Eden’s Nostalgia

 

We did not give you time. We dumped you right away into the world, without tutorial, without explanation. You realize that you don’t got time enough, that time we should give each other. For living, or rather surviving, you got to go too fast. For lodging, drinking and eating is managed in such a way, imagine, here they have patented life. Crazy people.

 

You start at your parents, it’s natural. Then you have to find a place to live. If you study in a rich country, you can be lucky and have your rent paid by the state. But then, to find a roof and not sleep outside, you have to find some money somewhere. And first, why do not we live outside? They don’t even give you no choice. No chance … Of course, who care to sleep outside in the city and suffer the plight of the homeless?

If education is expensive, try ignorance.

tag on a cabin in Kenya

But why should we live in the city? And why not sleep outside in the forests? Near the lakes? In the hills? We were not allowed time and the right to choose. Everything rushed. All of us here are struggling in this human jungle, where everything has already begun without us. What a violent place to be …

You’ve never been taught to talk, you had to learn by yourself. You’ve never been taught to breathe properly, and still you do not know how. You’ve never been taught to eat. Neither to feel the temperatures, to grow the plants, to cultivate your own food. You feel like a prey among hungry predators.

You’ve not been taught to look at things, to relax your body. No one coached you in your personal growth. In fact, they did practically nothing for you, and at the same time, those who love you the most, your parents, those who care for you, have just done what they could. What they they thought good for you, as the ancients had done for them.

 

 

We live very little time I think … What a waste. At age 20 already one should know how to paint, draw, work with wood, work the earth, recognize plants, listen to others, know one’s body, read authors’ books, work groups on understanding and feeling about present time. One should have been initiated to the mysteries of the energies, of the spirit, of the invisible world. To have made personal trances, collective trances, and to have begun to realize one’s predilection too, and to have almost understood oneself to pursue the rest of the way with happiness and confidence.

How frustrating! Hard not to think about. Hard to let it be … to say that it’s like it is, not the right time, you get to fight to extract the knowledge of books, internet, cinema, and the moment, with no one to coach you.

Everyone is too busy in a world foreign to the model of nature, wild, balanced, generous, diverse, slow, connected. We are quite the opposite: isolated, sufficient, similar, avaricious, stubborn, delusional, eager, jealous, greedy.

How much you like to return in total love, the gift of everything, every moment ! Deep in the heart of silence. Except songs, jokes and some technical instructions. Talking, talking always … What’s the point? What a delay on the moment!

I think of you my brother, of you my sister. I am facing my computer and I am surprised to no longer want to understand, to pretend to be stupid, to deny … Why do I tap on this keyboard? Why this neon light? Why the plastic table, the phone, all that fucking stuff? What purpose ? I feel helpless, not because I do not know what to do. I know exactly what to do. Listen, feel, wait, act.

I am helpless because I know I will never see the paradise I long for. I am helpless because I know that this paradise exists, somewhere, in the past, in the future, and I remember I was there with you.

I also know that I am here, and that I have something to do with it. I tell myself that this nostalgia, if I make it my strength, can make this world a better place to live in. But damn, how do I miss this paradise! It’s hard. I had to spend a lot of time down here. I miss my right place so much! This time I enjoyed so much.

There was no city. In any case not ours, inhuman places. There were some areas of dense population, but no buildings. Except some vertical sculptures. It was beautiful, fitting the landscape so nicely.

No one sought to enrich himself or acquire material goods, neither power nor fame. People lived, that’s all, and that’s enough. There were fruit trees everywhere, they were huge. There were clearings, lakes, mountains, plains where wild horses galloped freely. We climbed them from an early age, we made friends.

 

 

People loved sleeping outside, in hammocks, in nets, or in small wooden houses. There was something very powerful in the air, a kind of electricity, it was our energy … The children made wind turbines, not for energy, just to look pretty.

We made boxes, small furniture. We enjoyed games of skill, art, all the time. And if we wanted to, we were interested in the stars. We knew how to make beautiful telescopes. We could see very far, through the material. There were very fast, silent aircrafts. They could also go underwater. Sometimes they were even wooden!

There were not so many people … When we felt it, we went straight ahead for days, we always met someone who could teach us something. We showed him something in return, we played a little music together, we told each other stories and fairy tales.

I think there were some bad, violent people too, yes, I remember that. But there was no police, no judge, no prison. We took these tough people with us, we took them to see an elder if the case was serious. But no revenge, never, the idea did not even touch the mind.

People had these faces … angels. And of all the colors, according to the place. There was a magic scent, we talked, we laughed, we made jokes just for fun. There was everywhere this hot sensation, intense, as if we knew we were the same inside. Everything went through the eyes, through the gestures. We were gracious except when we made faces to make children laugh. And always fascinated by the rising sun, by the wind, the insects, by the night, the stars.

We were happy, I do not even know if we were aware of it. It was the time of innocence. I’m in pain, yes I’m in pain because I miss it, because I miss you. And as soon as I really think of that I start crying, nostalgia holds me, I miss my country. My origine. I do not know where or when. But I was there, and I miss it. Miss you so badly. I miss them all. I want to find them, in this time when everything was so simple. Nothing to do about it

 

 

Yet if I’m here, there must be a reason. If I have this computer in front of me, parents who love me, friends I love, a world that I find beautiful despite all its horror, there is a reason. Did I choose to come here? I do not know. But I’m here, I’m staying there. Until death. No way to stop on Mars with all these cowards. I have something to do. With you. Love already. Me, you, others, the earth.

Learn through books, and movies, and the internet. Listen. Sounds, people, my heart, the wind. Feel. My way, the invisible, the fire. To act. Run, show, fight, walk, heal.

Follow the path that has heart. And laugh, fuck. To laugh.

 

Like a blazing comet, I’ve traversed infinite nights, interstellar spaces of the imagination, voluptuousness and fear.
Antonio Tabucchi