.the returning post.

setting: at home, under freezing Brooklyn rain, a week away from Brazil.

sometimes you taste an ending when you bite into a beginning.

days away from the homeland, and it feels like never having left.

it doesn’t feel like an impending journey back in space.

it feels like an approaching journey back in time.

and we cannot buy a plane ticket back to our golden years…

return. return. return.

something about this concept.

nostalgia at twenty three seems almost rude it is so inadequate…

-

let’s make it an all new season?

...winter to summer overnight...

.the candle post.

setting: early morning, back to reality, still jet-lagged, scattered everywhere.

there’s something really enticing about the ocean; it’s never clear about its purpose.

crossing above the waves, crossing under the waters, it’s almost as if it rocks your spirit to sleep.

at some point you’re in lukewarm water. at some point your fire is drenched.

at some point your candle is put out.

you wish you could rekindle the same flame. you wish the next ember would spark the same.

it will be lit again, how silly to assume otherwise.

I guess it’s not about the candle, nor the warmth, nor the shimmering, or the waters.

-

it’s about the set of eyes under the candlelight…

...there's wick, there's wax, there's you.

.the american post.

setting: back home, loving a little, a little too late.

homecoming is an interesting process.

especially if you’re coming home somewhere for the first time.

I guess they’re louder over here. but they’re my people in a way.

funny to think how traveling can be so clever and nostalgia can be so silly.

the L word could stand for lame. right now it stands for late.

young hearts run free…

in American soil, here stands someone waiting for theirs to journey back.

-

home real home…

...meet me on the other side...

.the french post.

setting: relaxing after a long-deserved bath, slight amount of a car phobia.

oh, là là.

why is it that we mislead? why allow misleading to take such a toll?

beautiful Paris, who was the conniving jerk that sold you as heaven on Earth? as the solution to everyone’s problems?

you are beautiful, enticing and surprisingly very surprising.

but…

you are also land. you are also cars. you are also impossible-to-find parking spots. you are the subway system, the very long lines (and rightfully so) at the delicious brasseries…

you’re a city, in a country. but you’re not heaven.

not that heaven is a concept most of your countrymen would approve of anyway.

close enough. it is time to go back home.

-

can heaven be visited?

...I think, therefore I am.

.the dutch post.

setting: staring out the window at what could be a castle, 4 AM.

row your boat, a ferry boat, and get yourself to the Netherlands.

nothing makes any sense there really, if you’re relatively foreign to it. nothing has to make any sense, because they seem to have reached an agreeably upbeat social equilibrium.

I imagine it must be hard to be Dutch and be upset, all at the same time.

coffee shops don’t rely on caffeine, red light girls are virtuously upfront about their intimate exchanges and speeding bikes take the place of mad drivers.

nothing makes sense really, when you’ve reached social equilibrium. if everyone else is figured out, living becomes a hobby.

no?

-

puff, puff, pass.

...I am not a city.

.the british post.

setting: lunch time in south London, pretending time is not going by.

and my good friend asked me how come I still didn’t feel I was in England after three days of celebration for my birthday.

I never thought of the concept of being abroad as particular to every single nation you enter. maybe being abroad always struck me as simply being away from your birthplace. where every other nation merges as a giant rest of the planet.

then again, around this beautiful city it’s easy to lose the grip on time and space.

it could be the green line in the sky suggesting where the center of the world is supposed to be, then feeling you’ve spent your whole life a few hours behind the very first clock.

it could be the green eyes suggesting that being abroad is simply leaving your soul behind in the last port of departure, then feeling you keep forgetting to pack it safely on your journey back.

and you realize that when you feel abroad, a glimpse of that thing can find you at every other corner.

so you take a deep breath, make sure to remember the cars come from the opposite direction around there, and hope to make it in one piece to the next one.

-

at least there will be signs.

...please.

.the victory post.

setting: 2 AM, spraying antiseptics on my very first bicycle bruise.

it’s funny to think how we juggle around the concept of importance.

we will raise or sink every mundane thing that catches our interest to the levels of honor or shame.

every mundane thing.

mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur.

“the world wants to be deceived, so let it be deceived!”

well, my friends, what is not mundane that belongs to this world?

may we get addicted to unforeseen victories!

a six year old boy here thought he would never ride a bike in his life…

-

…then a young man of twenty-three has just made sure to make him smile.

...no hard feelings?

.the dune post.

setting: Monday morning, like a morning person, Herman Düne.

it’s the same path.

whether you laid it with cobblestones or bread crumbs on your way up.

there’s only one to climb, there’s always only our own to climb… if we’re lucky.

you pay reverence to your body, and it pays you back shortly.

to get the urge to step out…

to lose the fear of the dune.

no?

last time you climbed up to your peak, if you’ve ever, you will remember the dune.

all that sand and uncertainty… it’s so cold to be barefoot at night time.

good thing it’s morning again.

the dune is waiting.

-

if we reach the top once more, why don’t we stay just a little bit longer?

...my home is nowhere without you...

.the war post.

setting: pleasant body aches, windy Brooklyn, lunch time after ghostly night.

draw your weapons.

throw away any residue of gun powder.

the Mime War is upon us. the meanest glares and toughest drives will call forth victories.

victories indeed. is there any profit in achieving something just once?

maybe you’ve decided it’s time for a change.

maybe you’re not even considering gunpowder.

well eyes make fantastic arrows… and pupil poison can be lethal.

the opportunity is upon us. a chance at beautiful brutality, at last.

let us admit we’re in this war.

the only one where there is no harm in killing, and there is no shame in feeling no mercy.

the one where we can all win. and we can all die. and we can all be reborn.

won’t we sharpen the blades and kill the nights away…?

-

draw your weapons. throw away the gunpowder.

...conquests every day...

.the curious post.

setting: vacation land, Brooklyn, astonished at an unforeseen divorce.

maybe it was the excessive trust. maybe they took each other for granted. maybe it was the silence.

no matter the reason, the inseparable have parted from each other.

standing before Curiosity, one can’t help but ponder whether this heartless serial killer has mercilessly brutalized countless others before it did away with the cat.

over the course of our wondering days, Curiosity has summoned spirits, brutal hangovers, incited same-sex encounters and popularized Thai cuisine overseas… as well as killing the poor cat.

as well as killing the poor cat.

it seems that now, however, Curiosity showcases itself to be as redundant and sadistic as staring at a winter sunset without blinking.

don’t we know everything already? haven’t we experienced all kinds of divorce?

well. the inseparable have parted – Head and Shoulders have decided to take a break and to live as though they won’t be sleeping in the same bed for the rest of their days.

so Curiosity has been causing divorces within ourselves…

just because It’s there!?

divorced within ourselves…

poor cats.

-

“ignorance is bliss” – now why don’t we rephrase that…

...here we go!