- 05
- Jan.
- 2024
©Painting by Nicolas Baaklini
It’s a journey through the desert. That was my first thought this morning. All night, I woke up suddenly, my mouth dry, my palate thirsty. In the grip of panic, I tried to convince myself that fate would be kind enough to spot an oasis nearby. My exhausted body refused to doze off, to surrender into the arms of Morpheus. My brain was whirling at a hundred miles an hour. My fingers couldn’t translate onto the computer the emotions that were coursing through me. My inkwell was dry.
It had been a few days since I had been staring at a blank page on my screen, unable to give birth to a single word. All I wanted was to sit in silence. I needed to listen to the silence, to merge into it. But tonight, my fingers finally gave up and let me go. And the flow poured out. Sometimes, you have to know how to follow the flow. Let yourself be carried away by the current towards an unknown destination. Sometimes, you just need a grain of faith to close your eyes in the dark, to stop opening your eyelids wide to try to see, to see better, to understand the why, the how of things. Let yourself be guided in the darkness by groping, by staggering, by bumping your knees, your head, your elbows. Fall and get up again. Resume the exploration of the darkness until the pupils adapt to it, until the fingers recognize the landmarks, at first hesitant, then more confident. Know how to listen to the heartbeats, crazy in their frantic race, to become more regular with the passing days.
Sometimes, you have to know how to accept life as it comes, whether it announces spring or winter. Silence the anxieties of tomorrow, the fears of the unknown. Mute the chimerical dreams, stop building sandcastles. Live the day as it presents itself, without analyzing too much, predicting or imagining. Without commemorating the past either. Just move forward with stealthy steps as you gently approach the water. First, sink your feet into the warm sand, then let the foam caress your ankles to rise all along the calves, knees and thighs. Advance in the water without paying any attention to its temperature, to the bite of the cold that burns your skin, collapse your body without resistance, plunge your head under the surface, until the soaked hair becomes heavy and brushes your hips. Finally, lie on your back, arms dangling, feet together, and allow this inert body to rise and fall, then rise and fall again with the rhythm of the waves.
It’s extremely emotionally complex, it’s blind courage, to give permission to the waves, often rough, to take over, control the body, even the soul, to cleave the ocean with one’s entire being at the prow. It’s almost an ineffable art to let go of the ship’s helm in the middle of the storm, guided by a faith, not always unshakeable, often wavering, hoping that fate, providence, the universe would be merciful in their inscrutable ways.
Above all, do not harden yourself against the storms. Rather, soften the heart and open it even more. Become more human, free yourself from the ego. Reach out, touch others with compassion, with tenderness, because everyone suffers in their own way, because everyone keeps within themselves a child who fears the unknown, clinging to existence here below. Love to the point of tears, love from the depths of the heart, the body, the soul. Illuminate yourself with this innate love that resides within, sometimes buried under a thick layer of the past or in the folds of a dreaded future, and offer it without counterparts, so that its expansion is exponential. So that life finally makes sense. So that happiness is a living, palpable act, felt from the pores, and not an endless imagined quest, revisited every New Year like an eternal refrain.
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