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| 'This city, as big as it is, its streets as wide as they are, swallows me ...' |
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| Photo by Merrill Findlay: Elizabeth Street, Melbourne, 6 July, 2003. |
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Redreaming the plain is proud to publish Mammad Aidani’s poetic monologue, A Few Steps ... Not Here ... Not There ..., to introduce The Homeland Project, our unfunded community initiative to create space for writers who've been displaced; for those who've left one homeland to seek another, and for whom English is a second, third, or even fourth language. Because there are many thousands of people who've experienced displacement on Victoria's basalt plain whose stories remain untold.
A Few Steps ... Not Here ... Not There ... was written in 1995 and first performed at La Mama Theatre, Melbourne, in 1997. The version published here was staged in North Melbourne’s Artspace in September 2002, and directed by Lloyd Jones, with actor Peter Finley playing the nameless speaker struggling to understand the city he now finds himself in, and to be understood himself. ‘Look, I haven’t learned the grammar yet,’ he explains. ‘I just let sentences out.’ And sometimes his words are unsettling, even ungrammatical.
MY GRAMMAR
But the trees are blossoming again. This city, as big as it is, its streets as wide as they are, swallows me, within its mouth and then somehow in the middle of all these events I think of fragmented language, and I see a fragile body walking with dishevelled hair with something on the body skeleton. For me it doesn't mean that I have to have the line of the story, the feelings come and stay there and the language forms itself so I could recite what is in it? Yes, what is in it? Across the red lights, even the green lights, I don't really care, but I have to admit the buildings are changing in this city, even my spelling is better, my grammar, my grammar, don't worry about it.
The city is busy, the expensive cars on Chapel Street, drivers so indifferently thinking that they are the only people on the earth who could do it. I am curious to find out what they do really think of the other behind them, or the one ahead of them, I don't want to even think about what's going on beyond this city, beyond this street, beyond this suburb, yeah, the curiosity of humanity is enormous. The rain is going to come down, the city is beautiful when it's raining. I am very surprised that I have recently started to use the word beautiful about this city.
It is interesting. When I pass the bridges of this city somehow a reflection of other places comes to my mind, or I should say, many places; I could even imagine the Seine, some part even reminds me of Montmartre, Montparnasse, or even the city in which I grew and spent my childhood in. Driving along the road in this city you see all the European trees and you wonder what happened to those trees that belonged here. I should not be selfish, but I have to here.
I love these trees. They are a reflection of my symbolic life, or lives, that I had somewhere else; lives, not different lives. Many people wanted to take my life but I have still have one left.
So you have got your own wisdom. You read, you observe, you communicate, and you come back to yourself again. Whatever you do is to make yourself.
There are all these signs which reflect our individualities and that's what we are all about. So you are different and you say ‘viva la differance’. You see the man who lost his mind collecting the garbage in his old plastic bags, wild with his sunglasses, wandering around his territory, and the dog guiding him where to go and you wonder what kind of signs does that give you.
You run away from conditions so you write, so you talk. They force you to learn the grammars and they force you to learn their own words and you become nothing, a machine uttering the same words again and again.
They force you to forget about your painful experiences and you wander around the city, whichever city that may be. They come to me now in this city; I can see the Cathedral, the city is approaching me, I approach the city, I can see the next intersection; it's been widened by force. People did not want it, they widened it. On Sunday this street will be closed, this street will be closed, these images, cafes, stalls, they will have fun they think, and you hope that they will. All want to be different, but what for? Viva la differance. That's the word. So dare to be otherwise, dare to do otherwise. That's it!
You turn right, you turn left, and I see the woman, the young woman, in black, and I feel as if I love her, who cares, I want to feel differently.
I turn to the suburb, the suburb is empty, and it’s raining. This street is full, but inside the suburb is empty. I take my sunglasses off, switch my car off, and decide to walk hard, and so then I decide not to do so. I look at the woman in black, it's fashionable these days, she looks gorgeous, I wonder if her body, her body is the same pleasure as the clothes that she's wearing. The lights are green. I want to turn left into the suburb's streets to observe what's going on.
HIS OWN LANGUAGE
I hear the disturbing sociologist: This silent period, particularly if you don't know the language, and as we are aware, many people coming here do not speak the dominant language.
I'm sitting, he's looking at his book, his own language in his mind, he doesn't know whether to smile or not, but I feel that my ride in the city is infinite. I look inside the words of the language, which is silent.
And then when the gazes are strange. I look at the sky and the sky simply is the same as the home, which I left behind and trees, some of them so familiar. And then I remember the images from cities in which I have lived and I will perhaps live again, who knows? That's the beginning. God this suburb is empty.
You feel the sense of nothingness. You feel that you are everything, but suddenly your language means you can't and you plug into new noise. The universe of noises as I would like to call it. So your thought pattern, your inner monologue becomes fragmented. You cannot show who you are to others. You struggle to understand. So this process of losing leads you to some kind of inability to function. It tends, things tend to be very unnatural and you know one day you have to see them as if they are natural. So this process of undressing yourself constantly from what you have left behind to wear new clothes, at the same time struggling to maintain your roots, your culture, your beliefs, your customs, your traditions, your ability to communicate the words, which are different, are the new ordeal. Jee, what a life.
Entering the pub, my mood so mixed; my thoughts are so dampened. It's another day, yesterday was today. I am hunting some beer perhaps, no I don't feel like drinking at all, I think. I feel terribly bored. Boredom is not working for me. From this morning I did not have any plan. It's Saturday. I am an early riser. My want is to daily capture the birds, but I am not successful most of the time. I can hear the birds singing. They lead my moods and soon after I realise that I am too late, I become unfussed. My eyes skim over the view that I've got from my window. My bedroom small. I usually feel as if I am elsewhere. But I'm here. I tell myself, well, well, you see you are here, at this place, have a drink, no I can't and then I patiently sit and try to remember.
THE VOICE
I am disappointed with my thought patterns. I am rather astounded. I try to promote a thought that I have to go home and do more reading. Maybe I need some love. Maybe I love too much. Nevertheless, it is an exceptionally boring time and nothing is guaranteed for me to move from this chair. The place is empty. The barman is looking. I don't know where. I don't claim anything. No, I am not ashamed to be sitting here. I don't mind if people see me reading in public places.
Thoughts are rushing out. Maybe an architect somewhere has designed a new thing to make this city look more attractive. And I am sitting in the margin looking inside, telling my story to myself. I don't know who will listen, but I will carry
on soon. Indeed, very soon.
DESILENCE MYSELF
It's raining outside. This place is not my type. I cannot see the point to sit here and hum nothing. I feel a fancy to go out and walk under the rain. It's going to be sunny soon. So I need to stand up and move out of this place. I think that to gain the trust of people in general, people who see themselves in disadvantageous circumstances they must be encouraged to ... No, there won't be any power for details. Nothing is irrelevant once it's said. The thread of a story, the thread of a memory, or memories, the thread of a birthplace, you never lose and you also lose. It is vital.
I can see them kissing. I am curious to see what they do. They look at each other strangely. My thoughts are mixed. But I can't see the passion in their eyes. I'm not that far. They don't see me. I'm in my car. I am thinking of my ancestors. I do not understand why I go back to it again and again. I am surprised that I could actually utter these words. Oh my dear. My feelings are real and my desire. There is no annoyance in my mood. I want to immediately de-silence myself. I cannot tolerate this silence any more. I can hear strange voices, voices of different languages, birds. I'll think of them. I can feel different things rushing inside me and I am feeling what I am saying. There is a piercing force inside me for a dreadful cry. I can't, unfortunately I can't explain what it is. I feel like a glass, which has just broken. I feel dissolved. At the same time I try to put these pieces together and move on. I've got to get out of my car. Now I sit.
I have countless questions. They frown. I can see them. He has a deeper frown. She tries to be conciliatory as if they have to return to a point; a point of revisiting something. Anything could happen. I don't know. There is a sense of immediacy. I have to observe my own moods. I am engaged with these lines. I am. It is very unusual. Nothing is, obviously, but I can see things are coming out. I have to follow a desire to let go.
As I am observing, a thought crosses my mind. I tell myself what should I do with these macabre thoughts. I am quietened. She is rubbing her hands as if she is saying, I am going home. I have to go. I can see it, from her eyes, saying it to him. He is frozen, engaged. His feet moving faster than before. It's getting cooler, but I wonder why I am staying here observing these people so ponderously, as if I have a mental drain just now. I am not anxious, but I can see him so anxiously, slightly discomforted. She is walking away, the city shaking again. I am here, I am observing, I am in this city. As a consequence of this my distress is decreased. Who knows. Maybe nothing has been dissolved, yes, but I keep talking. Someone else will write it. I will keep talking. That's my desire. The talk which comes from within, without any annoyance. Anything else will have to wait.
I tell myself as I'm entering my room, reflecting on what I have just observed.
‘I know I'll be out of here soon.’
I know. I'll tell you some stories. If I think about it, as straight as I can, about what's inside me. What is inside my own mind is …practically in there. That’s it! It's the only thing that I can be sure is inside me, inside of my mind. It doesn't matter what I believe, as long as I believe in life, which I do. So as I enter into this room I hear my voice inside my head telling me 'it's all in your mind.' Yes I do believe in the sun, the moon, the stars, people, sometimes even gods. I am the juice of so many stories, so many centuries of thoughts, but what I have to admit is I am relying on my existence as I look at my body, as I look at my experiences; I don't know how much I am aware of them, but from time to time I have these outbursts to do something about them.
A few weeks ago, when I was sitting in one of the cafes in this town, looking through the window, a simple emotional outburst took me away. I was looking at the wall, there was a wall just in front of me and nothing else. I looked and suddenly I went away. I wondered why. I did not want to be different then. I suddenly became different. I woke up. I beat my feelings. I went to my dreamy world, as if I was abnormal, exactly as if I was abnormal. I usually think of my dreams. I don't know when I am lying down or sitting or reading, but put these things aside. You cannot live with all those assumptions.
Everything outside me should affect me inside; otherwise I can't do anything else. So what I am doing? What does it all means? I buy a jacket, I think it's good. I take it home. I put it on. I say, 'no, I don't like it, I'll never wear it again.' I try to give it to someone else. When someone else accepts it, I feel good about it. What does it all mean, what does it all mean? I ask myself as I’m writing this. What I am doing by saying this? Do I justify that I dare to be …different? Perhaps I do. Life is full of surprises. Full of surprises. And I have to admit drastic surprises happen to some individuals coming through ruins.
I can hear the birds again. They're singing. It's early morning. Days have passed since I have begun to write. I still think of that black dress on the body of that woman. I have touched one. But you see some images remain to symbolise the ideal image that you have perhaps. I don't know, it just came to my mind and I have to write this, this … this point. Yes. No, I am not hallucinating. I am not dreaming. Maybe I say something abnormal, but I feel extremely with myself. I can see. I go to the window. I open it. I see my existence. I don't have any doubts about it. I don't even think about my non-existing. Yes, I am not hallucinating, this is my inner world?
‘I smiled normally.’ I heard that sentence yesterday night when I was asking someone to give me some direction to find a new street in town. I think it might have been Acland Street. She came to my domain and then I looked at the moon.
'With no regard to your boundaries!' she said.
‘Did you hear that?’
And when I looked at the moon, I looked at my friend, my friend had that very same laughter and she said 'look at the star, look at the star', trying to impress me and I was so blatant to believe that she was going to impress me because I knew her so well, and then I looked at the moon, passing by, by, by, by, and I had to say goodbye.
So I looked beyond the back yard in discovery. I was thinking of broken glasses. She came nearby. I forgot about broken glasses. She looked deeply sensitive. She apologised that she was late. I forgot about the moon. I realised my existence. I forgot about the drives and rides in this town. I had the good occasion to accept, to forget, to free myself of all what I have experienced so far. I was no longer in love with anyone. Yes I was, I was in love with life. It must have been a wild journey. As I started gazing at her face, the past came to my mind. I had the feeling that my heart was aching, something, putting into the right words, but my ribs, aching from the top. I tried to smile. She turned her face and looked to the moon. Someone was with her. He was very unfriendly. I don't know. I thought his face was unfriendly anyway. She came and said 'Why didn't you come along this morning?' ‘I apologise,’ I said, 'but I didn't think that you were expecting me to turn up at the cafe'. I don't know. I stood with the image across my mind. I saw sparrows. I saw sparrows. They were singing. I lost the image out of my mind to remember that I was rewriting a new thing.
Words keep coming, words of yesterday, and today, right now.
I left. She left. On my way to somewhere else, I don't know where was it? I was driving, I was just driving.
Thinking of the blue colour. Somehow the catastrophic images didn't cross my mind. Images of loneliness in this town coming. I was driving, I don't know where.
I didn't have any resolution. I was just driving blindly. Out there in my body I didn't care what I shall do. I just moved, pushed the car. I didn't care what was going to become of me. I wanted to go. I kept saying to myself go away, go away and somehow I thought, just go anywhere.
A SENSE OF GOING SOMEWHERE
Life is your mistress and I am going to have a deep conversation with it.
I do not know where I'm going, but again I ask myself, what did you think of her? Who? I don't know. There's the question. What do you think of her.
It could be anywhere.
Where am I going?
SUNKEN EYES
My eyes sunken, I don't think of anything else. I cannot wait. I think of darkness, the lightness, the remembrances of words and all the rest. I don't even want to have any thought about the facades of these houses, these places, the shops, the train stations, tram lines. No, I do not know. I do not want to know. I know I am hungry and something is telling me ‘EAT’, look, you will feel better with this, the memories. Sooner the better. Sooner the better. Huh, I laugh, and suddenly I feel as if I have been re-energised.
No, that's not dangerous. Memories must be released, must be released, so I slow down with my car and as I am driving I enter into Brunswick Street. I have been driving for hours now perhaps. It's about half past eight in the morning. I put my car aside and enter the bar. So, I'm available to myself now. Remembrance of things makes a better frame for someone who doesn't belong to the city, and at the same time belongs to it. I think my story is taking place too, my way. And I dare to be different and that's the most important thing to do. Viva la difference. Yes, Viva la differance.
The smell of coffee and the sound of calm music all make me feel good, a sense of belonging. I sit and the waitress comes to me indifferently. I say good morning. She says good morning. Can I help you, she says, I say: yes please, a croissant and cafe latte … and a glass of water. I love to have a glass of water every morning now. Yes, my lungs need good water to strengthen themselves for the further moves. I am calm having my breakfast and rest. And I wait for the hours to come. Always waiting.
How can I depict my mental map? It doesn't matter how much you say in other language, still keep you silenced. You could hide behind the truth to survive the truth of your heart. If you pour out your heart any moment that you talk they run away.
GETTING TO KNOW THE CITY
I want to love. I know I want to love. It is very early morning in my bed. I am so tired. But the rain somehow always gives me an inner pleasure to watch. It is a safe zone to sit and look at the moon at night. Sitting here in a space you are watching time. I suspect time watches you, time and space in a dance and rain watching me falling down to my infinity.
THE NEIGHBOUR
I feel as if I, I am watching the rain. The rain which gives me some kind of substance.
To recover you need sensitivity - that gift which others can see as a weakness.
Nothing should threaten you when you feel free to let your images out and I am in this city as alien as you could imagine. I was foreign to this language just years ago. Everything sounded like, buzz, buzz, buzz, and now here I am. Language is bubbling.
They are the one who persuade you to write, to let go.
And you just sit and release. There is no symptom which cannot be cured.
I do feel like this when rain comes, I do not want to go out of my room.
My neighbours didn't care. They put the loud music up.
They scream at each other. They swear at each other.
And the rain started coming down with such energy.
In this world of indifference I had to distract myself from being too concerned. So I began to give myself to the rain so trustfully.
YOU DID NOT KEEP YOUR PROMISE
I met her a few days ago. I was sitting on my own. It was at the library. I gazed at her face. I put my book aside. I could not read Wittgenstein any more. I was tired of accumulating so much knowledge without communicating this with anyone else. There was no one to talk to. She looked very young, about 25 to 27. Lovely figure. She came, started to wander. She was looking for a place. I was in this space. She didn't like the space. She moved away, three or four desks away, took her black bag off her shoulder, sat there, opened the book. She was learning Italian. She flipped, turned pages, one by one. She wasn't very calm. Her beauty and her slender figure, her shape added something to the substance of my mind to feel that beauty was around. It was my love. I love beauty and beautiful things. I detached myself from the book. I could not read on any more. I put my fingers on the table. Somehow my feelings, deep feelings, I re-organised them. I began to kill time. I have to learn to do so. I have to discover things. So she sat there, watching comfortably now.
It was around 4.00 p.m. I think. She opened the book, as I said, and suddenly engrossed in it. I tried not to think of many things. I gazed at her. I wanted to distract her. Not deliberately, because she didn't sound as if she was there to study. She was running away from something. Then I noticed she didn't concentrate on one particular page. I know good readers. I know concentrating readers. I know committed ones too. I know when you sit to read a book attentively, you might have gone through it before, gazed through it before, and when you come to a place like here, I mean library, you sit and concentrate on the book. She gladly put the book aside and
started gazing into the space. I tried to steal her gaze. It didn't work. I started tapping my fingers on the table and tried to engross myself to a point which sounded near my space. I looked through the window, I saw trees without leaves. She looked through the windows too. I became curious. What was she seeing outside. I sighed. I felt nothing. Time was taxing.
I stood up and decided to go to the first floor. I went there, walked for a few minutes, came back, she was still there, gazing through the window. A few minutes later a young man appeared, went to her. She responded quietly and happily. I heard the words she uttered to him: 'you have broken your promises.'
I lowered my head. I didn't want to interfere and she emphatically said 'no, not any more.' I don't know what was going on inside her. I felt a sense of irony as if I was the only one in the theatre watching a play and all the scenario was reading for me. I guess nobody else will ever come to see this play except me. The young man wandered around for a while as if it was really in a play. He didn't take any notice of me and then unhappily without screaming or uttering any words left.
She sat smiling. I felt like going to her and say I enjoyed the act, but suddenly, no, I realized it was not a stage. So I sailed on my thoughts again. But she stood there as if she needed to talk to someone. I dared, as usual, to be different. I walked to her. She felt a bit taken aback. Somehow I wanted to find the meaning of all these things. I don't know, intuitively or not, I suppose. I went to her and said 'Are you alone.' She said 'I suppose so.' I looked at her and said 'I don't want to distract you but I feel alone too. I am sick of reading Wittgenstein.’ She smiled and said 'Who is Wittgenstein.' I said 'A good friend of mine' and she got animated. She said 'I didn't know that people would read their own friends' writing.' I said, ‘Some do.' She giggled. I said 'I'm sorry, I don't want to disturb you.' She said, 'Please don't, what's your name.' I mentioned my name. She said 'Yes, I'm alone, what do you have to offer? ' I felt as if ice melted inside me. I said 'I can offer you language.' She burst out laughing. 'Look,' she said 'your sentences are very disturbing, I've never heard sentences like these before, don't confuse me further.' I said, 'I'm sorry, my mind is packed by massive useless sentences.' Her wonderful face opened up. I felt good. I said abruptly, 'Look, I haven't learned the grammar yet, I just let sentences out.' I didn't have the courage or interest of asking what do you mean and then I gradually started making sense.
I don't usually know, even myself, whether I make sense or not. But to make sense you need good skills to discover. She said 'Sit down.' I sat down and I said 'You have just finished with your friend.' She smiled inconsistently and said 'No, he's an exhibitionist.' I said 'Look, I don't want to know much about it, we should go out of here perhaps.' She said, 'How dare you could tell me that, I want to study.' I said 'Okay I'll go then Okay I'll go then.' As I began to walk away she said 'Come over here, I want you next to me.' I said, 'Okay'. I went to her. I sat. She looked and said 'Look, I don't trust.' I said, 'I understand' and so then I turned into my own silent world. I was there but I was not there any more. She said exactly the same word that I do inside my head.
My body was there, my mind went to the city again. I went to so many cities, to so many cities, hungry, walking, wandering, sitting in parks, searching restlessly, who knows. I resigned. I went. I opened my heart to my mind, I saw massive influxes of images coming and going. My old headache came back to me. I could not represent myself any more. I was not lonely. It was the desire for communicating. My old memories, my images. I was there, disturbed. Outside the trees on that winter day bouncing and the consistency of my thoughts started inside. I felt something was shivering. A kind of pain came to my head which I occasionally experience these days. She was there. I never met her before but a few exchange of words and sentences suddenly took me back to memories, empty bottles, villages, drinks, sitting down and up, walking endlessly, reading, reading, reading, no stopping, just reading restlessly as a possessed person. My head would not come. She looked as if she had a quiet life which is the standard of people living in this city.
No, to know about life and to observe other peoples' lives and the way that they behave towards their own immediate environment and others doesn't need a great deal of reading of thousand years of philosophical experiments. It is life if you understand it, a result of raw materials that we experience directly from the world and our relationships to it, not from just what has happened in the past to writings, even though I write them so often. I was thinking so fragmentally.
CHAPTER TWO
I HAVE BEEN AWAY
So I guess looking at her I thought, yes, I have to think of outside, so I went away. I went away, yes, and suddenly memory of the living, memory of the night that we went to see that picture. We met twice before that.
After the picture my language within me was fragmented and I felt the same effect on her. She began to challenge me about the ideal friendship and she found me agreeable, but I was frenzy inside.
I didn't want to talk that much.
She began to question me.
‘Others appreciate you and find you very challenging.’
I asked her why she didn’t.
She said ‘Maybe because I understand your hurts.’ But the way that she put it to me was quite wonderful. I sat next to her. We felt close and she brought the issue of physical contact. There was some misunderstanding there. I was there to talk, to understand, to find out …
We spent some time talking about these mutual effects of our encounters and we talked about the future. But again I was gazing with the space she provided and from time to time I looked through the glass. It was dark. We were approaching midnight. I was determined to go home and she was determined to go home. To two different homes and just take these beautiful thoughts that we have shared together. And I think that was great because it was one of the fewest occasions that I ever felt like that and I was very delighted to say goodbye to her. As I was thinking about these past thoughts she was sitting next to me, the woman at the library. She said 'Excuse me, where are you'. I came to life again and I said 'Sorry, I've been away'. I again allowed my memory to take me away and looked at her. She was really a beauty. I felt less tortured and I said 'Would you like to join me for a cup of coffee'. She enthusiastically agreed and we left for the University's cafeteria and then after that I said goodbye, I wanted to be alone and when I walked away I realised how foolish I was that we didn't exchange our phone numbers.
I could imagine no more. I was very worried about my health. I had enough on my plate. Meanwhile spending a lot of time in bed. I felt as if I was rotting. I felt a depth of emptiness somehow inside. I was afraid to drink, but for me in this stage nothing was, nothing made any difference. Ideas kept crossing my mind. Certain people talk about certain people and certain habits. Nobody is immune to those certain habits I suppose. I have lately been thinking of so many other things. My speech was somehow frank these days. Physically I was exhausted. I could not understand what was happening to me and now I could sit and wander inside my head. Outside was waiting for me. I thought of her, the young woman whom I saw at the library this afternoon. Maybe I was escaping.
I reproached myself, why I didn't ask for her address or phone number.
I NEEDED A CITY IN MY HEAD
I need a city in my head. How it forces you to withhold. How it forces you to let go and how sometimes it imprisons you, and so many other questions that are all directed to language as if I was talking to my old lover. Yes, lover. So I’m hoping for something. I was exhausted. Things started to become a little bit unreal but I felt especially focused on the beauty of life. I need help. Who doesn't? I began to observe my needs so I asked myself, ‘do you need help?’ Yes I do. I need a city in my heart.
I want to kiss the face of the city. This is the image which is crossing my mind. So, it's good to be away from the city and think about the city.
At the end of the day, a city which I don't know is not the woman whom I could love. Maybe through knowing the city I could really understand the love for a woman.
A city with strange roads, strange names, strange trees, strange chimneys, strange roofs, strange wooden houses, strange looking people, strange cafes, strange objects and strange wide streets. It has to come to life to me as I come to life for it. I don't know, there are so many things to explore and so many things to move, habits, attitudes.
Now, I would love to have a glass of wine.
I hate it when people don't look me into my eyes. When I look at them they usually get the wrong impressions.
I was walking along Brunswick Street. I stopped in front of this cafe. I had this desire to look through the glass. She was sitting in the glass, in the car. It was a warm day. Somehow I felt I'd like to look through. I did. I watched her. She was smoking. She sounded very worried about her lipstick. I stood there. She did not seem comfortable. Of course, I was interrupting her space, but I wanted to stay there.
I began to have a dialogue inside myself. ‘Would you like to come to my house?’ She said ‘Why ?’ I said ‘Because….because… I feel like asking questions like that these days.’ She said, 'Yes, you could talk until you're dead.'
I said, 'Look, ask me some questions.' She said, 'Why did you ask me that question'?
I said, 'Why, I am full of them.’
I then paused, looked at her through the glass. She was smiling. I smiled as if she was listening to what I was saying to myself. Yes, I was talking for her too, but ... but then I heard, I saw her saying, 'Well, alright I don’t understand', and I got uncomfortable by that response, and left the place. I looked at the time. It was too late. I asked myself what I was doing there. I didn't want to be there. I reproached myself, saying, what are you doing here. The answer was, I don't really know, I'm just exploring this city by myself. Don't worry, you don't fall. That was my fear perhaps. I was falling. I was falling
I FEEL VERY VULNERABLE
I feel very vulnerable.
The demand of loneliness is incredible.
You see I was retrenched just a month ago, after years of working and just gazed around aimlessly. I bumped into others, wordless, just wandering.
I've got a huge fight inside me, but somehow I am just going downhill except that I know a lot and I don't know what to do with it.
DATING THE CITY
What I have not really looked at is the face of this city, and that causes me a great deal of emptiness.
I need a date to enter its heart quite soon, I know.
And now I am sitting here on my own, watching this sunny day, people passing by, affected or unaffected, it doesn't matter. They are all strangers anyway.
We have to talk to life. We don't see the true light of our dreams about - the other and we forget about our understanding of the words that we try to utter, to show how much we care for - the other.
AND THERE WAS DEPARTURE
Maybe I'm talking out of despair, but I know, I love something and now that I'm sitting beneath this sky you might consider me a fool talking like this.
I need help. I need help.
I find this world too small for me and I don't know what to do with it.
NO,I'M NOT WAITING FOR ANYONE
I gaze at the figure. She just passed me by. She is so slender and pretty. But I am just engaged within my universe. Beneath all these things, I keep saying, don't talk any more. Don't talk any more. That I have. I cannot pretend. I must talk. I will go mad if I don't. Yes, it seems to be a stupid idea. Yeah, but we can't. My most warm enjoyment for living is to understand why I am so overwhelmed by life. I don't want to change the world, it must change anyway. And bear the torment of being, at the same time feeling that you are not, leads to making you to believe that you are not understood. I think I'm understood. But at the same time I think that I am not understood. Let's not forget about it. We are somehow strange creatures. We look into infinity while we forget about the presence. I'd better think about the mountains perhaps. And forget about all these things that I am saying. All light incidents.
I am changing as I am talking. I am improving as I am talking. I feel warmer inside. No, I don't feel lonely any more. I am eradicating the roots, the trunks of years of accumulated repression perhaps. We are here to talk and that's what I am doing. Wherever I go, I'm talking. My problem is that I am me!
She's human. I felt that when she was talking to me. I think she noticed too much about my inside. I was drinking too much. I hadn't drunk for a very long time. I didn't know why but I wanted to. She gently told me, 'You'd better stop, I want to listen to your voice.' I stopped and asked, 'Do you find me abnormal?' She said, ‘No, you are extremely agreeable,' and suddenly I felt the pain inside me. I was scared. She said to me I was agreeable. She didn't find me confronting. I was perfectly okay with her and I suddenly felt the calm inside me and nothing else. I was glad that I met her. I think she had a good understanding of what was happiness and what was pain. Without each of them the other cannot be accomplished. But the obstacle is that the need to understand happiness, they force pain upon you. And I think she noticed that and I was perfectly okay. Perfectly, I mean, especially this proverb came to my mind. God, to feel perfectly okay. I didn't need to go further. I didn't have the slightest desire to explain how I felt even though inside it was so intense.
I started feeling calm, I started throwing jokes at her, I started teasing her, I started teasing myself. We just immersed into a different chemistry as if everything was fine, as if I knew her, as if I knew the language, as if I knew practically myself.
We talked of fear, we talked about strengths. Of things that ordinary people talk about, as two ordinary people, we just talked, and we didn't fear anything. Even a sense of misunderstanding didn't really bother us. I felt comfortable, secure. It was what I needed to hear that night. The corpse of a language began to resurrect something inside.
No. I didn't feel sick any more. I want you to talk and many don't. In this city I don't know to what do they listen. To what do they choose to listen. What do they take, what don't they take. I don't know. But I felt happy and nothing else could change my mood. I didn’t care what she going to take away of what I was saying. I sat there. It was dark. Night was drawing. I looked at the city. Then I looked through her. I didn't want to do anything else. I wanted to hear words, lives lived, alive words. I want to be, I wanted to be touched by natural words, newer words, fresh words, a new voice, a fresh voice, halt drinking, not to drink any more.
I put my drink aside. I had a glass of water and listened. And was so impressed that she could talk. Yes, we were drunk and now that I am saying them here, yeah, I'm reminded of the sense of wariness of that intercourse, words intercourse. It is tantalizing me.
I needed more. I should perhaps find out. I need a good laugh. I do. I need a good friend to laugh with. My thoughts, my lines, have a great demand of my body. My emotions try to find a map of the city. I have not been able to penetrate myself within this city. I want to visit it. I want to demand more. I want to forget the sentimental part of it. No, I'm not a dreamer. With a kind of grace I have to surrender, first to my thoughts, second to my feelings. And then let this city surrender to me. I cannot concede anything at the moment. I must understand the landscape of this city.
Then I can understand the landscape of the peoples' minds. I cannot go just wandering around it, around some chosen places and realize that suddenly, I don't know what I am doing here. I work hard, no, I am unemployed, but I work hard to understand the essence of being the existence of this city in which I live, whether I like it or not. This could have been any city, but this city is quite emotionless and my target is it. I do not have any bitterness. I don't think that's the right thing to do, but you must learn to penetrate, to surround the city to your needs, to your aspirations, your dreams, to even fantasies. But doing that I need to know people or need people to know me. I don't think many people know me as yet. Know me. So time is running as I'm considering to move on, I must.
I should not pretend that I'm anyone. Yes, that was the story of last night or the night before. I still think of her but now I have to move away. I will catch up with her again. But at the moment my task is to become more aware of the tender side of the city, or
perhaps the tender side of many people who I might observe, or become tenderer than I am. Something has to arrive. It's cloudy now. Birds are singing in the morning again, it's morning. Somehow birds singing take me off to somewhere else.
Isn't it amazing. I'm curious, to know where you are, you have to know
other places too, if you have been somewhere else. You know the fairy tale. It's true. It's true. Now I'm writing, writing with my inner language. Writing with my memories. Yes, I'm writing, and I'm thinking of the beauty of things. It is brilliant, the clouds are moving, it doesn't look that they are in prison any more. Maybe I'm arriving somewhere. Who knows, maybe I am.
Yes, I think I've had a problem. I do not talk to others perhaps. I try, just wandering around on my own. Maybe that's the main problem. I have to learn. My eyes looking beyond this space that I could see, I ask myself do you understand what you are saying. I am fearful of the future perhaps. The expression of cruelty somehow, maybe, causes a great deal of anxiety within my sense of loss in this place. This is timely that I am interrupting this silence and using my imagination and my inner voice to be able to say how I feel. Beneath my skin there is a great deal of sadness, you see, maybe every atom of my skin is affected by the sense of loss. I go outwards, I sit, I look at them I taste them, but at the same time they've been beating my existence and they're driving, driving me to madness.
AND WHAT ABOUT TOMMOROW
My behaviour has changed since I moved to this city. This city is too harsh. This city is difficult. This city is too far away. I have to find a solution. I must. I must regain my laughter. I must regain my joy. I must regain my vitality in my life, but I need to be understood. But before that, I need the city. I must learn its language.
I remember the clouds, dispersing in the sky, my thoughts bouncing from here to there, from there to here.
AND THIS MORNING
This morning I looked at my face. I looked quite pale. I had a difficult night again. I could not sleep. I had a migraine. It's a misfortune that I keep having this headache.
I looked at the drops of water coming down from the tap. I felt despicable. I could not speak. I saw a blind man standing in front of a mirror. I did not utter a single word.
I wanted to move on. I wanted to get ready to go out to explore, but the thoughts and the gaze at the mirror grabbed me and I stopped, frozen, simply looking at the water coming down.
LOVE AFFAIR WITH THE CITY
I am obsessed with the city. I like to show my frustration with the simple simplicity that I have to have a love affair with the city. I must make this city to love … me.
And I must fall in love with …it.
THIS CITY IS A BITCH
I called David. I didn't tell him anything about the city
I am determined to overcome my sense of displacement in this city, by myself. I know I need people but before that I need myself
It's bizarre that I get rejected all the time by the city. I feel I reject it too, so it's both ways.
THAT'S WHAT I'M DOING
It's not my fault if I talk like this. When you have suffered atrociously and you have experienced the most excruciating circumstances, the sense of outrage is very normal. You cannot just see things the way that others do.
For me I am trying to walk off this nausea, the language, the people, places, wild streets, the signs, symbols … the language … the sidewalks; lanes.
I have to overcome all these things.
I am not afraid to exist. It is what I feel. I could fix everything within if I knew what I'm thought of by others.
I am tired. I am really tired.
You are what you are, and that's what's important.
You have to move on. Look at the stars, look at the words, look at the signs. Look. Don't be too preoccupied; never stop to wonder.
What I need to do, I must understand. I don't make any pre-judgements.
I am so keen to explore the unknown. I love to meet the unknown. I care for the unknown. I feel able to love the unknown if the unknown lets things happen to me. I feel the echo of the unknown. That's the most important thing - we have to get to know the unknown. When the unknown is impenetrable you start wondering.
It is good.
Don't just steal my time. Don't allow me to steal your time. If you love me tell me. Don't harass me with your silences. Don't harass me with your mischievous thoughts. Don't deny me that you don't understand my language. Don't go away silently and make decisions about me. I am not surprised. I have lived through that for centuries. I am just one. Am I right? Or wrong? It doesn't matter. Do whatever you please, but what I am telling you is, please, you, unknown, be with me. I am with you until eternity. So thousands of years have passed but I am talking about now and me. I want to come out of this nausea. Help me. I don't want to die in this city alone. Don't restrain me. I don't want your approval. No, I want you to recognize that I am amongst you as I recognize that you are amongst us. So that is what I am trying to say anyway. Give me your hand. I give you my hands. We share.
These words are helping me. Yes, they are, don't laugh at the grammar, don't moan at the way that they are used.
And, again, I am with the irises, sitting watching them; Paris, my hope, the beauty touches my soul. I don't need the language any more. I'm sitting watching. This is the city. This is a part of the city.
I am happy. I see the blueness, irises. I see other colours. So many of them. So many. I lift up my face. I see the sky. Spring is coming it is beautiful. The trees, the branches are still dry, but you can see they are burgeoning. Yes, new Spring. This is not a romantic notion. Not at all. They are singing. They embrace me and I am content. They tell me that if you look deeper you will know the city soon.
THEY ARE TALKING
He was thinking of time, our arch enemy.
I haven't got energy, I am tired, I want to enter into the city's heart and I want to let it enter into my heart. Then I saw them. They were engaged in a very interesting conversation. I could overhear them.
‘But you see, he will only talk to you in English,’ she said. And he said, ‘Well he must learn it!’ and lean(ed) down and looked into the sky.
I was still looking at the blue irises in the gardens. Yes, the public garden. I heard two strangers from here talking about us, about us, and about themselves. That made me happy. That was the beginning of my connection with the city. I never had it before.
It was the beginning. I heard their voices, yes. There was a deep thought coming through their minds and then, when they walked away, I believed as I was gazing at the blueness of the irises they continued that topic, I felt the warmth inside me.
But at the same time I felt weak. I almost fainted when they left. I tried to take some deep breaths.
I squeezed myself and felt that I had to gain some strength. So I walked to the city. I looked at those people who were nicely dressed.
I made up my mind, yes, I was going to stay in this city. And it was then I realised I was reaching my suburb.
I'M SURE ...
I'm sure there’s a story in what I have been trying to tell you. Perhaps it's not a story at all, but I had to tell you about it. It's been sitting on my mind for so long, it really clouded my feelings and … I needed to find something to get it out. My hope is that if you long to overcome some of the deep rooted feelings, you'd do the same, not for fame, but for the desire to be understood. If you don't talk, understanding will never come.
By writing this I scoffed at it, I decided to escape some kind of torments to live again. Yes, to express my normal feelings for the substantial experiences that I have gone through and that's what I have learned by myself. By letting go I’m sure I will overcome the pain of restlessness. I’m sure I will provide myself the opportunities to understand others as I talk about myself, the way I feel. I have embarked to understand the city.
I see Mrs. Pappas looking through the park. I greet her. Her face is so crushed. She is there with her big smile. When she sees me she says 'Where you been my son?' I say, 'Wandering.' She says 'That's good, that's good.' Smiling again, she sighs and says 'Yes, you must squeeze life, look at the blue sky.' I look.
She says 'It's going to be a full moon and I think of my village.'
And I smile at her and say 'And I think of my city.'
I leave the night alone with itself and the moon in the sky as I enter into my flat. I realize how tired I am. I just want to crash into my bed. Time is passing so fast. Something inside me is saying 'I hope you will have some sleep.'
Then I say to myself 'I must not rush ... It's going to be a sunny day tomorrow and the city will be your friend.’ I laugh at this thought.
My body is weak, my mind is fragile. I have always been looking for a new city - since I left - a new city, I mean a new city, a city to know me. And now at last, I hope this one will …
Copyright Mammad Aidani 2003
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