamae frou, si drénke gäer eng drëppchen, eng drénkt däer aner zou….

man things have certainly changed around my neck o’ the woods since i last went to this city. i would like to make it my own sometime. maybe when i’m 70. it is just across the border from where i grew up. admittedly this picture gives a bit of a grey impression of it. it has a really cool cathedral and several interesting spots i will show you sometime. we could be really adventurous and go to knopes….

to quote an AWOL anthro-friend that some of you may recognise ‘borders, man, it’s the next big thing!’.

lol. i need to get a crazy pet too. has mammoth resurrection been put into practice yet? i was thinking of an alligator but they’re not particularly woolly and cuddly… and you cannot hang enough stuff on their tusks.

brought to you by… bethanny and stumbled across during a moment of recess….

Co-Existence.

This one has been on my mind for a long time, and I wish I had the time to write about it properly. 

Recently, the Lux parliament managed to pass the law on the co-existence of GM (genetically-modified) crops with normal/organic crops. The law project went through a lot of modifications and is the outcome of a real odyssey through various committees.

It is a fine law, but it is based on wrong premises, that soon enough, the whole of the EU’s member states will have accepted. Co-existence is the new status quo, even though there has been very little independent scientific research done (I am choosing those words carefully), and it has not been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt whether genetic modifications are harmless in plants. If you want more information on this, do email me, but I do not have the time right now to synthesise all the material I have on the matter. I do not believe that there can be a meaningful co-existence of both types of crops, non-GM and GM in a country like Luxembourg, with parcels the size of 1-5 ha. How is it going to work? I was also worried because there was virtually no reaction in the media or from an often-reactive public. While more or less a year earlier, some NGOs were leading a campaign to keep Luxembourg free of GMOs that was part of an international European campaign. It included an initiative for producers to commit themselves to not planting GM plants, and if there was a critical mass on the local level organisation, there could not be planted any other GM plants either, because of the co-existence rules about distance (that may or may not relate to realistic levels of pollution possibility). So far only some twenty Gemengen have passed this motion, and it seems to not matter to people, although I have seen figures of the majority of people in Lux being opposed to GMOs. You will say: but you can choose not to eat it, because of the labelling imperative. I do not think so, because animal products resulting from GM feed do not need to be labelled, and there has been no conclusive research on the long-term residual effects of these types of molecules on human and animal organisms. ‘Long-term’ scientific research is getting rarer, given changing funding structures.

‘Independent’ scientific research is going out of the window with instances of sponsorship, that, despite claims to the contrary, must leave a bias of some kind, especially if there are commercial applications tightly involved. In the best case scenario, as in a somewhat parallel case of petrol companies, they could officially change their research strategy, but I haven’t seen the likes of Pioneer HiBreed and so forth opting for this. I blame, among other things, lack of public pressure. At least global warming, for all the polemics involved, has got a wide public visibility. Another reason is that food issues are not quite as straightforward as petrol consumption, and we rely on different mechanisms of dependence here. 

Finally, I think that the concept of ‘co-existence’ has become so popular in political rhetoric and, to some degree, convincing, because it runs with the current po-mo zeitgeist of difference that feeds into discourses of multiculturalism and so forth. Nevertheless, I have yet to see the piece of research that will allay my doubts.

Wéi d’Leit schwetzen.

D’Madamm A.R. ass lues a lues erwächt. D’Sonn huet an d’Kummer era geluusst, well d’Ridoen nit ganz zougezunn waren. Et war nach fréi an d’Loft war kal, an huet geschingt mi zéi ze sin wi soss. Firun der Dir huet de Motor vum Mëllechmann sengem ale Camion gejéimert. Dat huet der Madamm awer keng Iddi vun Zäit gin. Hier Welt war nit mi sou gefëllt wi soss. D’Kanner wait fort, seet d’Madamm Rauchs. Mee ët geet hinne jo gudd, wat solle mer kloen? Dat seet si der aler Meyersen, di um Eck wunnt. Der Madamm Rauchs hiere Mann ass och scho laang dout.

Mee dat vergësst d’Mamm heinsdo, seet de Bouf, a kraatzt sech kuerz iwwer d’Hand. De Bouf ass Contabel, huet elo zu Miersch gebaut an hie versteet séch gudd matt senger Fra. Hatt ass eent aus der Stad. Ee léift Meedchen, soen se.  

D’Nopisch hat och scho gemengt, d’Anna giff nit mit sou gudd ausgesin, heinsdo komësch richen an och alt mat engem Schietich an d’Duerf goen. Do misst dach een sech drëm këmmeren. Wiem seng Mamm ass ët dann?

Dat seet d’Nopisch awer nit de Kanner. Weess de Gritti, seet d’Nopisch, du kenns d’Anna jo scho laang. Et ass gefaang matt sengen Gespenster vu fréier.

Wou hatt hierkënnt, dat huet ët vergiess, giff ee bal mengen. Jo, jo, sou ass dat. Et ass eng Famill wou och vill ënnert den Tapis gekiert gin ass. Da loosse mer mol Dräi grood sin, well, wa mer éierlich sin, dann ass jo keng Famill ouni hier Geheimnisser, ouni hier däischter Decisiounen an Getuschels. Mee d’Anna, wat ass ët erof komm. Den Alter ass näischt schéins. An.. Themawiessel op eng aner Fra aus der Noperschaft. Oder den ale Soff vum Bierg. Do mengs de jo… 

D’Meedchen weess ët jo och nit. Hatt mengt dat elei: matt mengen eegene Kanner hun ech jo schon genuch um Bockel. Hei muss deen een an de Piano, deen aneren op den Football, dann Hausaufgaben, an hei an do. Et ass ëmmer eppes anischt.

 A wann mer dohinner hin, mecht si eis stëll Virwërf. Ech verdroen dat nit. Ech verléieren do enker méng Nerven. Si ass jo wuel eleng, säit de Papp gestuerwen ass, mee si kinnt jo eppes soen. Ech hun hier schon zweemol proposéiert si kinnt bei eis kommen. Mir hu jo Plaatz. Mee ech hale mech awer nit drun wi de Geck un de Bengel. Si fenkt och un Saachen duercherneen ze geheien, besonnisch bei de praktesche Saachen hun ech säit ongeféier engem Mount en Ennerscheed gemierkt. Si geet och nit mi gäer bei de Coiffeur. Et fällt hier alles schwéier. Dann hëllt se nees hier Medikamenter nit. Wat soll ech dann do maan? 

D’Madamm weess all di Saachen do, mee si ka sech just nit mi genee drun erënneren. Si fillt di Saachen well si vläicht och esou war, wou et hier nach besser gaang ass. Wi gudd dass een sech nit d’ganzt Liewen bewosst ass, wivill een matt sou Wierder futti mecht.

Wi einfach ët sech dach lieft esou. Ee Moment kennt e weinich Roserei an hier op, mee si ass ze midd. D’Liewen ass ze laang. D’Madamm dréint sech nach eng Kéier am Bett rondrem, an een Vers vun der Maus Kätti geet hier duerch de Kapp. “Wéi schéin, denkt si, ass d’Liewen dach, wéi gudd ass et op der Welt…” Mir hätten all kinnte méi Effort’e maan, mee ët ass emmer einfach dat sou aus dem Kontext ze soen.  D’Madamm ëntschléift. D’Klacke lauden, ët gët Zäit. Nee, Jhang, et ass nit d’Heizung di ech do heieren. Ech wäert dach nach wuel tëscht dem Kaméidi vun der Heizung an dem Gelauds vun de Klacken ënnerscheede kënnen.  

Si wousst ët jo schon ëmmer.

Petites nocturnes Katystrophiques et Kathyrsis du deuxième degree

 

Après minuit, les rafales qui jusqu’alors avaient bruyamment secoué les volets commencèrent à pénétrer les murs. Si jamais je bâtis une maison, elle aura une isolation anti-années soixante-dix. Je tourne en rond, mon coeur effréné à accompagner des pensées en demi-lune qui ne laissent pas de place au sommeil. Il pleut des angoisses de nuit. Je les suis, tout en essayant de réchauffer une main qui s’est égarée hors du duvet. J’ai le sentiment qu’il existe une obligation de les suivre, pour mieux les comprendre, mais je ne les maîtrise pas. Le chien masqué volant, que je dessinai sur les bancs plastifiés-frustrés d’un passé lointain de lycée, est de retour. Mais qu’est-ce qu’il fout là, ce n’est pas sa place, le présent ? Va-t-en ! Il porte dans sa gueule des souvenirs ossifiés, pénibles. 

Je n’ai plus écrit depuis une semaine au moins. Le Luxembourg n’est pas un empêcheur de penser en rond, semble-t-il. Au moins momentanément, en ce qui concerne ma situation. Il me paraît que j’ai bougé tout le temps, sans atteindre un but quelconque. Encore Sisyphe ? Qu’il s’en aille, lui aussi ! Vous me direz, mais c’est cela les vacances, aurais-tu oublié? Sans oublier que je suis stationnaire sur les lieux de mémoire d’enfance et d’amitiés retrouvées, mais non au bureau. J’ai beau fréquenter la bibliothèque, je lis deux pages de l’ »Homme économique » et puis je m’envole vers les senteurs de bois mouillé, vers le toucher de cendres dans une boîte en aluminium. Mon travail ne se développe guère ici, tel un ovule congelé, il semble attendre des conditions de milieu ambiant moins limitantes. Comme toujours, je donne trop d’importance au présent, disant que le travail académique ne me manque pas, l’écriture ne me manque pas, je vis bien comme cela. Avec beaucoup de patience, mes parents me rappellent que ce n’est qu’un moment de repos, et que déjà, je deviens nerveuse, guettant l’horizon pour des activités stabilisantes.

C’était pourtant si évident. Si je n’écris pas, je ne dors pas. Si je n’écris pas, je vis moins bien.

Néanmoins, je considère investir moins d’énergie dans ces pages car 2008 s’annonce – par rapport à l’année passée – comme une année moins adaptée à des éclatements genre post intitulé « poverty encountered on my doorstep today». Au Luxembourg, j’ai « atterri » avec l’enthousiasme d’avoir pu partir d’un village qui avait commencé à me peser sur le moral, mais j’ai mal apprécié que je n’étais qu’en « transit ». Par conséquent, j’ai envisagé trop de projets pour une situation particulière, passagère et mal définie. La motivation aveugle du lutteur ressurgit. Je continuerai probablement d’écrire « à côté » (ces habitudes-traditions structurées qui finissent par devenir structurantes), mais il me faut retrouver la concentration, le bien-être physique, le milieu de l’université et ses centaines de petites rancoeurs. Il faut bien terminer la thèse et commencer à admettre que, bien que le terrain soit terminé, le vrai travail d’analyse ne fait que commencer.

Encore un écho du lycée : le mouvement circulaire uniforme du satellite, qui présente une accélération constante, et qui donc est centré, concentré, tout en progressant. Quand je serai grande, je veux être un satellite « visible » (comme dit le système de navigation). Quand je serai grande, je voudrais être heureuse, savoir dessiner un peu (comme dit Renaud)…  

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[photo : Casa Luxembourg, Sibiu/Hermannstadt]

#1

i’m now somewhere in the middle, on my right is the bosphorus and the danube, on my left the thames and the dee.

replay: even though it feels like i am in between in limbo, the truth is that this has been the centre of my universe. most of my life has revolved around this village. mid-january finds me with his uncharacteristic warm fingers. shaken by what almost feels like a föhn, i know i am just passing through. i enjoy every minute, and i savour mum’s meals and talks and unserious chess games with the men of the house, but i only unpacked my bag after being reminded that it could not just rest there, disorderly.

tonight, just for a moment, i am a woman without a past and without a future. then it all comes flooding back. you can never really leave your village, you need to take it with you.

[picture: rindschleiden]