Beta Version

Is it the one thing we can rely on?

Even combat boots get holes, nail polish dries up to a useless clump of glittery flakes, and gum loses its flavor and gets all mushy. And hope certainly is like the force of all sorts of angels sitting on your shoulders combined, making you wish and long, deceitful, disappointing. My shoulders are broad from rowing all those years, but not for all the joy in the world will I suffer this, I won’t be the teacher when I want to be the one. Even if it is more painful and surprising than anything I could have and didn’t imagine, I want to stay true to myself.

Without pain there would be no healing, no reflectivity, no honest creativity, no truth. Pain is what it comes down to. Without pain there would be nothing joy and happiness could compare to but petty placeholders like jealousy or fear. Even though fear is pretty powerful itself but that’s another story.

Stars

An ocean

A story

A joke

Something lame, but you have to mean it

Something special, not-so-cheesy

Memories no one else has

Is it to express love or induce it?

one amongst a many thousand others: reading other people’s books’ titles: there’s the slightly overweight thirtyish woman, buying “the new atkins diet”- cause it worked out so swell for him. there’s the random older guy, weirdly buying “kinderkacke”- children’s shit, making me frown and move a step away from him. and then there’s the young couple, buying a rough guide to bali and lombok, imagining god knows which wonders and splendidness in the next month to come.

nor happiness. so many emotions, so much longing, so much searching for things to forgive, so much looking for a purpose to feel. when you could just enjoy the quiet, embrace it. feel the sweat trickling down the small of your back and imagine it trickling through the cracks of the floor boards down to the indian shop, becoming fine drops of humanity intermingling with the sitar’s sound waves. see?

i’m the anthropology student who dyes her hair blonde because it’s more rad than dreads, i’m the law student with a cute lip piercing who is smartly ridiculed by her boss for her interest in human and indigenous rights despite the pending publication of her paper on the herero genocide, i’m not anymore that wise three-year-old because i have lost that wisdom and feel lost in general in search of a promising future without the security of a promising present and don’t feel like potentially accessing that state with the help of fair-trade psychoactive substances, i’m the one who will build entire theories around your musings in an interview with me on migration and the potentially hierarchical aspects of its perception, i’m the one whose jokes you’ll never understand, i’m the one for whom the joys of self-righteous analysis of essays on (state) terror on the one hand and of the pure aestheticism of decorating cupcakes on the other hand lie not so far apart, i’m the one whose self esteem is shattered when it shouldn’t be, i’m the one who engages in self-destructive activity when really she should be pampering herself, i’m the one who loves and cannot be loved, i’m the one who more or less doesn’t or does give a shit, i’m the one who finds immense joy in nailpolish/doc martens and other beautiful things, i’m the one who really really wishes she had a cat but has to settle for bf’s snake plus dead baby mice, i’m the one whose freckles are a conversation starter, i’m the one you saw when you used to look at the stars and thought they blinked/winked, i’m the one who’ll actually tell you how she feels when you ask, i’m the perfect spy except for what you would lable anarchic tendencies and mild disgust for using technology in appropriate/predetermined ways, i’m the one who loves riddles and scavenger hunts and who will sniffle herself asleep if you beat her, i’m the one who could not be reincarnated in one single animal, i’m the one who’ll lecture you on voodoo/vodun/voudou etc., i’m the one who doesn’t do promises anymore, i’m the one who reads books in their original versions on the bus and who secretly buys a ticket, i’m a flame who can not and does not want to decide whether to flicker and die out, becoming glowing embers, or to burn high and bright.

i may overcome, but i shall not conform.

except maybe having someone else sneeze on your hand.

or listening to a radio show about asylum seekers seeking asylum in austria. and hearing a chechen man talk about how he was tortured, why he was tortured, and especially how he was tortured. with big knives and bottles filled with sand (they were supposed to cause internal bruising, primarily, and did), but especially with the pliers, who were just waiting to be used to pull out his fingernails, and were. to listen to his account, to his story, to his report, and have this recurring leitmotif of fingernails being pulled out. it hurt, he said. it hurts, he said. to listen to his torture tale, his very own, personal narrative, on manifold ways persons can torture other persons, for who knows what causes and reasons. and after two, three new ways to torture a person tops, the pliers, that pulled out fingernails. the pliers that were used to pull out his fingernails. and the worst, most disgusting part, or the best- I don’t know. his long detailed account covered only 24h of atrocious shit human minds can come up with, because his family had the good luck and good fortune and good sense to buy him free. so money is all it comes down to? makes me think of people who don’t have such a family, or such good luck and fortune. who have it even worse… and don’t live to talk about it. don’t talk about it to their family, to their therapists, to themselves. don’t live to have nightmares about it. don’t live to feel the rage and the shame and the desire for hollow revenge or soft, quiet emptiness. don’t have the chance to talk about it on a public pseudo-intellectual radio show satisfying the late night horror cravings of its listeners. don’t live to make it to austria, and to live new horrors in our asylum system.

there are few things less disgusting than sneezing on your own hand.

I’m from a place where on warm summer nights, when you sit on the front porch either because you can’t fall asleep or it’s the only time of the day where you get to be alone (never mind the cat(s) jumping on your lap, thankful for some night-time company), leaning against that cold stone, the breeze carries to you a smell of wet tar and wild elderberry. women the right age make juice out of those plants, for their grandchildren, hoping one of them will have the senses to learn the recipe and the process from her before it’s too late. 

I’m from a place where, if it’s the right season, middle-aged men, unaware that they’re going to be grandfathers very soon, let their family stand in a wooden box and lift them up into the cherry tree with the forklift usually used for carrying big bags of walnuts. 

I’m from a place where, if the proper rituals aren’t carried out the correct, cathartic way, men who meant oh so much to their sons and granddaughters will haunt their final resting place, because a dusty corner next to old rubber boots is not really what we have in mind when we think of heaven. 

I’m from a place I only know from stories, fictionalized memories, photos from the 80s and 90s. a place where you get mixed up with the only other white baby. a place which was exactly the right place to be born, because in any other place in the world you would have died of your severe bout of impatience, or at least received just as severe brain or lung damage. not that I’ve never damaged my lung, and I’m still just as impatient, and in some places I’m still recognized cause I’m the only white girl. 

so when I say, I’m Austrian-American, born in Japan, it just doesn’t cover it all.

first, applying of bad gal (waterproof!), chopper, smog, and grifter, with a spritz of pink sugar.

then, munching of organic corn chips, first-timer, chips that make me feel neither guilty nor dirty, def a keeper. same time, drinking of country peach passion and applying of monsooner or later after removing kid orange.

after that, attending of peace, conflict and the notion of justice and translating of testimony on village massacre by army in guatemala.

finally, off to colorful benches amidst museums and relaxing with rebuilding war-torn states, later unfortunate leafing through zivilprozessrecht.

about 4 years after i had my intensive stay in france, i decided it was time to go back. now here’s what i learned: 

* the librairie privat, at place belcourt, is a great book store. what intrigued me most was their amazing (for a normal book store) selection of anthropology books (i got some marc augé and le don). they even had sherman alexie!!! (in french) and those little books full of pictures you can point at in case you’re one of those travelers who are insensitive enough not to speak the language of their host country, or outgoing and trusting enough to go to countries the don’t speak the language of. either way? i didn’t get it…

* i’m talking about lyon, btw.

* they have ben&jerry’s at monoprix!!! (in fudge, cookie dough, and chunky monkey) it’s probably double the price you would have to pay in the “native country”, but hey- they have it!

* up on the hill, you can treat yourself to a beer with kiwi, strawberry, raspberry, peach, lemon and whatever else you can think of sirup at paddy’s, a rather cozy pub. if you have what it takes to become a regular and click with the crew, the bartenders will make you cakes (several!) on your birthday.

* ter trains are better than tgvs: you get an age reduction on the ters, and at least i didn’t on the tgv. when the tgv burns however, resulting in the whole trip taking about 5 times as long as it would have otherwise, they pass out free food on the train. it’s disgusting, though. oh. and don’t bother standing in line to get a ticket like everybody else… you know, those really long lines that look attractive cause you think the people know what they are doing or why would they stand in such a long line? don’t let the masses fool you… there are perfect little yellow machines where you can get the tickets, too.

* take a tour of lyon at night. there won’t be as many annoying tourists, it’s more beautiful, not as hot… more intimate.

* there’s some really cool restaurant that’s open only from 23h to 7h in the morning where they serve amazing food. i, who never eats eggs, had a really good cheese omelette. everything served with salad and baguette. mmmmh, baguette…

* if someone bakes you a cake, don’t let it fall into the onions. in french culture, this could possibly be seen as a sign of disrespect. at least try to glue it back together with chocolate frosting in an attempt to make amends for this faux pas.

* if you’re at the train station in strasbourg, don’t buy victuals at the expensive vending machines, bakeries, etc. look for the indian store on the lower floor. it’s hell of a lot cheaper, and they have good stuff. everything. and if you buy something, come back later, and the guy still remembers you, you get a discount. 

* “Le Suédois” (jambon, cheddar fondu) by “Sodeb’O” (or so…) tastes really good after a long day on the train…

* vis à vis the train station lyon-part dieu i lyon there’s a mall, and in there is a really good sephora! they have a pretty advanced selection, although the US-sephora card doesn’t work there (black) and you can get a white french one for france… (yeah, i’m that kinda girl that has her own sephora card for every country…)

* indian fast food? they have little indian fast food stores, just like kebaps here, called tandoori… most lovely, heavenly, tandoori chicken in a rolled up naan with salad, and, because in france, with melted cheese of course… i dream about it every night since

* bring mannerschnitten for people- allegedly you can buy milka chocolate in france, and people go crazy for mannerschnitten (you could also bring a selection of different kinds)

* smoke outside of the bars in france! another one of those great french things… austria’ll probably get a good punch in the goschn by the eu if it doesn’t imply it sooner or later (which it won’t).

* the tap water in lyon is as good as the tap water in vienna, or maybe i was just thirsty.

* the frigging subway goes up! not just straight, up and down like a roller coaster! very exciting…

* don’t buy alcohol late at night. apparently it’s illegal. just try to avoid the police in general…

* in small mountain villages, everything is closed for noon break till 3 pm. just go along with the siesta. and don’t think of buying postcards at the post office, silly! get them at the supermarket. which also opens only at 3. so don’t try any weird things like going in the exit when someone comes out just cause you can’t go in through the front door… it really IS closed!

* at the train stations it costs 50 c to go, but they are super clean, not like in vienna where you have to pay and they’re still super gross.

* last but not least and most important: if you want to please a french mémé, ask for more!