LIKE THE GENIE IN A BOTTLE

13.07.04


Today I would like to drink coffee out on a shiny terrace. To see Athens in front of me and feel my hair in a mess because of the wind. There will be no sea under my eyes. At least not the sea that I know. It won’t be blue. It will be colourful like the mirror that scans every colour and body, human or not.

The heat will fall over every single space on the ground, rendering the asphalt unbearably hot. In an effort to feel relieved, people and animals will be gaping idly at the sky, thus examining every prospect of elevation. Some of them –including me- will already be up there; not because we are better or smarter but because we never landed. We never put our feet on the earth.

I don’t know if what I’m saying is of any interest to you but it’s hard for me to describe what is happening to me every time that I’m blinded by this desire to escape and be elevated to the sky without thinking of any specific destination. You would help me a lot if you told me your opinion on this thing that intrigues me. I’m not sure if what I am looking for is the reason why I suffer from the syndrome of the great escape. As a matter of fact, I just want to share this feeling with you, since, even if you remain silent, I get to feel that you follow what I say; I hope that you do this out of interest.

Ever since I was a child, I was scared of ‘moulds’. I consciously wanted to steer clear from every route to specific places and things. I always wanted to have the time or the advantage to evolve and be transformed. For instance, I was told: ‘You, man, are going to be a great poet or a great designer or a great scientist’. I was very scared of such anticipations, even when they were auspicious. Today I face them with the same cautiousness. I don’t want to be anything specific. I want to be everything without poking my nose into the others’ business.

Some times I give the impression of a man who is pleased by nothing. This is incorrect. On the contrary, I enjoy many things. In fact, those things are so many indeed that my thrill is spread everywhere, resulting in not knowing what I want (to be or to do) in the end, where my mind is always stuck on the idea of being everywhere and ending up nowhere, precisely because I can’t be devoted to the present. This is when I am disappointed, because I understand how difficult it is for me to be constantly on the go and I feel like the ‘genie in the bottle’ (title of a song of Christina Aguilera): even silly songs can express our feelings some times; in full power but stuck.

I don’t like backing down. I want to go to New York (again), to Mexico, to Peru and in general to go to the back of beyond, if possible. As a matter of fact, I have neither lack of time nor of money. Both can be found when you are up to it. What I don’t find is the way to put up with the least of help. These ‘requirements’ under which I put myself seem to be completely insane. Apart from that, I don’t like living in lies. If I have to live in a specific way, then I’d better get used to it from now on. But then again, who can tell me what is going to happen in one or two or ten years?

It’s unfair to be deprived of the possibility to know places and cultures. Is there any wish more innocent than your wish to live and get to know everything around you? I don’t think so. How powerful is a body, enough to determine your way of living? This is why I say this. I definitely have to evaporate without even stopping my breath. No matter how strange it may seem to you, writing develops the techniques of a disembodied presence. If I can’t experience a situation, I write about it and it’s like experiencing it. In the end I forget whether what I describe is fact of fiction.