Hovering mind

F. Barocci

Tonight, tonight I stop.

Eager, eager to caress my keyboard with my thoughts since long. And tonight, a few drops of limoncello, special limoncello, hovering in my mind, the soft hair caressing my nacked back, in the heat of the claustrophobic yet cozy room, against the rumours of the frenzy city, by the light of my thick orange candle, that lit numerous other evenings of pause and thoughts in yet other rooms and other countries… I stop.

As I did not for long.

A glance out of the window before throwing my thoughts on this screen, I pause on the surroundings that have defined me for the past year. I search identity in where I am now, where my work and my dreams brought me to. The roofs of London, outside of my window, dark and quiet, every night embrace the green glass of the British museum, as I stare out, shy in my luck.

From behind this window, the world seems so much bigger than what it may be. Tonight I decide to stop.

Set aside the daily routine, the worries of the exams hibernated for a couple of hours, for a few bites of succulent chocolate cake, and a few sips of limoncello, for many genuine laughs and many stories, identical across continents, for personal family histories parallel in time and space. I find out tonight that the word calf has the same root and almost exactly the same sound in Arabic and in Portuguese! And that in both languages the word comes out so similar as to potato… makes you wonder! Makes you wonder how communication was possibly born, how it shaped along history across the meeting and melting of different cultures, how the visual more than the semantic might have guided languages to develop as to pull different worlds closer to each other, in this shrinking globe.

Stories of childhood scars surprised and amused us tonight: same injuries across three continents, checked and double-checked in frenzy observations into each others’ throats. What is it that makes us, scattered pieces of longed belongingness, crave for a self-reflection in the stranger in front of us? We need to know that we are not set aside from this moving world, taht we belong to the core. We need to feel that we are essential pieces of an evolving system of friendships and special circles. But in the era of the undefined and of the shared, our identities hover over lost moments of timeless staring into each others’ smiles.

Until we stop. In the perfect geometry of this residence, where identity and privacy are secured by long dull corridors, each one of us enters her room, gathers in her own world, a candle to be lit, freshly left red roses to be smelled in the air, or the last day’s cigarette to be enjoyed. Each one gathering her identity, from such diversity.

One wonders what the story of the chicken and egg is between emotions and communications: do we communicate for a need to share emotions, or do we share emotions because we have shared experiences? It seems to be the secret of love too: do we give because we feel, or do we give for the need to feel?

You only need to look at a candle glowing to understand that it can only burn of its own light. If its light reaches out to you, its warm shades will paint your cheeks and its energy warm you. It might relax you, spur your fantasy, make you smile or just serene. But the flame will have glown of its own light. Its glow will continue to paint your face until there is wax to be burnt, or until you decide to blow it off.