I know where the grass is greener

[iknowwherethegrassisgreener]

You haven't seen it yet, after all this time. but you are the light - you have always been the light.

[iknowwherethegrassisgreener]

[iknowwherethegrassisgreener]

One of us could not be honest

You really don't want me to talk to you in this cold matter-of-fact manner, but this is how I see and process things. Resenting my ways won't make you love your own being any better.

One thing is for sure, I have never concealed my ruthless nature. If there is one shape-shifting masked devil in the game, I hate to break it to you, but you should look for it in the mirror.

[iknowwherethegrassisgreener]

Where to point the knife to?

The only negative emotion I could ever feel when I was younger was anger. I was not sad nor disappointed or hurt or scared, I was angry. Anger - the only output that the faulty machine of that 10-year-old girl had learnt to display, despite the multitude of colours and shapes of negative emotions in her human experience as inputs. I could only translate one state of heart out - anger. It took lots of time to unlearn this pattern and to expand the capacity of the machine. I can now feel something else, and express it as it is, so that it won't confuse the people that were involved. That being said, out of all the negative feelings on the spectrum, anger was still my favourite thing to feel. You are angry against something else, but you can only be sad, nostalgic, and hurt by it. See, the knife now has pointed at you, instead of towards others. It still often puzzles me where to point the knife to.

[iknowwherethegrassisgreener]

Limits.

The idea is to stay as close to the breaking point as possible, but to never touch nor cross it. A machine can work up to its maximum capacity, but never beyond this point. Or else it risks being broken down. A broken machine is useless.

[iknowwherethegrassisgreener]

[iknowwherethegrassisgreener]

reaped.

you could have finished me when you had the chance. now it is simply too late. let us now reap what you sow.

[iknowwherethegrassisgreener]

flick a switch

My friend, You told me that this all has become too heavy, and that you can no longer endure carrying the pains of the others. You think of giving up, but you know you cannot give up. It is only your nature to love and to love so deeply, to feel the suffering of all the lives we deliberately decide to turn our eyes away. But it is killing you, my friend. So I have a little suggestion here, and I think you might want to hear it. Let me be the one who carries all the pains. Yours and that of others. Let you do the thing you are so good at - loving. Let us let you love without all the suffering, and lift off the burdens you cannot carry. Carrying the burdens is, on the other hand, something I'm good at, precisely because I cannot love that deeply. Let people like me play the dirty part, so that people like you can continue to exist, and to give love.

[iknowwherethegrassisgreener]

nothing personal

The thing is, I'll always love the game more than I will ever be able to love you, or anyone else. You have known this from the start, now tell me why are you still crying? tell me, why are you still standing in the way?

[iknowwherethegrassisgreener]

assumption

You say I've built myself into a fortress yet beneath this armour, there is some soul that is vulnerable. And since you ask, here's the truth: beneath this, there is only solid rock. I have, instead, tried to soften myself down - took years and years to learn how to wear my skin so that it won't scare you away.

Now that you know the secret, will you still want to try me?

[iknowwherethegrassisgreener]

the best sunsets of a thousand sunsets

Dearest,

You wrote to me that you can't wait to be all about something else bigger than yourself, as it's getting so tiring to just think for yourself all the time.

It is surely just around the corner now, my dear. The perfect storm, the purest and most marvelous sunlight, the best light, the best sunsets out of a thousand sunsets that your eyes have savoured, are just around the corner now, waiting for you to appreciate with all of your being. But dearest, my wish for you, on the other hand, and this is something I have learnt lately, is that you will taste one single moment to its fullest. I know it is so hard for you now, as your mind always wanders to search for all possibilities. Oh dear, how exciting it is to live all the possibilities and the impossibilities of all those unwritten paths. But, do stay in the now. You have not discovered yet the fullest possibilities of the now. The excitement and the potential, the fun of all of the present elements. My dear, stay in this moment. Drink the present to its last drop. Be there when you are needed there, or not even needed.

[iknowwherethegrassisgreener]

luck of the draw

Dearest,

We are just so incredibly lucky to be where we are right now. And of course, we can proudly say that we've worked really hard too. No doubt about it, we both have forged our minds and hands into productive tools.

But we're able to be here also because we are spoiled children of the universe. Because there are also millions and millions of people who have been working way harder than us, every single day of their lives, in the middle of heatwaves, in the middle of abuse and extreme inequality, and they ain't have shit. 

We are just spoiled children of the universe. We could have been assholes and junkies, getting drugged to work in order to get more drugs, but we are not. We could have been shallow and stupid, drinking streams of champagne without tasting it, but we are not. We could have been obsessive, trying everything to get thinner without caring about what's beneath their skins, but we are not. 

So cheers to this incredible luck of being who we are and where we are. Life has been too generous for souls like us. I could drink to this every single day of my life. 

[iknowwherethegrassisgreener]

don’t die for our sins

You looked me in the eyes and told me - man is not good. We are just so evil, so corrupted, unredeemable. The innocence I always wanted to save and preserve, cannot be found in man. And I couldn’t make a counter-argument to you. You were right, it would be so great for the rest if man could just disappear from the surface of the Earth. No one will miss us. 

Because missing is something that man does a lot. Man is not good, but even the worst of us always mean the world to someone else. There will always be someone who will miss a corrupted soul, dearly. 

What a waste of time. 

[iknowwherethegrassisgreener]

I still don’t get it - or there is nothing to “get”?

You told me to step up and do something for the OTHERS.

that’s exactly what I did and you left.

without saying a word.

I’m back to the city of our conversations, alone now knowing well what I’m gonna do next having all the plans planned out and lost you. 

If this is a game you wanted to play from the start,  it is pretty sick. it isn’t very nice. but maybe these rules are not yours to make it’s something we all have to succumb to. you move from one level of knowing to another and you lose a companion. 

[iknowwherethegrassisgreener]

what has raised me.

Clarity of heart and in mind was a bloody battle. The only way was to go through it, grit your teeth and fight your way through. When everyone else was dead, or caught in the mud and left behind to rot, you still stand. You still stand and you look at things with unclouded judgements. And so you move forward. 

[iknowwherethegrassisgreener]

It felt nice.

I searched in my mind during that glorious summer sunset and this came into view. Myriads of moments with people flashing by - an autumn Sunday in a park in Torino, watching snowfall on a lake in the Morvan on Christmas day, a night walk by the Isère river in January, cups of midnight tea in my studio back when I was in Paris... I didn’t mention people, but I was with people, I was with them and it felt good. That was surprising, when these memories came rushing into view, because people are not necessarily an element that I would naturally count in. But it happened that way, so I tried to understand why. And I guessed I really treasured these profound and intimate connections - the exchange of thoughts and ideas - that we shared in that one fraction of time. Not emotions, it’s easy to share an emotion because it’ll come and go, so fleeting & non-stable. But thoughts & ideas are something more permanent, so I have to trust you to a certain point to share with you these well-crafted and/or carefully collected thoughts & ideas. And so I thought, oh, maybe the narratives that I’ve been telling about myself, all that being self-sufficient and always taking the high road and not depending on people have brought me so far, but maybe it is time to adopt a new narrative for further growth. Because well, what brought you here will not get you there. And because it felt nice in those memories in which there were people that I love. And so I thought to myself, hey, this means you don’t have to be alone anymore, and heck, you can rely on people. Because they will listen to you, and you can share your thoughts and ideas and they won’t find it weird. You are no longer that little girl who had to defend for herself against a predatory grand-bitch-father, or had to defend someone else - a father crippled by his own defeats, a mother way too fragile in front of life, a sister who is tougher than you but she’s still your little sister that you needed to protect, or a brother who didn’t get your way of processing things. Etcetera and etcetera.  And so I thought hey you’ve grown now and none of that can get to you anymore. And the most incredible thing was that - you’ve met so many new people. Those who are on the same wavelengths as you, those who are wired differently but still meet your insights and therefore add new fun perspectives, those who don’t find it strange that you need a ridiculous amount of alone time - precisely to recharge in order to come back to them with more interesting ideas that they’ll be glad to hear. What a happiness it is, to be understood.  And so I got off that rock when the sun was set. As we were about to get our stuff to the boat to depart from the island, I asked a friend whether everyone should take care of their own stuff, whether “chacun sa merde” I said - “everyone minding their own business”. And he said no dear, let’s not go down that path again. 

So I chose to follow a different one. 

[iknowwherethegrassisgreener]

Pay it forward.

You should have asked more of me - after all these things you’ve been offering. You never looked at me and wondered if I would be willing to give happiness, peace, clarity, whatever it is to others. You never asked me to pay you back, or to pay it forward. But I do know, that that’s what I should do. And yes, even to people, if that’s what you are trying to imply here. I get it now, even people.